THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS, 2D SESSION.

MEMORIALS.

Mr. FESSENDEN presented the memorial of Jabez C. Woodman, president of the York and Cumberland Railroad Company, of Maine, in favor of a reduction of the proposed tax on the receipts of railroads; which was ordered to lie on the table.

Mr. COLLAMER presented the memorial of A. Watson, in favor of the establishment of a United States residence registry at Washington; which was referred to the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads.

Mr. SUMNER. Yesterday I offered the memorial of a powerful religious denomination for emancipation. I now offer the memorial of a single citizen asking Congress, as a war measure, and immediately, to emancipate all the slaves, and the reason he assigns is as follows:

"I have lost a dear son by this war, and I do not like to see the Government trying so many experiments to put down this rebellion, and fail to strike at the root of it—siavery itself."

I ask that the memorial lie on the table.
It was so ordered.

REPORTS FROM COMMITTEES.

Mr. WILSON, of Massachusetts, from the Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia, to whom was referred the bill (S. No. 343) to provide for additional medical officers of the volunteer service, reported it without amendment.

Mr. COWAN, from the Committee on Patents and the Patent Office, to whom was referred the petition of Jane B. Evans, submitted a report, accompanied by a bill (S. No. 346) for the relief of Jane B. Evans. The bill was read and passed to a second reading, and the report was ordered to be printed.

He also, from the same committee, to whom was referred the petition of John H. Merrill, submitted an adverse report; which was ordered to be printed.

He also, from the same committee, to whom was referred the petition of John G. Mini, praying for an extension of his patent, submitted an adverse report; which was ordered to be printed.

DAMAGES DONE BY THE ARMY.

Mr. MORRILL submitted the following resolution; which was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to:

Resolved, That the Secretary of War be directed to communicate to the Senate whether claims have been made by citizens of the United States upon the War Department for damages to or destruction of property by the Federal Army; and if so, the names of such claimants; also, whether measures have been taken to ascertain the actual damages in such cases; and if so, what.

BILL INTRODUCED.

Mr. WILSON, of Massachusetts, asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 345) to purchase the hospital in the city of Washington, known as the " Douglas hospital;" which was read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia.

MILITARY GOVERNORS OF STATES.

Mr. DIXON. I propose, whenever the Senator from Massachusetts shall call up the resolution which he submitted on Friday last, to offer an amendment, of which I now give notice, and lask leave of the Senate to say a few words on that question.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1862.

Mr. SUMNER. I never object to any Senator expressing his views, and I am always too happy to hear the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. WILSON, of Massachusetts. There are some very important bills that we want to reach this morning, and it seems to me the Senator had better make his speech when the subject is taken up.

Mr. DIXON. I do not expect to occupy over ten or fifteen minutes.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there any objection?

Mr. WADE. I feel bound to move to take up the bill I have so often undertaken to have acted on here, and that is the bill granting lands to agricultural colleges. I think if that subject is to be acted on at this session it ought to be acted on promptly and now, and I move to take it up.

Mr. HARRIS. Will the Senator from Ohio withdraw that for a moment to allow me to make a report?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Connecticut is on the floor. The Chair hearing no objection, the Senator from Connecticut will proceed.

Mr. WADE. I feel bound, though I do not like to do it, to make the objection, for I shall lose the opportunity to take up this bill.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Then the remarks of the Senator from Connecticut are not in order. Mr. WADE. I should like to hear the Senator at some other time.

Mr. LATHAM. I hope the Senator from Ohio will withdraw his motion for a few moments to let us get in morning business.

Mr. WADE. I shall not interpose any objection to reports or business of that character.

D. R. MCNAIR.

Mr. LATHAM submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses of the Senate:

Resolved, That D. R. McNair, late Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, be paid out of the contingent fund one year's salary.

CLAIM OF GEORGE MCDOUGALL. Mr. DOOLITTLE. 1 offer a resolution, and ask for its consideration now:

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to take and receive proofs, to examine the same, and state the amount of beef actually delivered and furnished to the Indians in the lower part of the State of California by George McDougall in the year 1852, under a certain contract entered into between him and O. M. Wozencraft, who assumed to act as agent in behalf of the United States; and also of the value thereof at the time of its delivery; and to report the same to the Senate with all convenient dispatch, with his opinion upon the justice and amount of such claim.

The VICE PRESIDENT. This comes under the head of bills and resolutions.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. It is not a joint resolution. The VICE PRESIDENT. It is a resolution with the force of law, and comes under the same head with joint resolutions and bills. If it means anything, it means that.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Does the resolution lie over?

