ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 131 



counties of Illinois, and these counties, including Cook, 

 seemed quite willing to leave Illinois. Michigan unwil- 

 lingly gave up a few hundred square miles in Ohio, in- 

 cluding the present Toledo, and took instead the Northern 

 Peninsula with the richest iron and copper mines on the 

 planet. 



The questions were viewed in the most practical way 

 by our ancestors. ''Better an acre in Middlesex than a 

 principality in Utopia. ' ' 



It is wonderfully interesting to look over the chain of 

 title which opened up the great Northwest in the form in 

 which it now appears upon the map of the states. The 

 ordinance of 1785, simplifying surveys and providing the 

 present method, by sections, townships, and ranges, was 

 one of the most important steps toward the settlement 

 and growth of that region. 



The Connecticut Western Reserve retained its town- 

 ships in squares of five miles instead of six, but the system 

 was the same. In Europe land was entailed and prog- 

 ress halted a thousand years. In swift-moving America, 

 land is as transferable as a horse or a bale of goods. The 

 man who has it is not required to keep it, and with rapid 

 and easy transfers, lasting improvements have speedily 

 been erected. There is no bar to human progress like a 

 refractory land title. 



Perfect titles, simple surveys, easy transfers, secure 

 and recorded, prohibition of entailment, these are ele- 

 ments that seem to us so commonplace that it is difficult 

 to realize how important they have been to our national 

 growth. 



When the first currents that set from Massachusetts, 

 Connecticut, and Virginia were lost in the great ocean of 

 national unity, then came the public domain. Wise laws 

 opened the way to utilize the rich soil and healthful cli- 

 mate for the homes of a free people. Individual owner- 



