The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862

Let no doubts, then, vex the mind of a single hearty Unionist as to the issue of our great contest. The Proclamation has not added a thousand to the number of our enemies, while it has supplied four millions with the most cogent reasons for being henceforth our friends. These millions are humble, ignorant, timid, distrustful, and now grinding in the prison-house of the traitors. They are not, let us frankly admit, the equals in prowess, capacity, or opportunity, of four millions of Whites; but they are, nevertheless, human beings; they have human affections and aspirations, and they feel the stirrings of the universal and indestructible human longing for liberty. "Breaking in a nigger" is a rough and pretty effectual process: it crushes down the manhood of its subject, but does not crush it out. Should the republic say to-morrow to its Black step-children, "We want one hundred thousand of you to aid in this struggle against the slaveholding rebels, and will treat you in every respect as human beings should be treated," it would not have to wait long for the full number. Hitherto a low prejudice, studiously fostered by Democratic politicians for the vilest party ends, has repelled and expelled this abused race from the militia service of the Union. The exclusion is absurd where its impulse is not treasonable, and must share the fate of all absurdities. "Would you," asked a Unionist of a Democrat, "refuse the aid of a negro, if you were assailed and your life threatened by an assassin?" "Yes," replied the Democrat; "I would rather be killed by a White man than saved by a nigger." Who does not know that this man at heart sympathizes with the rebellion, and deprecates the War for the Union as unnecessary and ruinous?

That war will go on. Our new and vast levies, our new iron-clads, our new policy, will add immensely to the strength already put forth in vindication of the rightful authority of the Federal government and the integrity of the Union. Yet a little while, and the immense superiority in every respect of the moral and material forces of the loyal States will make themselves felt and respected. Yet a little while, and the authority of the Nation will be acknowledged by its now revolted citizens, and the rebellion will subside as suddenly as it broke upon us. Yet a little while, and ours will again be a land of peace, returning joyfully to the pursuits of productive industry and radiant with the sunlight of Universal Liberty.

HOW THEY DID IT

The magnates of Richmond all swore out of hand,That the war must go in the enemies' land;And it did: when they crossed to the Maryland shoreThey turned all into foes who were friendly before!

FROM MOUNT LAFAYETTE, WHITE MOUNTAINS

Silence and light and scenes stupendous greetMy wondering sense and sight! Here midway meetThose rocky splendors where th' embracing cloudsAbove, below, wrap them in misty shrouds.Our mules with cautious feet the sharp ascentAccomplish; and, the steep o'ertopped, all spentOur strength, we look wild nature in the face,Some features of the human soul to trace.A phantom drap'ry betwixt sky and earth,Of blending tints, spans in impulsive birthTh' entranced view! A heav'nly arch it forms—It seems suspended by some seraph's arms!Ethereal Rainbow! Daughter of the Shower!Thy beauty lends enchantment to the hour.The seraph arm grows weary—now is furledThe gleam in dreamy vapor from the world!And now in purple shadows stand the hills:The night winds beat their stony sides, and trillsFrom hidden rivulets, and stealthy creepOf some lone reptile down the grooved steep,Divert the eye and ear—th' restricted breathOf each rapt soul is heard—and still as deathStand the dumb mules. Homeward we turn our eyes,And leave the region of the naked skies.

INDEPENDENCE

[1776.]Freeman! if you pant for glory,If you sigh to live in story,If you burn with patriot zeal;Seize this bright, auspicious hour,Chase those venal tools of power,Who subvert the public weal.

THE HOMESTEAD BILL

After a severe struggle of more than a quarter of a century, from March, 1836, to May, 1862, the Homestead bill has become a law. We quote its main provisions, as follows:

'That any person who is the head of a family or arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and has never borne arms against the United States government, or given aid and comfort to its enemies, from and after the 1st January, 1863, shall be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public land, upon which said person may have filed a preëmption claim, or which may at the time the application is made be subject to preëmption at $1.25 or less per acre, or eighty acres or less of such unappropriated land at $2.50 per acre, to be located in a body in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed, &c.