The VICE PRESIDENT. No. The Senator from Wisconsin asks the unanimous consent of the Senate to introduce a joint resolution without previous notice. The Chair hears no objection.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there any objection?

Mr. SUMNER. It seems to me that it is clearly out of order.

Mr. DIXON. Of course it is out of order. Mr. SUMNER. The Senator proposes to discuss a resolution which I have not yet called up. Mr. DIXON. Of course, if the Senator objects I cannot proceed.

of any money, but merely to direct the Secretary of the Interior to inquire into and report upon the

amount of the claim.

Mr. LATHAM. Does the Chair decide that that resolution is in the nature of a law? It is merely to get information which one of the committees of the body require, before they can have satisfactory action on a claim that is pending before them. It appropriates no money. It calls merely for information.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I will state, for the inform

NEW SERIES.....No. 165.

ation of the Senate, that the matter has been before the Committee on Indian Affairs; they do not recommend the passage of any law for the payment of the claim, but desire in some way to have the Secretary of the Interior take further testimony in relation to the amount of the beef which was then delivered, and his opinion as to the justice and validity of the claim, so that when it comes before Congress at the next session, we can have further proof on which to act.

The VICE PRESIDENT. In the impression of the Chair this resolution does have the force of law; it is that the Secretary of the Interior be, and is hereby, authorized and directed to take and receive proofs, &c. If he has the authority by law, you do not want this resolution; but it can be modified to meet the case.

Mr. LATHAM. I suggest to the Senator from Wisconsin to modify it so as to make it a resolution for information.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I will let the resolution lie over until to-morrow morning. The VICE PRESIDENT. It will lie over.

RAILROAD TO NEW YORK.

Mr. SUMNER. I ask the Senate to take up and act upon a resolution of inquiry offered by me yesterday addressed to the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Massachusetts moves to postpone all other orders, to take into consideration the resolution in relation to an air-line railroad from Washington to New York.

Mr. CARLILE. The Senator from Maryland [Mr. KENNEDY} objected to the resolution yesterday. I do not see him in his seat this morning, and I suggest that it had better lie over until he has an opportunity to come in. I know that his constituents feel an interest in it. The motion was not agreed to.

LANDS TO AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES.

Mr. WADE. I now renew my motion, and I will not give it up for anything.

Mr. WILKINSON. I trust that motion will not prevail. There are several gentlemen who feel a deep interest in opposing the passage of the bill who are absent, and I shall feel it my duty to oppose it.

The motion was agreed to; there being, on a division-ayes 24, noes 11.

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (S. No. 298) donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. The pending question being on the amendment of the Senator from Kansas, [Mr. LANE,] to insert at the end of the second section:

And provided further, That not more than one million acres shall be located by such assignees in any one of the States. And provided further, That no such location shall be inade before one year from the passage of this act.

Mr. WADE. The Senator from Kansas is not here. He takes an interest in it, and I agreed with him that I would not oppose this amendment. I do not think it is unreasonable, but then I leave it to the Senate, as I told him I should, to pass judgment on it. My own opinion is that it would be right to adopt the amendment.

Mr. POMEROY. I am sorry to have the bill taken up in the absence of my colleague. If the chairman of the committee will consent to this amendment, I think my colleague will have less obj. ction and perhaps no objection to the passage of the bill. I hope the amendment will be adopted. I believe the proportion, as has been shown in a previous discussion, much larger for our State than it is for the other States who have public lands; and if the chairman of the committee will accept this amendment and approve of it, I will make no argument on the subject.

The amendment was agreed to.

Mr. WILKINSON. I offer an additional section

The VICE PRESIDENT. There is an amendment already offered which will be read. It was

offered by the Senator from Kansas, [Mr. PoмEROY.]

The Secretary then read the amendment, which is to insert at the end of section two:

And provided further, That the land scrip authorized to be issued by the Secretary of the Interior shall state upon its face that the issue was by virtue of this law; and that all assignments shall be upon or annexed to the scrip, and shall contain the name of the assignee; and no assignment to any one person shall be valid for more than one section of six hundred and forty acres.

Mr. WILKINSON called for the yeas and nays; and they were ordered.

Mr. WILKINSON. I hope this amendment will be adopted. One reason why I oppose the passage of this bill is, that it will encourage speculation in the public lands, and I wish to see land speculations broken up in this country. I do not want to see large quantities of the public lands pass into the hands of a single individual, and for that reason I favor this amendment.

