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Show CREDIT SALES EXPERIMENT, 1800-1820 131 ing the period of credit to 40 days. He advocated reducing the smallest unit of sale to 160 acres and paradoxically was willing that half-sections should sell for $1.25 an acre and quarter-sections at $1.50 an acre. To compensate earlier purchasers for the lower price, he proposed striking off the interest to debtors who were not delinquent. A more pointed analysis of the faults of the land system came from John Boggs, and 323 other residents of Ohio. After expressing "their Humble thanks" to Congress for the Harrison Land Act, which allowed sales in 320-acre tracts, Boggs and his fellow Ohioans in 1801 petitioned for a preemption right for "the poor Industrious settlers" with their "small improvements, made at a great expence, and labor, emigrating so far thro' a Wilderness without inhabitants, and having their Provisions as well as families to Transport, and oftentimes hazarding their lives from the danger of the Savages, and have now formed considerable settlements, should still be exposed to a Publick Vendue to be outbid by an unfeeling Land-jobber or Speculator, who perhaps has been preying on the Vitals of his Country. . . ." In a second petition of December 23, 1803, the signers maintained that a 320-acre tract selling for $2 an acre was beyond the reach of most settlers and only provided profits for speculators who bought to retail to them. They objected to the interest charge on installments, which was contrary to local custom, and pointed out that many people had sold their land in the Atlantic states on long payments without interest and were hard hit by the government's exactions, the more so as they had to pay a higher price for the land they bought than any state in the Union was asking for its uncultivated land. The requirement that .fractional sections should be sold only with an adjoining section or half-section was an unnecessary hardship which only discouraged purchases. They urged that the reserved sections be offered for sale, that entry and patent fees be abolished, and that patents be obtainable from the local register instead of from the Seat of Government.25 Steps to Liberalize System In 1804 Congress responded to some of the pressures being exerted in favor of further liberalization of the land system by an act that reduced the minimum amount of land one could buy to a quarter-section (160 acres), extended credit to purchasers buying within the original boundaries of the Symmes contract to 6 years, and abolished interest on installments until they became due. In addition it authorized the survey and sale of all lands north of the Ohio to which the Indian title had been surrendered, and provided for the establishment of additional land offices at Detroit, Vincennes, and Kaskaskia. The four sections in each township, not including section 16 which had been reserved from sale since the Ordinance of 1785 was adopted, were to be sold like all other public lands. A feature of the land system that had been greatly disliked was thus ended.26 An amendment of 1808 to the Act of 1804 set a price of $4 an acre on reserved sections not previously sold.27 In this way Congress achieved what it may have had in mind at the outset in retaining these sections: reaping a profit from surrounding development. The Act of 1804 ended for the time-being the practice of charging fees, which was so greatly disliked. To make the positions of register and receiver more attractive, an additional one-half of 1 percent of all sums derived from sales in their offices was to be paid each, together with a salary of $500. Thereafter the offices were quite remunerative, particularly in periods of active sales, and they became important features of the patronage system. 25 Carter (ed.), The Territorial Papers of the United States, III, 122-28; American State Papers, Public Lands, I, 163-64. 26 Act of March 26, 1804, Feb. 29, 1808, 2 Stat 277. "Act of Feb. 29, 1808, 2 Stat. 470. |
