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Show CREDIT SALES EXPERIMENT, 1800-1820 123 His urgent recommendation led Congress to station a number of companies of troops along the Ohio frontier, partly for defense and partly to protect the public lands from intruders. Early in 1796 Governor Arthur St. Clair of the Northwest Territory, observing that "numbers of People from Kentucky had entered upon the Lands of the U. S. to the westward of the Miami, and were making what are called improvements, I warned them to desist, without much effect, and it was all I could do, unless Actions had been brought against them as Trespassers which I had no Orders to do." He reported that since he first witnessed their trespassing the numbers had increased surprisingly. Acting Governor Winthrop Sargent noted the extent of intrusions and expressed the feeling that the longer government waited to remove the squatters the more distressing the action would be.5 The request of the House that Hamilton devise a system for disposing of the public land and Hamilton's report on the subject both disregarded, almost to the point of un-awareness it would seem, the Land Ordinance of 1785. Prior survey on the rectangular system, which Jefferson had advocated and which was included in the Land Ordinance, did not appear so essential to Hamilton. He favored, at least for large purchasers, the privilege of buying land within natural boundaries. Nor did he think uniform townships 6 miles square were necessary. His report mentions townships 10 miles square,the size originally recommended by Jefferson. Hamilton was aware that the New England group settlement plan was commonly used in the North; he wanted to accommodate such groups, as well as "monied individuals and companies who will buy to sell again." To that end he proposed the creation of a general land office at the Capital. His most forward-looking recommendation was that "for the accommoda- tion of the present inhabitants of the Western Territory, and of unassociated persons and families who may emigrate thither . . . one office, subordinate to that of the Seat of Congress, should be opened in the North western and another in the South western Government." Hamilton thought that the "certificates issued for land upon the proposed loan" might be extensively used to enter lands and assumed that if land were subject to purchase in two different offices there would be some overlapping entries, as was so commonly the case in the South. It was fortunate that land purchases were ultimately required to be made in the nearest office only. Hamilton must have been thoroughly aware of the extent to which officials of colonial New York had abused their powers by insisting on having shares in most large transfers of land by the Colony. He tried to avoid such abuses by urging that all land office officials should be denied the right of dealing in government lands either directly or through others acting in trust for them. This prohibition was later to be made a part of American land law but not with sufficient safeguards to secure its strict enforcement. Nothing was said in Hamilton's report about the public auction feature of the Land Ordinance. Furthermore, Hamilton's statement that "the price shall be thirty Cents per acre . . ." seems to indicate that he thought it would be the usual price paid by all. Credit was to be extended only to purchasers of a township or more, and then only for 2 years. He favored sales of tracts as small as 100 acres whereas larger units were to be written into the legislation of 1796, 1800, and 1804. He also opposed restrictions on sales other than the requirement that one quarter of the purchase price of townships should be "paid down" and security other than the land be given for the balance. The cost of survey was to be paid by the buyer and other fees were to be required for the drafting of papers.6 5 Carter, (ed.), Territorial Papers, II, 27-28, 51, 338-39, 548-49, 587; Randolph C. Dowries, Frontier Ohio (Columbus, 1935), pp. 74-78, 145. 6 Syrett (ed.), The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, VI, 502 ff. |