Mr. POMEROY. I move this amendment to the bill, not only for the reason that has been stated by the Senator from Minnesota, but also for the sake of being able to trace every identical piece of land scrip that may be in the market to the State that issued it, and also to the act of Congress by virtue of which it was issued. Without this amendment there will be no way of telling when this scrip comes into the market what State issued it, whether that State was loyal to the Union, to whom it was issued, or whether more scrip was not issued than the State was entitled to under the provisions of the act. The land warrant scrip that has been issued by the Government has been guarded in this way; the name of the soldier is inserted in the warrant, and you can always trace every land warrant that we receive in our land office to the soldier, to the company, to the regiment, to the place of his service. Without something of this kind in this scrip, it will be thrown upon the market loosely, and as the Senator from Minnesota says, it will accumulate in the hands of individuals in great quantities, and will be located in large bodies, very much to the detriment of the public interest. But by putting the name of the assignee in the scrip, by tracing it to the State that issued it, by providing that but one section shall be located by a single person, it comes in harmony with the general provisions and sentiment of Congress in the homestead bill, that the lands shall be located in small quantities by the actual occupants; and with this provision the objection which my colleague and others have had to this bill will be removed.

Mr. WADE. I believe such a limitation would be new in any of these grants of land. I am sure I am as favorable to the distribution of land in small quantities as anybody, and it is for that reason that I have been so anxious for the passage of the homestead bill. Such a limitation as this, however, is unusual. We do not impose it when we grant lands to railroads. We have granted vast quantities of land for the construction of railroads, and we have never imposed any restriction of this kind. I ask the Senator whether in his Pacific bill which grants an immense quantity of land, it is proposed to make the same lim

itation.

Mr. POMEROY. In reply to that I will say, we do not allow a railroad company to issue land scrip and go into the market with it. This bill allows land scrip to be issued, like land warrants, and thrown upon the market. We never allow any such thing as that in the case of a railroad

company.

Mr. WADE. If the object is to prevent monopoly, I do not see why the same restriction should not be applied to a railroad grant. There will be no greater facilities for a monopoly under this grant, than under a railroad grant. The whole fee-simple is transferred to the railroad company who can sell it out in such lots as they see fit, and there has been no restriction on them. It may deteriorate the value of this grant very much if we impose such a limitation. I may here remark that gentlemen seem to magnify this grant beyond what it really amounts to. The bill proposes to grant but little over nine millions of acres. It is only a drop in the bucket compared to what we have granted and are granting for railroads, as swamp lands, and for other purposes. Gentlemen magnify this as though there was something unusual about it. I do not see that there is, and I hardly think we ought to place it under greater re

strictions than other grants. When the grant is for so laudable and worthy an object, I do not think we ought to lay it under restrictions that we have never insisted upon in other cases. It cannot operate very extensively so as to amount to a monopoly. The other limitation which we have already consented to, I understood removed the principal objection which the other Senator from Kansas [Mr. LANE] had, and I was in hopes then that the bill would be permitted to pass without the embarrassment of further amendments.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. It seems to me that this amendment cannot operate with any peculiar hardship. If I understand the bill, this scrip is to be issued to the States. The States, as a matter of course, when they sell, will keep an account of their sales; and the amendment simply provides that they shall not sell to any one individual scrip for more than a section of land.

Mr. FESSENDEN. It prevents the States selling the lands in a body.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Á section is not a very small quantity, and if the land scrip were sold in that way, and no individual could purchase more than six hundred and forty acres, the scrip would be sold to the men of the State, who would hold it for themselves and their children, and locate it. I do not see that it can operate with any hardship. In my opinion the scrip sold in that way will sell for more than it will if the States take it all and throw it into Wall street, in the city of New York, and sell it all at once. So far from depre- || ciating the fund, my judgment is that it will bring more money.

Mr. WADE. I am not going to contend about this question. My only concern is that I fear this provision may detract from the value of the grant. The principle of having the lands settled in small quantities I am in favor of; but I am afraid that, practically, this amendment will detract from the value of the grant.

Mr. COLLAMER. I desire to suggest that, if the States have this grant made to them, and they are restricted in their sales to only one section at a time to a man, and he has to go out and locate it, the grant amounts to nothing. You have passed a homestead bill by which men can go and settle on the land without paying for it. Then how can it be expected that men will purchase land scrip of the States if they are required at once to go and settle on the land? The grant will never amount to anything because they can now go and settle without paying anything. If this amendment is adopted the grant will be so restricted as to be worth nothing.

