21 



no part of which shall be speculation in real estate, holding of 

 it for rents, or the cultivation of it. The government has 

 given, within some thirty years, to railroad corporations alone, 

 more than two hundred millions of acres of land, territory 

 nearly equal to that of the original thirteen States, and a large 

 portion of which is now held for speculative purposes. The 

 government ought at once to regulate the terms upon which 

 that land shall be held and shall be sold. It ought to fix a 

 reasonable price at which the actual settler can obtain it, and 

 prohibit its sale in large quantities to individuals or corpora- 

 tions. It is doubtless the conviction that some measures of 

 this kind will be adopted when the people awake to the true 

 condition of things, and that possibly the judiciary may be a 

 barrier to -their application, that makes corporations and capi- 

 talists so watchful of the Federal judiciary and the appoint- 

 ment of its judges. There will certainly soon be an end to 

 free lands if the present policy of the government is pursued. 

 And when that point is reached, the actual settler will be com- 

 pelled to pay ten-fold the present price of the public lands. 

 Individual foreign capitalists can now readily purchase public 

 lands to an extent equal to that of Ireland, namely, 32,531 

 square miles, or 20,169,220 acres, whicli, at government prices, 

 can be purchased for a sum certainly within his means, and he 

 may establish his tenant system, and exercise an authority 

 over his tenants greater than that exercised by the landlords 

 of the Irisli soil. We can, many of us, remember what public 

 disturbance was created in a neighboring State by reason of 

 the owners of a considerable number of farms being other 

 than the occupants thereof ; how it created and gave names to 

 political parties, and determined to a large extent the political 

 character of the State. The purchase of our soil, by foreign- 



