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Show 64 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT the artificial nature of farm units to be arbitrarily created by a rectangular system did appear to have faults, as contrasted with a system which conformed to the natural features of the country. Debates over the respective merits of the two methods of land disposal would fill 40 volumes, said William Grayson, delegate from Virginia and member of the Grand Committee to draft a land ordinance. Like Jefferson, Grayson came to see the advantages of the New England system, and sent to George Washington the committee's reasons for incorporating so many of its features into the measure it reported. The plan to sell townships of land by "public Vendue" appeared to some "eccentric, and objectionable" but the committee thought the auction desirable because land differed in quality. Persons near at hand would be aware of these differences and would bid up the good land at the auction. Experience in the "eastern States" had shown that sales of full townships had not contributed to monopolization of land; on the contrary, it was there that "lands are more equally divided than in any other part of the Continent. ..." The "idea of a township with the temptation of a support for religion and education, holds forth an inducement for neighborhoods of the same religious sentiments to confederate for the purpose of purchasing and settling together." Grayson said it was believed that "the Southern mode would defeat this end by introducing . . . indiscriminate locations and settlements, which would have a tendency to destroy all those inducements to emigration which are derived from friendships, religion and relative connections." Speculators and "ingrossers" could not long retain the lands they purchased on account of the high price they would have to pay and the loss of interest on their funds while the lands were uncultivated. Even if they did make money in purchasing large tracts, they would only do so at the expense of European immigrants who were not at hand to buy directly. In any case, the great design of the plan was to provide revenue for the government. Sales by townships could be carried into effect much more expeditiously than could sales by small tracts, and all the problems of subdivision and collections from many purchasers would be avoided. Prior rectangular surveys would avoid the necessity of land courts and the appointment of many new officials, would make unnecessary the filing of caveats, and would prevent volumes of litigation.10 Land Policies Emerge Any assessment of the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the supplementary legislation of the Confederation is made difficult by the absence of records of debates in Congress. Contemporary comments in the letters of the members of Congress reveal some of the measures being exerted to influence the shaping of the Land Ordinance. Grayson's conversion to the New England system could not have been easy for him for he found the eastern delegates "amazingly attached to their own customs, and unreasonably anxious to have everything regulated according to their own pleasure." James Monroe thought the eastern men clung with "great obstinacy" to townships of 30,000 acres whereas the southerners were but "firmly oppos'd" to them. On the other hand, Rufus King of Massachusetts wrote that "Virginia makes many difficulties" in support of indiscriminate location. David Howell of Rhode Island declared the Land Ordinance "the most complicated and embarrassing Subject before Congress. . . . Infinite pains are taken by a certain sett of men vulgarly called Land robbers [jobbers], or Land-Sharks to have it in their power to engross the best lands. . . ."u In New England, once the township was granted, responsibility for its survey, division into sections, and for the granting process 10 Edmund C. Burnett (ed.), Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (8 vols., Washington, 1921- 36), VIII, 95-97, 107. 11 Burnett, Letters, VIII, 106, 109, 116. |