'Sec. 2. That the person applying for the benefit of this act shall, upon application to the register of the land office in which he or she is about to make such entry, make affidavit before the said register or receiver that he or she is the head of a family, or is twenty-one years of age or more, or shall have performed service in the army or navy of the United States, and that he has never borne arms against the government of the United Stales, or given aid and comfort to its enemies, and that such application is made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not either directly or indirectly for the use or benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever: and upon filing the said affidavit with the register or receiver, and on the payment of ten dollars, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to enter the quantity of land specified,' &c.

Settlement and cultivation for five years required, when the patent issues—the land secured in case of the settler's death, to the widow, children, or heirs—the settler must be a citizen of the United States before the patent is given—the land is subject to no debt incurred before the emanation of the patent. As the title remains for five years in the government, and until the patent issues, the land, in the meantime, could scarcely be subject to taxation. The land is substantially a gift, the $10 (£2. 0. 16.) being only sufficient to pay for the survey and incidental expenses.

Whilst natives are included in this act, Europeans already here, or who may come hereafter, participate alike in its benefits. The emigrant can make the entry and settle upon the land merely on filing the declaration of intention to become a citizen, and it is only after the lapse of five years therefrom, that he must be naturalized.

This law should be widely circulated, at home and abroad, and especially in Ireland and Germany. It should be published in all leading presses, and distributed in printed circulars. By law, two sections (1,280 acres) are reserved in each township of six miles square, from the sale of which to establish free schools, where all children can be instructed, so that our material progress may be accompanied by universal education and intellectual development.

This great domain reserved, as farms and homesteads for the industrious masses of Europe and America, is thus described by the Hon. Joseph S. Wilson, in his great historical and statistical report, as commissioner of the General Land Office of Nov. 29, 1860:

'Of the 3,250,000 of square miles which constitute the territorial extent of the Union, the public lands embrace an area of 2,265,625 square miles, or 1,450,000,000 of acres, being more than two thirds of our geographical extent, and nearly three times as large as the United States at the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace in 1783 with Great Britain. This empire domain extends from the northern line of Texas, the gulf of Mexico, reaching to the Atlantic ocean, northwesterly to the Canada line bordering upon the great lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, extending westward to the Pacific ocean, with Puget's sound on the north, the Mediterranean sea of our extreme northwestern possessions.'

'It includes fifteen sovereignties known as the 'Land States,' and an extent of territory sufficient for thirty-two additional, each equal to the great central land State of Ohio.

'It embraces soils capable of abundant yield of the rich productions of the tropics, of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn, and the grape, the vintage, now a staple, particularly so of California; of the great cereals, wheat and corn, in the western, northwestern, and Pacific States, and in that vast interior region from the valley of the Mississippi river to the Rocky mountains; and thence to the chain formed by the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, the eastern wall of the Pacific slope, every variety of soil is found revealing its wealth.

'Instead of dreary inarable wastes, as supposed in earlier times, the millions of buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, the primitive inhabitants of the soil, fed by the hand of nature, attest its capacity for the abundant support of a dense population through the skilful toil of the agriculturist, dealing with the earth under the guidance of the science of the present age.

'Not only is the yield of food for man in this region abundant, but it holds in its bosom the precious metals of gold, silver, with cinnabar, the useful metals of iron, lead, copper, interspersed with immense belts or strata of that propulsive element coal, the source of riches and power, and now the indispensable agent not only for domestic purposes of life, but in the machine shop, the steam car, and steam vessel, quickening the advance of civilization and the permanent settlement of the country, and being the agent of active and constant intercommunication with every part of the republic.'

Kansas having been admitted since the date of this report, our public domain, thus described officially, now includes the sixteen land States, and all the Territories.

