act of 1862. This struggle was involved with other 

 public questions : the protective tariff, New England's 

 primary concern; and slavery, the major interest of 

 the South. The ascendency of the slavery issue after 

 the Mexican war brought the east to the support of 

 the west in opposition to slavery extension, and in 

 the demand for free homesteads which was inserted 

 in the republican platform of 1860. Representative 

 Lovejoy, of Illinois, is authority for the statement 

 that without this plank Lincoln could not have been 

 elected. With the secession of the southern states, 

 the enactment of the homestead law was assured. 

 But Congress and the land office, in devising the lib- 

 eral land policy, did not guard the right of the actual 

 settler against land pirates. Ruthless spoliation was 

 practiced until all the best land M'as gone. Recent 

 tendencies in land legislation indicate an intention 

 on the part of the government to revert to the original 

 purpose of the law of 1862, and to assign free home- 

 steads only to actual settlers. 



The rapid disposal of the swamp land grants, the 

 internal imj^rovement and railway grants, the section 

 grants for common schools, and the land grants for 

 colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts under the 

 Morrill act of 1862, as well as the location and final 

 disposition of these lands, suggest important studies 

 to be made in public land history. The history of 

 the forest lands (including forest reserves and na- 

 tional parks), and of the mineral and the saline lands 

 also is waiting to be written. Finally, the disposi- 

 tion of lands under the timber culture act, the desert 

 land act, the timber and stone act, the Carc}^ act, the 

 reclamation act, and the Kinkaid act, may be men- 

 tioned as profitable subjects for investigation. 



Fifty years ago there was little or no occasion for 

 careful consideration of the land question. Land was 

 to be had for nothing, and there was plenty of it. 

 Congress was not much concerned as to how rapidly 

 or how unwisely the vast national heritage was spent. 

 The speculative spirit seems to have become in- 



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