Mr. WADE. If the amendment has that element in it, of course the grant would amount to nothing, and would not be of any value whatever; but I did not suppose it had that element about it. Mr. COLLAMER. That is precisely it.

adopted to the bill which compels every man who locates a quarter section or any other quantity to settle it and occupy it, to stay there, that is not going to injure the locality; that is going to be an advantage; but the result of that will be simply to put some bogus scrip on the market, to sell it for something when it is actually worth nothing. I confess that if an amendment was adopted which obliged the holder of this scrip before he obtained a title to a piece of land under it, to settle on the land and stay upon the land, my objection to the bill would in a great measure be obviated. I should consider it still rather an immoral thing for the Government to go into.

This purpose of founding agricultural schools I hope I am as much in favor of as anybody; but I cannot, for my life, see that any agricultural school is going to get any benefit from this grant. It seems to me that it is absolutely impossible that any fund should be realized from it. In the course of this debate, as I have listened to it casually, one argument has specially entered into it. It is, that heretofore in the administration of the public domain, the Congress of the United States has been very liberal to the new States, and now that the old States are entitled to some compensation. As a representative from a new State, I do not stand here to enter any complaint against the Congress of the United States; that it has been liberal enough, I am not going to deny; but that it has been profligate or prodigal in the administration of the public domain towards the new States, I am here to deny. I grant that you have donated a great many lands for railroad purposes. Who has got the benefit of them? Every railroad grant you have made has been for the purpose and has had the practical effect of just linking the new States to the old ones. That is the effect you wanted them to have, and it is the effect they ought to have; but it has made the whole Northwest and the whole West but little more than a province of New York. That is the practical result of the thing. You have granted lands for school purposes, a section in every township, and five hundred thousand acres, I think, in every State for a university. This is very fair, very commendable; but does any man think that was for the benefit of the new States? There were no new States when you made these grants; there was nobody there; you had lands and you wanted them occupied, and you offered some inducements to the people to go there and occupy them. If any man thinks the Congress of the United States has been excessively liberal in this matter, I have simply to say that no decent man ever undertook to lay out a town in the West, or the South, or anywhere else and build it up, but he offered as liberal inducements, proportioned to the objects he had in view, as the Government of the United States has offered to the settlement of its public domain.

But I think whatever may be said of the liberality of the Government, it comes about to this: you have given to these several townships a section of land, and you have given to the States five hundred thousand acres, and you have got in return the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and all those States; and I think you have made a good bargain. I think they are worth as much to the nation to-day as the lands would have been if you had not given them. If we owe you any

Mr. GRIMES. Then how is it going to operate disadvantageously, and injure the States? Mr. HOWE. Just in this way: the State of New York will get a certain quantity of this scrip which will be put up in a raffle; it will be got rid of in some way; somebody will be fooled into the purchase of it as men are fooled into the purchase of mock jewelry; they will get it at some price; you never will get a fund out of it in the State of New York or any other State that will keep a professor of agriculture from starving one week; but it will be got rid of at one price or another, and it will be gambled around for a while, and by and by somebody will locate some lands with it somewhere, picking out some sections, and these lands will be withdrawn from the operation of the homestead bill. Just as fast as this scrip is located, just so fast the land will be taken out of the reach of the homestead bill. If an amendment is ¦

willing to pay it in cash, or a few more of us will go into the Army and work it out; anything to square the account.

Now, then, if you really want the benefit of education, or if you want to ingraft a new kind of education upon the educational system of the country, I am ready for it; but do not attempt to get a fund out of these lands. By so doing, you will beggar them; you will impoverish them; you will cheat them. You have said to the world, that whereas you have been selling these lands for $200 a quarter section, you would now rather have five years' work of a good resolute settler than the $200, which is only twelve dollars a year; that you would rather have the settlement of such a family than have the money. That is good policy; that is good, sound judgment; but, having said that you would give the lands to settlers, do not try now to make anything more out of them. It cannot be done. If you wish to put the burden of educating the agricultural interest of the coun

to be taken under this bill. There are only three States where they can be taken, and those are Kansas, Minnesota, and Iowa.

Mr. POMEROY. Missouri.

Mr. GRIMES. No, sir; they cannot take two hundred thousand acres in Missouri.

Mr. LATHAM. They could take them in Oregon.

think this land scrip will be valuable. Men who have got a quarter section will buy it for the sake of getting a whole section; because men in the West are like men everywhere; when they get a quarter they want half a section, and when they get half a section they want a section, and very soon they want a township, and then all the land adjoining. This land scrip, therefore, in my opinion, will be valuable in the hands of settlers, notwithstanding the homestead bill. I am not opposing this bill, and am not proposing these amendments to oppose the bill. I am going to vote for it with these amendments. I believe in the bill, and with these amendments upon it I am

Mr. CLARK. I will inquire of the Senator whether he would like us to vote for a railroad grant with such amendments, and whether he would consider us friendly to a railroad grant, if we put on it such an amendment as this?

