OCR Text |
Show 20 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT land states 150,000 acres for each Senator and Representative they had in Congress (frequently spoken of as the Federal ratio). This generous measure would have given 34,698,000 acres to the public land states and 29,250,000 acres to the non-public-land states with New York getting the most-5,400,000 acres-and Delaware the least-450,000 acres. The donation to the old states was to be used solely for common schools. Assignable land warrants were to be issued to the old states which were required to sell them, and neither directly nor indirectly to locate them. This was required in order to avoid the danger of jurisdictional clashes over the ownership by one state of large blocks of land located in another state. Bennett maintained that by bringing together in one measure all the proposals for land grants to railroads, all areas of the public land states would have their needs treated impartially, and bickering over numerous special measures would be avoided. Bennett must have thought that by combining all the projects of the public land states with the grants to the older states, he had devised a sure-fire measure that would receive congressional approval. In the House Bennett won strong support from the Northeast: New England voted 19 to 2, New York 19 to 4, and Pennsylvania 12 to 8. The original slave states stood to benefit generously, as did the Northeast, but were sufficiently bothered by their conservative constitutional views to vote strongly against the bill. The major opposition, however, came from the public land states where people could well feel they would get their lands for railroads without compromising with the East and where the strongest opposition existed to letting the East have any share in the public lands. (In later years emphasis was placed upon the argument that since the older states had managed their lands as they wished, the new states should have the same privilege.) Bennett won a narrow victory, 95-92, in the House but failed to get the measure through the Senate, which voted on somewhat the same sectional basis not to take up the House bill.45 In 1854 Bennett made a second effort to obtain for New York and other Original States a share of the public lands. By a smart but controversial parliamentary maneuver, he managed to get his bill from an unfriendly committee and have it placed on the calendar for discussion. For months he kept the Bennett Land Distribution Bill, as it was now called, from being tabled, while trying to gain support from the many Representatives of the older states who had abstained from voting in 1852. Ultimately, this bill was overwhelmed by the aroused western bloc which in 1855 succeeded in ending the bill's persistent career, though by a close vote of 69 to 66.46 Meantime, lobbyists in Washington were running wild in their efforts to secure railroad land grants. Evidence was accumulating that the influence of political brokers-frequently former members of Congress-was essential to secure the coveted action. Charles Beard's "Great American Barbecue" was well underway. The Original States had failed in their effort to gain their share, chiefly because they were unable to mass their strength as the West did when its peculiar interests were jeopardized. From collective action which came close to success with the Bennett bill, the non-public-land states now turned to numerous special projects for which they individually wanted aid. A flood of bills and memorials descended upon Congress asking for grants to the old states for railroads, normal schools, canals, tunnels, and a ferry system. Thus Charles Sumner proposed a grant of a million acres to aid the construc- 45 House Journal, 32d Cong., 1st sess., 1851-52 (Serial No. 632), p. 831, and Senate Journal, 32d Cong;., 1st sess., 1851-52 (Serial No. 610), p. 660. * House Journal, 33d Cong., 2d sess., 1854-55 (Serial No. 776), p. 419. Bennett showed that more than a hundred million acres had been given the states which, had they been sold, might bring in $150 million and expressed his feeling at the niggardliness of western Representatives in not being willing to provide so ne largess to the old states. Cong. "Globe, 32d Cong., 1st sess., 1852, pp. 1536, 2100, 2438, and 33d Cong., 2d sess., 1854-55, p. 837. |