Of this vast region (originally 1,450,000,000 acres), there was surveyed up to September, 1860, 441,067,915 acres, and 394,088,712 acres disposed of by sales, grants, &c., leaving, as the commissioner states,'the total area of unsold and unappropriated, of offered and unoffered lands of the public domain on the 30th September, 1860, 1,055,911,288 acres.' This is 'land surface,' exclusive of lakes, bays, rivers, &c., 1,055,911,288 acres, or 1,649,861 square miles, and exceeds one half the area of the whole Union. The area of New York being 47,000 square miles, is less than a thirty-fifth part of our public domain. England (proper) has 50,922 square miles, France 203,736, Prussia 107,921, and Germany 80,620 square miles: The area then of our public domain is more than eight times as large as France, more than fifteen times as large as Prussia, more than twenty times as large as Germany, more than thirty-two times as large as England, and larger (excluding Russia) than all Europe, containing more than 200 millions of people.

As England (proper) contained in 1861, 18,949,916 inhabitants, if our public domain were as densely settled, its population would exceed 606 millions, and it would be 260,497,561, if numbering as many to the square mile as Massachusetts. But if, contrary to the opinion before quoted of the commissioner, one fourth of this domain was unfit for agriculture, grazing, mining, commerce, or manufactures, the remainder would still contain 195,373,171 inhabitants (if as densely settled as Massachusetts), and with every variety of soil, climate, mineral and agricultural products. Its average fertility far exceeds that of Europe, as does also the extent of its mines, especially gold, silver, coal, and iron.

These lands are surveyed at the expense of the government into town-ships of six miles square, subdivided into sections, and these into quarter sections (160 acres), set apart for homesteads. Our system of public surveys into squares, by lines running due north and south, east and west, is so simple as to have precluded all disputes as to boundary or title. This domain reaches from the 24th to the 49th parallel, from the lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Its isothermes (the lines of equal mean annual temperature) strike on the north the coast of Norway midway, touch St. Petersburg in Russia, and pass through Manchooria to the coast of Asia, about three degrees south of the mouth of the Amour river. On the south, these isothermes run through northern Africa, and nearly the centre of Egypt near Thebes, cross northern Arabia, Persia, northern Hindostan, and southern China near Canton. No empire in the world of contiguous territory possesses such a variety of climate, soil, forests, and prairies, fruits, and fisheries, animal, vegetable, mineral, and agricultural products. It has all those of Europe, and many in addition, with a climate, as shown by the international census, far more salubrious, with a more genial sun, and millions in other countries are already fed and clothed by our surplus products.

Of this vast domain, less than two per cent. is cursed by slavery, which is prohibited by law in ten of these land States, and in all the Territories. Indeed, when the present rebellion shall be crushed, and this vast territorial region (accelerated by the Homestead bill) shall be settled and admitted as States, three fourths of the States will then be free States, and thus authorized by the Constitution to amend that instrument. Thus we can by just and lawful measures make emancipation universal. From the progress of events, we shall probably celebrate the 4th of July, 1876, our first centennial, now less than fourteen years distant, as a nation, of freemen, with slavery abolished or rapidly disappearing. State will then have succeeded State in unbroken column, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, united by imperial railroads traversing the continent. Adjacent regions, geographically connected with us, will then consummate the political union designed by Providence, The Homestead bill, having accomplished its great work within our present limits, will then commence a new career, and carry our banner in peaceful triumph, over the continent. Our Review, then, is called Continental, as prefiguring the destiny of our country.