Mr. GRIMES. They could take a limited quantity in Oregon, but the amount of agricultural lands remaining in Oregon is very limited. The result would be, they would be compelled to take seven millions of acres of lands in the Territories. Now, what Territories would they get them from? They would not get them from Ne-going to support it. vada or Colorado, because there are no agricultural lands there of any account; the amount of agricultural lands in those two Territories is very limited; they are mineral Territories. They will therefore be compelled to take them in the Territories of Dakota and Nebraska. My State is just as much interested in building up Dakota and Nebraska and making them strong western States as they are in building up our own State, and I will not, for one, consent to the passage of any act that is calculated to cripple the resources or the energies of those Territories for the sake of advancing, as it may be supposed, or protecting the interests of any State that is represented here on the floor of the Senate. For that reason shall vote for this amendment; and it is only for the reason that the Senator from Ohio who has charge of this bill and who represents the Territories in this body has consented to its adoption.

Mr. POMEROY. I agree with what the Senator from Ohio has said in reference to the effect of the homestead bill. I do not believe the homestead bill is going to destroy the value of the public lands. I should not have voted for and urged the passage of that bill if I had supposed that it would destroy the value of the public lands. But 1 entirely disagree with the Senator from Ohio in his statement that this grant is a parallel case to lands granted to railroads. If you were to grant railroad companies a roving commission to go all over the public domain and occupy the lands, it might be a parallel case to this; but there is no railroad company that has a roving commission, that has the right to locate land scrip. Such a proposition could not obtain a vote in the Senate. It would not be discussed or entertained here an hour. This is entirely a new feature in disposing of the public lands, to give States a commission to go and locate land scrip in large quantities anywhere on the public domain. Therefore, when the Senator from Ohio says he shall feel it his duty to attach this proviso to every railroad grant, he entirely mistakes the policy of the Government in granting railroad lands, because they have never, in any one instance, put a provision in those railroad bills that they might go anywhere with a commission to get their lands. The railroad lands are confined to the line of the road; to five or six miles on each side of the road. They are not allowed to wander through the whole domain for their lands; but those who locate this land scrip have unlimited scope in that direction.

Notwithstanding what the Senator from Wisconsin has said, I think this land scrip will be valuable. Every man who has been in the West knows the anxiety that men have to obtain sections, not quarter sections simply. Under the operation of the homestead bill, to be sure, a man can get a quarter section if he will confine himself to it for five years; but there is hardly any western man who is willing to confine himself to a quarter section for five years, even if he could have it at the end of that time. The result of the experiment in Oregon shows that men would rather pay for the lands than stay on them five years. About fifteen years ago we passed a homestead bill for Oregon, providing that each married man should have a section and each unmarried man half a section if he would stay on the land five years. The result of that experiment was, that seventy-two out of every hundred paid for the land and did not wait the five years to get it for nothing. The Commissioner of the General Land Office has reported that seventy-two out of every hundred that settled under the provisions of that homestead bill paid for his land at $1 25 an acre. I think that shows that it does not destroy the value of the land to grant a homestead, even though it is granted of the size of a section to each person. I

Mr. POMEROY. I certainly should, if we allowed the railroad the privilege of going about all over God's creation to get the land.

Mr. CLARK. A railroad takes the land for twenty-five miles on each side of the road, and goes to the Pacific.

Mr. POMEROY. If we put this provision on the grant, I am for the bill.

Mr. HOWE. I call the attention of the Senate to the fact that there is no analogy between the principle of this proposed grant and that of any other grant that has been alluded to in the course of this debate. You have, it is true, granted lands to the new States for school purposes. You did that, as I remarked before, not as a favor to the State within which the land was, because there was no State there. You did it because you wanted a State to be built there, and you offered these inducements for men to go there. You have granted lands for railroad purposes; but you never professed to be willing to give an acre for railroad purposes. The principle upon which every one of those grants has been made is the principle of a sale. You have granted one half the lands along the line of a road to have the other half of the lands doubled and trebled in value. Then, so long as you do that, just so long the Government makes money, and not squanders it. It is a money making business, because there is not a member of this body, there is not a landholder in the universe, but if he owned the public domain, would be glad to give one half the lands within five or ten miles of the railroad to have one built there. You never saw a railroad built through an agricultural country in the world, that did not put three times its whole cost into the pockets of those who owned the land upon its line.

Mr. WADE. Let me ask the Senator whether the donation of swamp lands was on the ground of a sale?

