HOMES FOR ALL

HOMESTEAD BILL.

IN CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 21, 1854.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS

1854.

SPEECH OF GERRIT SMITH.

The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, on the Homestead Bill—

MR. SMITH, of New York, said:

MR. CHAIRMAN: I purpose to speak on the Homestead Bill. I choose this bill for the subject of my remarks, not only because it is “the special order,” and is, therefore, entitled to preference, but because it is, in my judgment, second in importance to no bill, that has come, or that shall come, before us.

I am in favor of this bill. I do not say, that there is not a line, nor a word, in it, that I would not, have altered. But I do say, that I am in favor of the substance of it. I am in favor of the bill, not for the reason that, by giving up a part of the public lands to be occupied, the remainder will be more valuable to the Government than was the whole, before such occupation. Nor am I in favor of it, because the occupants will afford new subjects for taxation. Nor, in short, am I in favor of it for any of the current and popular reasons for it. But I am in favor of the bill, because I am in favor of what I interpret the bill essentially to be—let others interpret it, as they will. This bill, as I view it, is an acknowledgment, that the public lands belong, not to the Government, but to the landless.

Whilst I hope, that the bill will prevail, I nevertheless can hardly hope, that a majority of the Committee will approve my reasons for it. Indeed, if the Committee shall so much as tolerate me, in putting forth these reasons, it is all I can expect, in the light of the fate of the land reform resolutions, which I offered in this Hall, the 16th January last.*

* WHEREAS, all the members of the human family, notwithstanding all contrary enactments and arrangements, have, at all times, and in all circumstances, as equal a right to the soil as to the light and air, because as equal a natural need of the one-

The storm of indignation, which burst upon those resolutions, did, I confess, not a little surprise me. The angry words, which came sounding over into this part of the Hall, quite startled me. Even the reading of the resolutions by the Clerk was hardly borne with; and, no Sooner had they been read, than, with hot haste, they were nailed to the table forever and ever.

And what are those resolutions, that they should have excited such displeasure? Why, their chief and controlling doctrine is, that men have a natural and equal right to the soil. - And is this such a monstrous doctrine, as to make me guilty of a great offence-of an outrage on propriety-for offering the resolutions? It cannot be said, that they were expressed in indecent or profane language-in language offensive to purity or piety. Why, then, were they so treated? I am not at liberty to suppose, that it was “from dislike to their author. It must be because their leading doctrine is so very wrong in the eyes of the honorable gentlemen around me. Now I am aware, that many of the doctrines, which I utter in this Hall, are very wrong in their eyes. But should they not remember, that their counter doctrines are no less wrong in my eyes? And yet, I appeal to all, whether I have ever evinced even the slightest impatience or unkindness under anything I have heard here? and whether the equal footing, on which we find ourselves here,

as of the other: And whereas, this invariably equal right to the soil leaves no room to buy, or sell, or give it away; Therefore,

1. Resolved, That no bill or proposition should find any favor with Congress, which implies the right of Congress to dispose of the public lands, or any part of them, either by sale or gift.

2. Resolved, That the duty of civil government in regard to public lands, and indeed to all lands, is but to regulate the occupation of them; and that this regulation should ever proceed upon the principle, that the right of all persons to the soil—to the great source of human subsistence-is as equal, as inherent, and as sacred, as the right to life itself.

3. Resolved, That Government will have done but little toward securing the equal right to land, until it shall have made essential to the validity of every claim to land both the fact, that it is actually possessed, and the fact, that it does not exceed in quantity the maximum, which it is the duty of Government to prescribe.

4. Resolved, That it is not because land monopoly is the most efficient cause of inordinate and tyrannical riches on the one hand, and of dependent and abject poverty on the other; and that it is not because it is, therefore, the most efficient cause of that inequality of condition, so well-nigh fatal to the spread of Democracy and Christianity, that Government is called upon to abolish it; but it is because the right, which this mighty agent of evil violates and tramples under foot, is among those clear, certain, essential, natural rights, which it is the province of Government to protect, at all hazards, and irrespective of all consequences.

does not require, as well that patience and kindness should be accorded to me, as by me? However we may regard each other out of this Hall, certain it is, that, if, in this Hall, we do not regard each other as gentlemen entitled to mutual and perfect respect, we shall dishonor ourselves, and our constituency, and civil government itself.

