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Show 174 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT back at 50 percent advance any tract purchased from him if one quarter had been opened and cultivated, and he would guarantee the purchaser at least 6 percent interest per year on his investment "or the labor employed during those 2 years, if worked in the customary way." Some land may have been sold at these prices before the crash of 1837, but if so all such sales probably fell into default after the crash.76 The Specie Circular There had been much talk in the press and many speeches in Congress about the great amount of speculation in land by various interest groups, particularly by members of Congress, but attention was focused on the American Land Company and the prominent Democrats connected with it. There were other prominent politicians speculating in government land who did not attract public attention to the same degree. Among them were Arnold Naudain, Daniel Webster, whose purchases in Illinois, Missouri, and Michigan were extensive, Caleb Cushing, Lucius Lyon, agent of the American Land Company, Robert J. Walker, Henry Hubbard, Senator from New Hampshire, and John Tipton, Senator from Indiana. An investigation seemed called for, and on June 20, 1836, the House of Representatives appointed a select committee "to inquire whether any member or members of Congress, head or heads of Departments, or any other officer of Government," have received any aid from persons employed by the government or from banks in borrowing to speculate in public lands. The committee made a superficial investigation, was denied any practical help by two Washington banks, and heard from only one witness who admitted knowing of a number of companies that were buying Indian land and public land; he declined giving names or other specific information. The committee concluded by recommending that if the House wanted to continue the investigation the membership of the committee should be enlarged and it should be permitted to sit during recess.77 If Congress was not prepared to act to check the excessive speculation in public lands made possible by the ease of borrowing paper currency from the banks, Andrew Jackson was. Why he was moved to do so is not easily explained for there is little in his past to indicate that he disapproved of large scale purchases of public land solely for speculation. He had purchased public land in the past with no apparent intention of developing it and had been closely associated with a motley crew of speculators operating on a much larger scale than he. Furthermore, he had pushed hard for the removal of the Creeks and Chickasaws from Alabama and Mississippi, had brought their allotments into market and had offered a total of 25,400,000 acres of Indian trust and public lands at public sale in these two states and Indiana.78 Yet in Jackson's State of the Union Message to Congress on December 4, 1832, he had declared, "The speedy settlement of these lands constitutes the true interest of the Republic. The wealth and strength of a country are its population, and the best part of that population are the cultivators of the soil. Independent farmers are everywhere the basis of society and true friends of liberty." He then went on to say that the true policy toward the public lands was that they should cease to be a source of revenue, and should be sold in limited tracts "at a price barely 76 Richmond Enquirer, Oct. 4, 1836. 77 House Reports, 24th Cong., 1st sess., July 2, 1836, Vol. Ill, No. 846 (Serial No. 295). Preston S. Loughborough, the one witness, was a chief clerk in the Post Office Department. Three months later Loughborough, or an agent acting for him, was at Danville, 111., where he entered 9,925 acres of land at the minimum price, but whether it was acquired with funds borrowed from a pet bank is not apparent. 78 Young, Redskins, Ruffleshirts and Rednecks, pp. 182 ff. Speaking in the Senate on Jan. 26, 1838, Benton declared that Jackson had withheld all new surveys from market in 1836. Cong. Globe, 25th Cong., 2d sess., p. 141. |