Mr. HOWE. Yes, sir; it was on the ground of a sale. The Government got cheated in that, as it has in a great many of its land grants; but it was upon the ground of a sale. They were granted to the States for the express purpose of having them reclaimed and added to the productive wealth of the nation. I admit the Government has been cheated in that matter; who is responsible for it, I do not know. I do not think much of the funds arising from these lands has been applied to the reclaiming and draining of the lands. I admit the Government has abandoned that principle, but that was the principle upon which the grants were made. The Government assumed that those lands were worth nothing to it; that they never could be sold; it was willing to get rid of them, and it was proposed to make the several States, within which they lay, their agents to reclaim them. That is the principle upon which grants have been made heretofore; the principle upon which this grant is made is entirely different.

I said before that you could not realize a fund from this grant with which to endow any college. I believe that is true. Senators differ with me. They say that the effect of the homestead bill is not going to be what I assert it to be, to deprive the public domain of its marketable value. I may be wrong. That it is not going to deprive the public domain of any intrinsic value is clear enough, but I cannot conceive how a man is going to be induced to pay $1 25 an acre for land when he can get it for nothing. The answer to that is, it is only a quarter section that he can get for nothing, whereas the man can get a section, or a dozen

sections, by purchase or by scrip. Still, although the answer may be good in part, it does not go far enough to convince me that this scrip is going to have a marketable value; but I am not going to insist upon that. I say it will or it will not have a marketable value. If it has a marketable value, then it is worth as much to the Government as it is to the colleges, and why not appropriate the money out of the Treasury? I am going to propose an amendment to appropriate the money to these schools. I should much prefer appropriating the money to the land, because it is equal upon all parts of the country; the proportion of the lands is not equal. I say I will not vote for such an appropriation, because I do not believe the time has come when the people of the United States are prepared to charge the work of public education upon the United States. If you are ready for it, I am. Assume that labor, and I am with you; but I do not believe that you are prepared for it. There is no reason why we should assume the agricultural education of the United States any more than its education in any other department or any other branch of science. If you are going to do a part, why not do the whole?

Mr. HARLAN. I should like to ask the Senator a question. He is opposed to the General Government assuming the education of the nation in the way proposed in this bill. I wish to ask him if he is opposed to the grant of every sixteenth section in every township to the support of common schools and seventy-two sections for the support of a State university which his own State and all the other new States have received from the General Government.

Mr. HOWE. Not a bit of it. I say you did it because you had within a certain portion of the country a large quantity of public lands unsold and unsettled, and you wanted a market for them, and people would not go there out of your schoolhouses and out of your churches, away from civilization, away from home, away from everything, and go upon these lands without some inducement; and you did just what every man does who wants to lay out a town and have it built up. He offers some lands for public squares, for streets, for churches, and for other public edifices. That is just what the Government has done in order to get States built up; and I say again, as I said before, you get your money's worth, a great deal more than you gave.

Mr. HÄRLAN. I do not see the application of that argument in relation to the university lands, the seventy-two sections granted to each State to aid in the organization of a State university.

Mr. HOWE. It applies just as much to that as to any other. So much you assume to do for education within that Territory in order to induce people to go there. You give them the means ofeducating their children. It is just as much a part of the inducement as the sixteenth section is, and has been applied to the work of education in a majority of the States earlier than the sixteenth section has. It has been the first fruits of the grant practically. But this stands upon an entirely different principle. You take lands instead of money, because there the lands are, and just now I suppose you do not know what else to do with them. The lands are just as much the property of the whole nation as the money is. If you take the money instead of the lands, your right to do it is just as clear, just as unequivocal, and you can keep the lands and dispose of them yourselves in the progress of settlement and replace the money into the Treasury. It seems to me that would be a great deal better. That would be equal, undeniably equal. It would not put into the hands of private holders large tracts of the public domain. It was said the other day-and I do not know but that the Senator from Iowa said it-that it would really operate as an advantage, because it would get these lands into the hands of private persons, and they will be subject to taxation. Now, I ask the Senator-he represents a western State and knows all about it-how much the right to tax the lands of non-residents is worth to his State? Is it not his experience-it certainly is mine-that in every one of those counties where large bodies of land are held by non-residents, all the benefit got from them is the right to sell them over and over again year after year? The title becomes involved; nobody knows where to go to purchase; you do not get any taxes, because they are sold

for not paying them; you do not get a tax title that any man dares to stand upon or settle upon. Acres and thousands of acres have been sold year after year in all these new counties. That is my experience, and I imagine it is the experience of every one who knows anything about these new States.