I am sure, that no member of this body would have me disguise, or hold in abeyance, my real views on any subject under discussion. I am sure, that none of them would have me guilty of the self-degradation of affecting, and uttering, other views, and of studying an unprincipled accommodation of myself to the majority around me. I am sure, that none of them would have me consent to be

“A pipe for fortune's finger,

To sound what stop she please.”

You would all have me be myself, and speak myself, however wrong myself may be. You would all have me deal honestly and honorably with yourselves. But this I cannot do, unless I deal honestly and honorably with myself. If unfaithful to my own convictions, if false to myself, I shall, of necessity, be false to you: but if true to myself, I shall, of necessity, be true to you. To quote again from that great reader of the human heart from whom I had just quoted:

“To thine own self be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

I will say no more on this point than to add, that, God helping me, I shall earn the respect of every member of this body, by respecting myself.

And now, to my argument, and to my endeavor to show, that land monopoly is wrong,, and that civil government should neither practice, nor permit it; and that the duty of Congress is to yield up all the pub.. lie land to actual settlers.

I admit, that there are things, in which a man can have absolute property, and which, without qualification or restriction, he can buy, or sell, or bequeath, at his pleasure. But, I deny, that the soil is among these things. What a man produces from the soil, he has an absolute right to. He may abuse the right. It nevertheless remains. But no such right can he have in the soil itself. If he could, he might monopolize it. If very rich, he might purchase a township or a county; and, in connection with half a dozen other monopolists, he might come to obtain all the lands of a state or a nation. Their occupants might be

compelled to leave them and to starve; and the lands might be converted into parks and hunting-grounds for the enjoyment of the aristocracy. Moreover, if this could be done, in the ease of a state or a nation, why could it not be done in the case of the whole earth?

But it may be said, that a man might monopolize the fruits of the soil, and thus become as injurious to his fellow-men, as by monopolizing the soil itself. It is true, that he might, in this wise, produce a scarcity of food. But the calamity would be for a few months only, and it would serve to stimulate the sufferers to guard against its recurrence by a more faithful tillage, and by more caution in parting with their crops. Having the soil still in their hands, they would have the remedy still in their hands. But had they suffered the soil itself to be monopolized; had they suffered the soil itself, instead of the fruits of it, to pass out of their hands; then they would be without remedy. Then they would lie at the mercy of him, who has it in his power to dictate the terms on which they may again have accees to the soil, or who, in his heartless perverseness, might refuse its occupation on any terms whatever.

What I have here supposed in my argument is abundantly - alas! but too abundantly-justified by facts. Land monopoly has reduced no small share of the human family to abject and wretched dependence, for it has shut them out from the great source of subsistence, and frightfully increased the precariousness of life. Unhappy Ireland illustrates the great power of land monopoly for evil. The right to so much as a standing place on the earth is denied to the great mass of her people. Their great impartial Father has placed them On the earth; and, in placing them on it, has irresistibly implied their right to live of it. Nevertheless land monopoly tells them, that they are trespassers, and treats them as trespassers. Even when most indulgent, land monopoly allows them nothing better than to pick up the crumbs of the barest existence; and, when, in his most rigorous moods, the monster compels them to starve and die by millions. Ireland— poor, land-monopoly-cursed and famine-wasted Ireland-has still a population of some six millions; and yet it is only six thousand persons, who have monopolized her soil. Scotland has some three millions of people; and three thousand, is the number of the monopolists of her soil. England and Wales contain some eighteen millions of people, and the total number of those, who claim exclusive right to the soil of England and Wales, is thirty thousand. I may not be rightly informed, as to the numbers of the land monopolists in those countries; but whether they are twice as great, or half as great, as I have given them,

is quite immaterial to the essence of my argument against land monopoly. I would say in this connection, that land monopoly, or the accumulation of the land in the hands of the few, has increased very rapidly in England. A couple of centuries ago, there were several times as many English land-holders, as there are now.

I need say no more to prove, that land monopoly is a very high crime, and that it is the imperative duty of Government to put a stop to it. Were the monopoly of the light and air practicable, arid were the monopolists of these elements (having armed themselves with title deeds to them) to sally forth and threaten the people of one town with a vacuum, in case they are unwilling or unable to buy their supply of air; and threaten the people of another town with total darkness, in case they will not or cannot buy their supply of light; there, confessedly, would be no higher duty on Government than to put an end to such wicked and death-dealing monopolies. But these monopolies would not differ in principle from land monopoly; and they would be no more fatal to the enjoyments of human existence, and to human existence itself, than land monopoly has proved itself capable of being. Why land monopoly has not swept the earth of all good, is not because it is unadapted and inadequate to that end, but because it has been only partially carried out.