Now, however, within our present vast domain, not only the poor, but our own industrious classes and those of Europe may not only find a home, but a farm for each settler, substantially as a free gift by the government. Here all who would rather be owners than tenants, and wish to improve and cultivate their own soil, are invited. Here, too, all who would become equals among equals, citizens (not subjects) of a great and free country, enjoying the right of suffrage, and eligible to every office except the presidency, can come and occupy with us this great inheritance. Here liberty, equality, and fraternity reign supreme, not in theory or in name only, but in truth and reality. This is the brotherhood of man, secured and protected by our organic law. Here the Constitution and the people are the only sovereigns, and the government is administered by their elected agents, and for the benefit of the people. Those toiling elsewhere for wages that will scarcely support existence, for the education of whose children no provision is made by law, who are excluded from the right of suffrage, may come here and be voters and citizens, find a farm given as a homestead, free schools provided for their children at the public expense, and hold any office but the presidency, to which their children, born here, are eligible. What does England for any one of its toiling millions who rejects this munificent offer? He is worked and taxed there to his utmost endurance, or pressed into military service. He has the right to work, to fight, and pay taxes, but not to vote. Unschooled ignorance is his lot and that of his descendants. If a farmer, he works and improves the land of others, in constant terror of rent day, the landlord, and eviction. Indeed, the annual rent of a single acre in England exceeds the price—$10 (£2. 0. 16)—payable for the ownership in fee simple of the entire homestead of 160 acres, granted him here by the government. For centuries that are past, and for all time to come, there, severe toil, poverty, ignorance, the workhouse, or low wages, impressment, and disfranchisement, would seem to be his lot. Here, freedom, competence, the right of suffrage, the homestead farm, and free schools for his children.

In selecting these homestead farms, the emigrant can have any temperature, from St. Petersburg to Canton. He can have a cold, a temperate, or a warm climate, and farming or gardening, grazing or vintage, varied by fishing or hunting. He can raise wheat, rye, Indian corn, oats, rice, indigo, cotton, tobacco, cane or maple sugar and molasses, sorghum, wool, peas and beans, Irish or sweet potatoes, barley, buckwheat, wine, butter, cheese, hay, clover, and all the grasses, hemp, hops, flax and flaxseed, silk, beeswax and honey, and poultry, in uncounted abundance. If he prefers a stock farm, he can raise horses, asses, and mules, camels, milch cows, working oxen and other cattle, goats, sheep, and swine. In many locations, these will require neither housing nor feeding throughout the year. He can have orchards, and all the fruits and vegetables of Europe, and many in addition. He can have an Irish or German, Scotch, English, or Welsh, French, Swiss, Norwegian, or American neighborhood. He can select the shores of oceans, lakes, or rivers; live on tide water or higher lands, valleys or mountains. He can be near a church of his own denomination; the freedom of conscience is complete; he pays no tithes, nor church tax, except voluntarily. His sons and daughters, on reaching twenty-one years of age, or sooner, if the head of a family, or having served in the army, are each entitled to a homestead of 160 acres; and if he dies, the title is secured to his widow, children, or heirs. Our flag is his, and covers him everywhere with its protection. He is our brother, and he and his children will enjoy with us the same heritage of competence and freedom. He comes where labor is king, and toil is respected and rewarded. If before, or instead of receiving his homestead, he chooses to pursue his profession, or business, to work at his trade, or for daily wages, he will find them double the European rate, and subsistence cheaper. From whatever part of Europe he may come, he will meet his countrymen here, and from them and us receive a cordial welcome. A government which gives him a farm, the right to vote, and free schools for his children, must desire his welfare. And well has this been merited by our immigrants, for, side by side with our native sons, have they ever upheld our banner with devoted courage.

Of all the epidemic insanities which occasionally afflict nations, none exceeded in folly the recent frenzy, which, by diminishing immigration, would have retarded our progress in wealth, power, and population, Nearly all our railroads and canals have been constructed mainly by immigrants, thus rapidly improving our whole country, and furnishing profitable business, employment, and augmented wages in all the pursuits of industry. Simultaneously with the homestead, Congress has provided the means for constructing the imperial railway which will soon unite the Atlantic with the Pacific. Passing, as it will, for several thousand miles, through our public domain, it will add much to the value of the homestead lands. It should be remembered, especially by the Irish and Germans, who are asked in the South to fight the rebel battles, that, but for the opposition of Mr. Calhoun and the secession leaders, this bill would long since have been a law.