Mr. HARLAN. This body is a body of lawyers. There are very few gentlemen here who are not professional lawyers. Heretofore appropriations of land have been made for State universities. The proceeds of the sales of those lands have usually gone to educate the children of professional men-men who are able to defray the expense of the education of their children away from home, in classical studies and in the learned professions. Here, for the first time I believe in the history of the Senate, a proposition is made to make an appropriation of lands for the education of the children of the agriculturists of the nation, and it meets with strenuous opposition from a body of lawyers. If this Senate was composed of agriculturists chiefly, they would have provided first for an agricultural college, and afterwards probably for a college in which the sons of lawyers, physicians, and other professional men could be educated. I do not believe if this proposition were submitted to a vote of the people of the country, that you could array one fiftieth of the voters against it. This is simply a proposition to take a fraction of the public lands to aid the farmers of the country in educating their sons, or those of them who choose to give them a scientific agricultural education. The Senator from Wisconsin is disposed to withhold it from them, although his own State will receive proportionally as large an amount as any other State.

I know what the Senator says in relation to the location of large bodies of land by non-residents in new States and Territories is true. The people do not generally favor such action on the part of the General Government as would favor such a result; but we have already guarded against this very largely by the passage of the homestead bill; and I take occasion here to confirm, as far as my judgment may be regarded in that light, the statement made by the Senator from Kansas. I do not believe that the passage of the homestead bill will very materially diminish the aggregate amount of money to be received from the sale of the public lands. We have had but one practical illustration of the effect of such a law, and that was in the Territory of Oregon before it became a State. The General Government granted a half section of land to each citizen who would reside on the land for three years. The records of the Department will show that seventytwo per cent. of the entire amount of lands located in this way was purchased at $1 25 an acre before the termination of the three years.

Mr. COLLAMER. The gentleman will permit me to ask him a question: whether there is not in the State of Minnesota as much land located and entered for preemption which has never been offered for sale at all, on which nothing has been paid, as there is on which it has been paid by preemptors; and whether those same preemptors will not now, under this homestead law, take that land without ever paying?

Mr. HARLAN. I cannot answer the Senator's question definitely; but I may say, generally, that in all the new States and Territories in which settlers are permitted to preempt the public lands before the surveys, there will always be a large amount of lands held in this way before they will have been offered for sale at public outcry.

Mr. COLLAMER. I speak of those where the lands have been surveyed, and they have made their entries as preemptors, and have not paid because it has not been offered for sale.

Mr. HARLAN. Under the provisions of the homestead bill they will be subject to entry by paying ten dollars and the usual land office fees, by the preemption settlers. It is distinctly provided that those who are now living on the lands as preemptors may enter under the provisions of the homestead law.

Mr. GRIMES. All who are on the land as settlers or squatters.

Mr. HARLAN. The remark of my colleague is true: all that are on the land as settlers or squatters can immediately notify the land office of their intention to hold as homestead settlers, and ulti

mately enter a quarter section for ten dollars; but those who have given notice of their intention to preempt, and have settled the land as preemptors under the preemption law, may, under the homestead bill, enter them for ten dollars and the ordinary land office fees. I do not believe the general effect of the passage of this bill will be injurious to the State of Wisconsin. Wisconsin will receive its full distributive share with the other States; and so with all the other new States. I would not have voted for the proposition of the Senator from Kansas [Mr. LANE] to limit the quantity located in each State to a million of acres. I think it will have no beneficial effect, and will embarrass the Department in issuing and locating this scrip. But that having been adopted, and if this amendment should be adopted, limiting the quantity of scrip that may be issued to each individual purchaser, I do not perceive how it would be possible for any new State to be injured more under the provisions of this bill than it may be under existing laws by any individual who may choose to buy land with money. The principle is precisely the same. Any one who has the gold and silver may now enter any quantity of public land after it has been once offered for sale at public outery without competition, at the minimum price, and hold it as long as he chooses. He may, if he chooses, appear at the public sales and bid against the settler, and buy without limit. There is no law in existence limiting the purchaser in the amount of his purchase. He is governed alone by his desires and his means. When this amendment shall have been disposed of, I desire to propose one or two amendments to the second section of the bill, in order to harmonize its provisions with existing laws.