The right of a man to the soil, the light, and the air, is to so much of each of them, as he needs, and no more.; and for so long as he lives, and no longer. In other words, this dear mother earth, with her never-failing nutritious bosom; and this life-preserving air., which floats around it; and this sweet light, which visits it, are all owned by each present generation, and are equally owned by all the members of such generation. Hence, whatever the papers or parchments regarding the soil, which we may pass between ourselves, they can have - no legitimate power to impair the equal right to it, either of the persons, who compose this generation; or of the persons, who shall compose the next.

It is a very glaring assumption on the part of one generation to control the distribution and enjoyment of natural rights for another generation. We of the present generation have no more liberty to provide, that one person of the next generation shall have ten thousand acres and another but ten acres, than we have to provide, that one person of the next generation shall live a hundred years and another but a hundred days; and no more liberty to provide, that a person of the next generation shall be destitute of land, than that he shall be destitute of light or air. They, who compose a generation, are, so far as natural rights are concerned, absolutely entitled to a free and equal start in

life; and that equality is not to be disturbed, and that freedom is not to be encumbered, by any arrangements of the preceding generation.

I, have referred to the miseries, which land monopoly has brought upon the human family, and to the duty of the Government to put a stop to it. But bow shall Government put a stop to it? I answer, by putting a stop to the traffic in land, and by denying to every person all right to more than his share of the land. In other words, the remedy for, land monopoly is, that Government shall prescribe the largest quantity of land, which may be held by an individual; and -shall, at distant periods, vary the quantity, according to the increase or diminution of the population. This maximum might, in our own country, where the population is so sparse, be carried as high as four or five hundred acres. Nevertheless, it might be necessary to reduce it one half, should our population be quadrupled. in a country, a& densely peopled as Ireland, this maximum should, probably, not exceed thirty or forty acres.

What I have said Concerning the land maximum obviously applies but to such tracts, as are fit for husbandry. To many tracts—to such, for instance, as are valuable only for mining or lumbering-it can have no application.

I may be asked, whether I would have the present acknowledged claims to land disturbed. I answer, that I would, Where the needs if the people demand it. In Ireland, for instance, there is the most urgent necessity for overriding such claims, and subdividing the land anew. But, in Our Own country, there is an abundance of vacant and unappropriated land -for the landless to go to. We ought not, however, to presume upon this abundance to delay abolishing land monopoly. The greediness of land monopolists might, in a single generation, convert this abundance into scarcity. Moreover, if we do not provide now for the peaceable equal distribution of the public lands, it may be too late to provide for it hereafter. Justice, so palpable and so necessary, cannot be withheld but at the risk of being grasped violently.

What I have said respecting the duty of Government to vary the land maximum at wide intervals, does, as I have already intimated, apply to Our own country, as well as to other countries. The time may come, when, in this country, broad as it is, it will be necessary and just to disturb even the richest and most highly cultivated landed possessions. Should Our population become so crowded, as to afford but fifty acres to a family, then the farm of a hundred acres, and that, too, however expensively every acre of it may be improved, must be divided into two equal parts; and the possessor of it, however old may be his possession, must be compelled to give up one of them to his landless

brother. To deny the soundness of this conclusion, is to deny, not only the equality, but even the very fact, of the human brotherhood.

It is in the light of the possibility of such a division, that no man can sell his farm and convey it by a deed, which shall certainly carry title to it forever. I am willing to admit, that a man can sell or bequeath his farm, though, in strictness, it is but the betterments or improvements upon the soil, and not the soil itself, which lie sells or bequeaths. But the purchaser, or inheritor, and their successors, incur the hazard of having their possessions clipped by the new land maximum, which it may be the duty of Government to prescribe.