It was first proposed by Robert J. Walker, in October, 1830, and again, in a speech made by him against nullification and secession, at Natchez, Mississippi, on the first Monday of January, 1833, and then published in the Mississippi Journal. From that speech we make the following extract: 'The public lands are now unincumbered by the public debt: no more sales are necessary, unless (to settlers) at a price required to pay the expenses of survey and sale. This is the period for the new States to produce this beneficial change in the policy of the Government, (instead of) the present onerous system, which arrests the cultivation of our soil, and growth of our country.' Here the Homestead bill was recommended by a Union man, in a speech against secession; and as the opponent of that heresy, he was elected to the United States Senate by Mississippi, on the 8th of January, 1836.

In the United States Senate Journal, of 31st March, 1836, will be found the following entry: 'Agreeable to notice, Mr. Walker asked and obtained leave to bring in a bill to reduce and graduate the price of the public lands in favor of actual settlers only, to provide a standing preëmption law, to authorize the sale and entry of all the public lands in forty acre lots, &c. On motion by Mr. Calhoun, that this bill be referred to the Committee on Public Lands, ayes 19, nays 25. On motion by Mr. Walker, ordered that this bill be referred to a select committee of five, to be appointed by the Vice-President. Mr. Walker (chairman), Ewing of Ohio, Linn, Prentiss and Ewing of Illinois, are appointed the committee.' And now, that we may understand the motive of the hostile motion made by Mr. Calhoun, I make the following extract from Gales & Beaton's Congressional Register, vol. xii., part 1, page 1027, March 31, 1836, containing the debate, on this bill: 'Mr. Walker asked and obtained leave to introduce a bill to reduce and graduate the price of public lands to actual settlers only, &c. The bill having been read twice, Mr. Walker moved that it be referred to a committee of five. Mr. Calhoun opposed the bill, and moved a reference to the Committee on Public Lands. Mr. Walker rose and said:

* * 'He had heard with regret the actual settlers denounced in the Senate as squatters, as if that were a term of reproach. Our glorious Anglo-Saxon ancestry, the pilgrims who landed on Plymouth rock, the early settlers at Jamestown, were squatters. They settled this continent with less pretension to title than the settlers on the public lands. Daniel Boone was a squatter; Christopher Columbus was a squatter.

* * They are the men who cultivate the soil in peace, and defend your country in war, when those who denounce them are reposing upon beds of down. These are the men who, in the trackless wilderness and upon the plains of Orleans, carried forward to victory, the bannered eagle of our great and glorious Union. These are the men with whom the patriot Jackson achieved his great and glorious victories; and if but one thousand of these much abused squatters, these Western riflemen, had been at Bladensburg beneath their great commander, never would a British army have polluted the soil where stands the capitol of the Union. They would have driven back the invader ere the torch of the incendiary had reached the capitol, or they would have left their bones bleaching there (as did the Spartans at Thermopylæ), alike, in death or victory, the patriot defenders of their country's soil, and fame, and honor. [Here Mr. Walker was interrupted by warm applause from the crowded galleries.] It is proposed to send this bill to the Committee on Public Lands, that has already reported against reducing the price of the public lands, against granting preemptions to settlers, against every other material feature of this bill—to send this bill there, to have another report against us. No, said Mr. Walker; we have had one report against the new States, and the settlers in them, and now let them be heard through the report of a select committee: let argument encounter argument, and the question be decided on its real merits.'

The opposition of Mr. Calhoun to this measure, was based upon the idea, originating with him, that, selling the public lands, only in small tracts, and at reduced prices, exclusively to actual settlers, would be hostile to large plantations, prevent the transfer of slavery to new Territories, and the multiplication of slave States. This view was gradually adopted by nearly all the advocates of secession, and delayed for years the success of the homestead policy. The measure also encountered then serious opposition from the supporters of the bill (opposed by Mr. Calhoun), distributing among the States the proceeds of the sales of the public lands. A majority of the Committee of Public Lands of the Senate favored then the distribution policy, and therefore Mr. Calhoun's motion to refer the Homestead bill to that committee was designed to defeat the measure.