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Show MILITARY BOUNTY LAND POLICIES 275 the warrants were permissible and only when the patent had issued could the land be conveyed by the veterans. His ruling immediately produced a storm of criticism and led Congress to take up the issue of assignability and to settle it at the next session.77 Western spokesmen like Isaac P. Walker of Wisconsin, ably supported by Amos Tuck of New Hampshire, continued to oppose assignability. They drew attention to the large amount of land being entered in the West by speculators, expressed the fear that the holdings of nonresidents who had no intention of developing their land would seriously retard the development of that area, declared that an additional issue of warrants would enable speculators to anticipate land grant railroads and so engross the lands as to make construction impossible. Opponents were in a minority, however, for the advocates of assignability had worn down even many westerners through interminable discussions of the measure, and the pressure from the old states was irresistible.78 The resulting Act of March 19, 1852, made all warrants issued, or to be issued, assignable; it permitted the use of the warrants on land held for higher than the minimum price of $1.25 an acre with the requirement that the difference between the $1.25 and the $2.00 or $2.50 should be paid in cash by the entryman, and authorized any person entitled to a preemption right to use a land warrant in lieu of cash. It also extended the military bounty privilege to militiamen who were called into service after 1812.79 Under this act some 11,986 warrants were issued, calling for 694,120 acres. The last major bounty act was that of March 3, 1855. It let down almost all barriers 77 George B. Sargent, a partner of the powerful Cook, Sargent and Downey land firm of Iowa was in Washington, on March 5, 1851, protesting Butter-field's interpretation. His letter of that date to A. H. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior, is in the Secretary's Files, National Archives. 78 The debates may be followed in the Cong. Globe, 32d Cong., 1st sess., pp. 298 ff., 666 ff. 79 10 Stat. 3. in the distribution of bounty warrants. Instead of the previous 30 days of service only 14 were now required, persons who had marched or traveled 1,200 miles but who might not have served 14 days were to have warrants, as were Indians who had been in the service, chaplains, and groups who had Leading States in Military Bounty Land Entries to 1871" Iowa_______..........___________14,096,905 Illinois_____________........_____ 6,000,000b Wisconsin...............__________ 6,342, 702 Minnesota_______________________ 6,959,379 Missouri.....____________________ 6,312,402b Kansas__________________________ 4,226,545 Michigan________________________ 3,932,946 Nebraska________________________ 1 , 785,948 R GLO Report, 1871, p. 340, lists the total acreages under the rubric "granted for military services." b I have deducted for Illinois and Missouri an estimated amount of entries for the War of 1812 warrants. served for a very short time but were in specifically mentioned battles. All who had previously received warrants and all those now entitled for the first time to receive them were to have a full quarter-section; if earlier they had been given a 40- or an 80-acre warrant they could now draw a second warrant to cover the difference. This new act provided for a greater quantity of military bounty land warrants than any previous act, ultimately amounting to an issue of 263,083 warrants for 34,148,910 acres. Altogether in the four acts of 1847 to 1855 authorization was provided for the issuance of 552,494 warrants totaling 61,225,430 acres. At the rate of entry of public lands from 1840 to 1847 these 61,225,430 acres might have met the needs of the country for land for 30 years, but conditions were changing rapidly, and the distribution of these warrants played their part in the change. With such a large amount of paper in circulation, the warrants became not only the principal medium for the purchase of land, but also for other types of business |