It is said, however, that all talk of land monopoly in America is impertinent and idle. It is boasted, that, in escaping from primogeniture and entail, we have escaped from the evils of land monopoly. But the boast is unfounded. These evils already press heavily upon us; and they will press more and more heavily upon us, unless the root of them is extirpated—unless land monopoly is abolished. In the old portions of the country, the poor are oppressed and defrauded of an essential natural right by the accumulation of farms in the hands of wealthy families. In the new, the way of the poor, and indeed of the whole population, to comfort and prosperity is blocked up by tracts of wild land, which speculators retain for the unjust purpose of having them increase in value out of the toil expended upon the contiguous land. And why should we flatter ourselves, that land monopoly, if suffered to live among us, will not, in time, get laws enacted for its extension and perpetuity, as effective even as primogeniture and entail? To let alone any great wrong, in the hope, that it will never outgrow its present limits, is very unwise — very unsafe. But land monopoly is not only a great, but a mighty wrong; and, if let alone, it may stretch and fortify itself, until it has become invincible.

Much happier world will this be, when land monopoly shall cease; when his needed portion of the soil shall be accorded to every person; when it shall no more be bought and sold; when, like salvation, it shall be “without money and without price; when, in a word, it shall be free, even as God made it free. Then, when the good time, prophetically spoken of, shall have come, and “every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree,” the world will be much happier, because, in the first place, wealth will then be so much more equally distributed, and the rich and the poor will then be so comparatively rare. Riches and poverty are both abnormal, false, unhappy states, and they will yet be declared to be sinful states. They beget each other. Over against the one is ever to be found a corresponding degree of the other. So

long, then, as the masses are robbed by land monopoly, the world will be cursed with riches and poverty. But, when the poor man is put in possession of his portion of the goodly green earth, and is secured by the strong arm of Government in the enjoyment of a home, from which not he, nor his wife, nor his children, can be driven, then is he raised above poverty, not only by the possession of the soil, but still more by the virtues, which he cultivates in his heart, whilst he Cultivates the soil. Then, too, he no longer ministers to the undue accumulation of wealth by others, as he did, when advantage was taken of his homeless condition, and he was compelled to serve for what he could get.

I would add in this place, that inasmuch as land monopoly is the chief cause of beggary, comparatively little beggary will remain after land monopoly is abolished. Where a nation is very badly governed in other respects, the abolition of land monopoly may be very far from resulting in the abolition of all beggary. And here let me say, that very little good can be promised from any reform to any people, who allow themselves to be oppressed and crushed by a national debt. France has done much toward abolishing land monopoly. But, because she is so much worse governed than England, she is, in the extent of her beggary, not very far behind England. I need not dwell upon, nor even describe, the evils of beggary; and I need not say, that it is the duty of Government to put an end to it, so far as Government has the power, and the right to do so. Beggary is an immeasurably great evil. It is such, not only because it is a burden upon the world, but far more, because it is a shame to the world—a shame to the beggar, and a shame to mankind.

I would, at this stage of my remarks, notice the cavil, that even if the equal Ownership of the soil were Practically acknowledged, nevertheless there would be persons, who would get rich, and persons, who would get poor. This would, doubtless, be true to a considerable extent; for, on the one hand, there are the provident, and on the other the improvident; on the one hand the cunning and Crafty, and on the other the Simple and unsuspecting. But because there will be rich and poor after the land is equally distributed, is that a reason why it should not be equally distributed? If, notwithstanding such equal distribution, there are persons, who will still be poor; if, notwithstanding Government restores to its subjects their natural right to the soil, some of them are incapable of rising above poverty; then is it all the more clearly proved, that Government was bound to mitigate their poverty by securing them homes. If, notwithstanding they are put in possession of their portions of the soil, they are still poor, alas, how much

poorer would they have been without those portions? And, again: if there are persons, who get rich, notwithstanding they are not permitted to wield land monopoly in behalf of their ambition, then how manifestly important is it, that they were not allowed this means of getting richer?

In the next place, the world will be much happier, when land monopoly shall cease, because manual labor will then be so honorable, because so well nigh universal.

It will be happier, too, because the wages system, with all its attendant degradation and unhappy influences, will find but little room in the new and radically changed condition of society, which will follow the abolition of land monopoly. Then, as a general thing, each man will do his own work, and each woman hers; and this, too, not from choice only, but from necessity also; for, then, few will be wealthy enough to be able to hire, and few poor enough to consent to serve.

It will be happier, too, because of the general equality there will then be, not in property only, but in education, and other essential respects also. How much fewer the instances then, than now, of. a haughty spirit on the one hand, and of an abject spirit on the other! The pride of superior circumstances, so common now, will then be rare. And rare, too, will be that abjectness of spirit, so common now, (though, happily, far from universal,) in the condition of dependent poverty; and the difficulty of overcoming which is so well compared to the difficulty of making an empty bag stand up straight!

