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Show GENERAL GRANTS TO STATES 333 to apply to them. As originally proposed, the measure would have extended the provisions of the Swamp Land Act of 1850 to all states that had been or might be admitted thereafter. It was amended to include only Minnesota and Oregon, thereby making sure that it would not apply to Kansas. It is not clear whether members of Congress thought there were no swamplands in Kansas, though there were many in Iowa, or whether this was another evidence of the desire by some to discriminate against Kansas. To make sure that the two new states could not benefit from the right to indemnity payments under the Act of 1855, the measure provided that swamplands which had been reserved, sold or disposed of under any previous law should be excluded from its provisions. To hasten the process of selecting the lands Senators Henry M. Rice of Minnesota and Charles E. Stuart of Michigan wished to establish a time limit for selections; they included a clause-a typically awkward one- to provide that for surveyed lands the limit should be one year from the day of adjournment of the next regular session of each state's legislature, and for unsurveyed lands the deadline should be one year after the approval of the plats. As finally adopted the time was changed to 2 years and the clause affecting unsurveyed lands was changed to provide that selections should end after 2 years from "adjournment, at the next session after notice by the Secretary of the Interior to the Governor of the State, that the surveys have been completed and confirmed."38 Joseph S. Wilson, the new Land Commissioner, promptly notified the Governors of Minnesota and Oregon that they could make their selections of swamplands on the basis either of the field notes and plats or of personal inspection by duly constituted officers. He also notified the governors of other states in which swamplands were being selected of the new limitation on selection contained in the Act of 1860. The tenor of his remarks suggests that the Land Office intended to interpret the Act of 1860 more strictly than it had earlier swampland acts. Wilson must have found it disillusioning that not until 10 years after the adoption of the Act of 1850 and the admission of California, did that state sufficiently stir itself to make its selections.39 J. M. Edmunds, the new Republican Commissioner of the General Land Office, indicted the swampland legislation in his annual report for 1862. In administering these laws difficulties have been encountered from the outstart [sic] not contemplated nor provided for in the original legislation. The end proposed . . . has been attained only to a very limited extent, whilst the demands on the land fund and on the public treasury to satisfy indemnity claims have been enormous. A measure that was originally considered likely to convey to the states 5 or 6 million acres had through its indefinite terms made it possible for the demands of the states to grow to "gigantic proportions . . . absorbing millions of acres of the most valuable lands of the country. It has created multitudes of interferences with individual titles, resting on actual sales or locations, interfered with railroad and other internal improvement grants, giving rise to innumerable conflicts, and causing enormous outlay to the public treasury in the nature of indemnity."40 A year later, Edmunds was so troubled by charges of fraud in the selection of swamplands, or false representations as to the character of the land, that he appointed a special agent to investigate. The evidence brought out by the agent seemed to prove the charges but prominent men were involved and the charges were not pressed.41 38 Cong. Globe, 35th Cong., 2d sess., Feb. 28, 1859, p. 1431; 12 Stat. 9. The act produced no discussion, though there was a measure in the House to repeal the Swamp Land Act. 39 S. Ex. Doc, 36th Cong., 2d sess., Vol. I, No. 1 (Serial No. 1078), pp. 66-67. 40 H. Ex. Doc, 38th Cong., 2d sess., Vol. 1, No. 1 (Serial No. 1220), pp. 33-34. 41 H. Ex. Doc, 39th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. II, No. 1 (Serial No. 1248), pp. 18-19. |