Lavishness of the Grants . 
813 
bill in the senate indicates the general feeling on the subject. 
y 
The bill already provided for four roads in the state, and there 
was a long and fervid discussion as to whether or not a fifth 
road should be added. 1 * Grants to Minnesota were made in 1857 J 
and then the matter rested for five years. The crisis of 1857 
and the war were ample checks to railroad building. 
In 1862 the long agitated grant to the Union Pacific was 
made, being the first made directly to a corporation. After 
this the grants were chiefly renewals of previous grants or for 
the Pacific railroads. 3 
Congress was for some years quite lavish in the disposal of 
the public domain, and the acts were passed after little con¬ 
sideration. Senator Morrill remarked in 1864 that he did know 
“ that anybody takes any interest in them except as a matter of 
locality. ” 4 The renewals were made in as lavish a manner, 
“almost without question,” as Mr. Hendricks said. 5 
The grant to Kansas in 1863 changed the size of the grants 
from six miles to ten and the indemnity limits from fifteen 
miles to twenty. 6 The change seems to have been made in this 
instance on the plea that the reduced quantity of the public 
lands along the road made the grant no more than equal to the 
previous ones. 7 But, when once established, the precedent was 
easy to follow, and subsequent grants and renewals were made 
on the new basis. 
In 1868-69 attempts were made to secure the forfeiture of 
grants to the southern states, but for political rather than 
economic reasons. The disloyalty of the states and the use of 
the roads to aid the rebellion were urged as reasons for such a 
forfeiture, and a bill to that effect passed the House 8 but failed 
in the Senate. 
1 Globe , 1st Sess., 31th Cong., 1187, 1207-1220. 
3 Donaldson, p. 270. 
3 Ibid., pp. 270-272. 
4 Globe , 1st Sess., 38th Cong., 1744. 
8 Globe , 2d Sess., 40th Cong., 244. 
6 12 Statutes at Large, p. 772. 
7 Globe, 3d. Sess, 37th Cong., 1158. 
8 Globe, 2nd Sess., 40 Cong., 833-35. 