Mr. RICE. I did not intend to say anything upon this bill, but I wish to give my reasons simply why I am opposed to it as it now stands. I am not opposed to giving to the old or the new States the quantity of land they ask for; but I would prefer it in a different shape from that in which it is now. There are some ten millions of acres that will be donated under this bill. That will mostly be taken from three or four of the new western States. The States may locate in the State of Minnesota some three, four, or five millions of acres. It is true, I should think, from the reading of the bill, that the State of Minnesota would have the power to tax it when located; but that is a very small item to the State in comparison to the amount that would be contributed to it if this land were owned by actual settlers; because each settler would not only pay the same tax upon the land that the States would pay, but taxes upon the improvements he might make and the stock that he might bring into the place. In addition to that, he would contribute his mite as an individual towards opening roads, supporting schools, and building churches. By this bill we shall be deprived of this aid from settlers and the tax on the improvements they might make. The great difficulty and the great source of trouble in the western States is on account of so much of the land being owned by non-residents. The eastern States that would locate on the lands in the western States would be held in the same light. I am willing to vote for a bill issuing to each State an amount of scrip or warrants for thirty thousand acres to each Representative for this purpose. I do not think the new States would suffer by it; I think it would be really as good, and perhaps better, for the new States, because I would propose to issue the scrip in forty, fifty, or one hundred acres each. The man who goes under the homestead bill and takes one hundred and sixty acres, has all he can take. There are very few who would be satisfied with that, because large numbers of those claims would be entirely prairie land, or entirely timber land, and he would seek for this scrip. If he wanted forty acres of timber land, he would buy scrip for forty acres; if he wanted more, he would take eighty or one hundred acres. I should be perfectly willing to issue this scrip to the States, and then those to whom they might sell might locate it wherever they pleased. The only objection I have to this bill is, that they can select by townships, or by sections, if you please; take four or five millions of acres of our land and not pay anything towards building roads or bridges or school-houses.

Mr. WADE. The Senator overlooks the fact that we have already adopted an amendment that

limits the amount to one million of acres in each State. They cannot locate over a million of acres in any one State as the bill now stands.

Mr. RICE. Well, suppose they go in and take one million of acres in a body in my State-a million of acres of the finest land in the world: who will build roads through it? The land is taxed the same as the lands of non-residents; but who builds roads in a new country? They are not built from money received from taxes, because our taxes are so light that it is very difficult for us to keep up our government. The roads are built by private subscription. School-houses and churches are built in the same way; and the more citizens we get, the lighter the tax will be upon each. If the bill could be amended in the way I have indicated, and be satisfactory to its friends, I should vote for it most cheerfully.

Mr. GRIMES. You ought to amend the law of Minnesota so as to build school-houses by taxes upon the land.

Mr. RICE. There are many school-houses in Minnesota, Iowa, and all the new States built by private subscription.

Mr. GRIMES. Very few in my State. They are built entirely by a tax on lands; and instead of these lands of non-residents being an injury to us, they furnish a very good fund from which we are able to build roads and school-houses.

Mr. RICE. I think, then, the people of Iowa had better sell out to non-residents what little land they have got. It is the reverse in my State. The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. ANTHONY in the chair.) The question is on the motion of the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. DIXON] to reconsider the vote adopting the amendment offered by the Senator from Kansas, [Mr. POMEROY,] on which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll. Mr. RICE (when his name was called) said: When I voted before I was not aware that an amendment had been adopted limiting the amount to be located in any one State so as not to exceed one million of acres. 66 I vote yea. The result was then announced-yeas 25, nays 15; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Carlile, Clark, Collamer, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Hale, Harris, Howard, Kennedy, King, Latham, Morrill, Rice, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Wade, Willey, Wilmot, and Wilson of Massachusetts-25.

NAYS-Messrs. Browning, Chandler, Doolittle, Grimes, Harlan, Howe, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Nesmith, Pomeroy, Saulsbury, Stark, Trumbull, Wilkinson, and Wright-15.

So the motion to reconsider was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now recurs on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment was rejected.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now is on the amendment to insert, at the end of section five, the following:

ART. 7. No State shall be entitled to the benefits of this act unless it shall avail itself of the provisions thereof within two years from the date of its approval by the President.

Mr. COLLAMER. I will inquire what the provisions alluded to are.

Mr. WADE. An amendment has already been attached to it; but the provisions of the bill are not to go into effect until a year after the homestead bill goes into operation, which is next July; so that it would leave hardly any time for this.

Mr. COLLAMER. If I understand this bill, it provides that scrip shall be issued in certain proportions to each State. It does not limit the time when that shall be done. The State has nothing to do about that. If I understand it aright, these limitations here mentioned relate practically to things with which the States have nothing to do. The surveys are to be made and the scrip to be given, and the States are to pay the expenses of that survey.

Mr. POMEROY. The States are not to pay the expense of surveys; the General Government pays all that.

Mr. COLLAMER. The State has nothing to do, in order to take advantage of this grant, until the Government has surveyed the land and issued scrip to them. When the Government will be able to issue this scrip to them, and get surveys made, I cannot tell. Now, why say that this act shall not take effect unless within two years the States comply with some conditions in it? I do not know of any conditions they can comply with.