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Show PREEMPTION 223 must have seemed of dubious value, however, for there was no way of filing a declaration of intention to preempt until 5 years from the date of its enactment. Also, without surveys squatters could not be sure that their improvements were not included in large but unconfirmed private land claims; nor did it appear for a time that they could prevent people who held land scrip issued to sufferers of the New Madrid earthquake from claiming their improvements. Meantime, intruders were warned off public land and threatened with heavy punishment if they did not leave. If the promise of a preemption seemed empty for long years in Missouri, it appears that settlers were devising both honest and devious schemes to use the provisions of the act. The register and receiver of the Franklin, Missouri, land office wrote a fascinating letter, dated November 6, 1820, to Josiah Meigs, Commissioner of the General Land Office, defending themselves against politically inspired attacks on the grounds that they had permitted abuse of the Preemption Act of April 12, 1814:16 We certainly required Cultivation for the support of a family & did not consider shelots which are indigenous to the country, or the marking of Trees, or planting a few peach Stones or sowing a few apple seeds or putting out a few Scions evidences of cultivation or the Encampment on the ground for a night 'actual Inhabitation,' where proof was offered of growing any Crop for the Sustenance of man, even 'Turnips,' it mattered not how they were put in whether with the plough, a cane or the hand it was deemed sufficient & the Preemption was granted. Here are set forth some of the abuses which were later to be used by homesteaders trying to gain title without actually making a home on the land they claimed. In 1816 Congress made general the provisions of an earlier act allowing any person inhabiting and residing on any public land not otherwise claimed to remain on it and to cultivate up to 320 acres after requesting permission and signing a declaration that he maintained no claim to the land. As a tenant at will, such an occupant was bound to give up the land when it was sought by another with a title from the government. The measure was extended for additional years on two occasions.17 By temporizing with numerous special acts to meet pressing emergencies and by using the "tenants at will" dodge, Congress agreed to poor substitutes for preemption, showed its own confusion, its compassion for persons who might lose the work of many years, its susceptibility to lobbying, and its desire to avoid unpleasant decisions. A report for February 14, 1816, shows that 211,864 acres had been granted by that date as preemptions. Of that amount, 93,719 acres were in Ohio, 117,051 in Mississippi Territory, and 1,094 in Michigan Territory. This compares with a total of 5,922,732 acres sold north of the Ohio and 582,968 acres sold south of the Ohio.18 Issues Formed The many petitions and memorials asking for the extension of preemption to settlers on the public lands called forth hundreds of hours of debate in Congress and numerous reports from the House and Senate Committees on Public Lands. Members from the eastern states criticized the westerners for being greedy, lawless land grabbers who had no respect for law, order, absentee ownership of property, and Indian rights, no loyalty to the country, and no concern about what national and international difficulties their activities might produce. Constantly on the move, always looking for the main chance, they were careless about their obligations and reckless with lives and property. On the other hand 16 Charles Carroll and T. A. Smith, Franklin, Missouri, Nov. 6, 1820, to Meigs, Carter, Territorial Papers, XV, 663. 17 3 Stat. 261. Most of these special preemption laws are briefly summarized, as well as those adopted between 1820 and 1835 in H. Doc, 25th Cong., 2d sess., Vol. 9 (Serial No. 329), No. 303, pp. 4-7. 18 American State Papers, Public Lands, III, 170. |