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Show Chapter XVI An Incongruous Land System Congress became increasingly generous in its land grants to the states for schools, universities, capital buildings, canals, and railroads, but there is no indication in all the discussion of these measures, or even of free homesteads, that it was abandoning revenue as a basic feature of American land policy. In fact, all such grants were made to provide either endowment or revenue to the states and railroads; Congress was merely sharing its bounty with them expecting, and in some legislation requiring, them not to sell the lands at less than the minimum price of Federal land. Railroads were not to sell their grants for less than $2.50 an acre; Colorado was not to sell its school lands for less than $2.50 an acre; and the Omnibus States of Washington, Montana, North and South Dakota were required not to sell their school land at less than $10 an acre.1 It was the establishment of such high minimum prices that prevented the sale of lands in such states as Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Washington in the early period of the states' history and compelled them to develop plans for leasing, which at a later period made them important land administering agencies. Federal law required that all public lands, when first opened to public sale, be offered at $1.25 an acre. The double-minimum price for land within railroad grants was retained until 1879 and 1880; preemption entries still called for the pay- 1Acts of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 476; and Feb. 22, 1889, 25 Stat. 677. ment of $1.25 an acre as did desert land entries; the Timber and Stone Act, which allowed the purchase of 160 acres of land for its timber or stone, required the payment of $2.50 an acre; and homesteaders wishing to commute their entries in order to borrow on the land were obliged to pay $1.25 an acre for it. All this suggests that notwithstanding the adoption of the principle of free lands to settlers in the Homestead Act of 1862 Congress had not changed its basic position that public lands should produce revenue. Although the Homestead Act included no provision closing out unlimited sales of offered land, there was a strong feeling in the West against further offering of land at public sale. Memorials and petitions from most of the new states took this position, but Congress was not prepared to halt further offerings of land or to end cash sales. The attitude of the officials in Interior was not altogether consistent, though some of them favored permitting unlimited sales. Sales Continue After Homestead When the Homestead Act was adopted there were 83,919,649 acres of offered land open to unlimited purchase, every part of which would remain in that category until it was withdrawn for a railroad grant, or temporarily withdrawn under the Southern Homestead Act of 1866, or selected by a state as part of its internal improvement or agricultural college grant, or entered by a 435 |