Again, the world will be happier, when land monopoly is abolished, because it will more abound in marriage. Marriage, when invited by a free soil, will be much more common and early, than when, as now, it must be delayed, until the parties to it are able to purchase a home.

Another gain to the world from abolishing land monopoly, is that war would then be well nigh impossible. It would be so, if only because it would be difficult to enlist men into its ranks. For who would leave the comforts and endearments of home, to enter upon the poorly-paid and unhonored services of a private soldier? It was not “young Fortinbras” only, who, in collecting his army,

“Shark’d up a list of landless”

But., in every age and country, war has found its recruits among the homeless—among vagabonds.

And still another benefit to flow from the abolition of land monopoly is its happy influence upon the cause of temperance — that precious cause, which both the great and the small are, in their folly and madness, so wont to scorn, but which is, nevertheless, none the less essen-

tial to private happiness and prosperity, to national growth and glory. The ranks of intemperance, like those of war, are, to a great extent, recruited from the homeless and the vagrant.

I will glance at but one more of the good effects, that will result from the abolition of land monopoly. Religion will rejoice, when the masses, now robbed of homes by land monopoly, shall have homes to thank God for—homes, in which to cultivate the home-bred virtues, to feed upon religious truth, and to grow in Christian vigor and beauty.

How numerous and precious the blessings, that would follow the abolition of land monopoly! By the number and preciousness of those blessings, I might entreat civil government, the earth over, to abolish it. But I will not. I prefer to demand this justice in the name of justice. In the name of justice, I demand, that civil government, wherever guilty of it, shall cease to sell and give away land—shall cease to sell and give away what is not its own. The vacant land belongs to all, who need it. It belongs to the landless of every clime and condition. The extent of the legitimate concern of Government with it is but to regulate and protect its occupation. In the name of justice do I demand of Government, not only, that it shall itself cease from the land traffic, but that it shall compel its subjects to cease from it. Government owes protection to its subjects. It owes them nothing else. But that people are emphatically unprotected, who are left by their Government to be the prey of land monopoly.

The Federal Government has sinned greatly against human rights in usurping the ownership of a large share of the American soil. It can, of course, enact no laws, and exert no influence, against land monopoly, whilst it is itself the mammoth monopolist of land. This Government has presumed to sell millions of acres, and to give away millions of acres. It has lavished land on States, and corporations, and individuals, as if it were itself the Great Maker of the land. Our State Governments, also, have been guilty of assuming to own the soil. They, too, need repent. And they will repent, if the Federal Government will lead the way. Let this Government distinctly disclaim all ownership of the soil; and, everywhere within its jurisdiction, let it forbid land monopoly, and prescribe the maximum quantity of land, which an individual may possess, and the State Governments will not fail to be won by so good and so attractive an example. And if the Governments of this great nation shall acknowledge the right of every man to a spot of earth for a home, may we not hope, that the Governments of many other nations will speedily do likewise? Nay, may we not, in that case, regard the age as not distant, when land monopoly, which

numbers far more victims than any other evil, and which is, moreover, the most prolific parent of evil, shall disappear from the whole earth, and shall leave the whole earth to illustrate, as it never can, whilst. under the curse of land monopoly, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man?

But will this Government take this step, which we have now called on it to take Will it go forward in this work of truth and love ? Will it have a part, and the most honorable part, in bringing all this blessedness and glory upon the human family? A more important question has never been addressed to it; and the passing of this bill would be the most significant and satisfactory answer, which this question could now receive. Let this bill become a law, and, if our Government shall be consistent with itself, land monopoly will surely cease within the limits of the exclusive jurisdiction of that Government. But let this bill be defeated, and let success attend the applications for scores of millions of acres for soldiers, and for hundreds of millions

of acres for railroad and canal companies, and land monopoly will then

be so strongly fastened upon this nation, that violence alone will be able to throw it off. The best hope for the poor will then perish. The most cherished reliance for human progress will then be trodden under foot.

Let it not be supposed, that I would not have the soldier liberally

paid. No man would go further than myself in rewarding the armed servant of the Republic. But I would not have the poor robbed ;—I would not have a high crime committed against humanity ;—even for the sake of doing justice to the soldier. Indeed, justice can never be done by injustice.

Whatever is due to the soldier should be paid—paid promptly—and paid, too, with large interest. But let it be paid in money. And, I would here say, that a little money would he worth more to the soldier than much land. If the land market is to be glutted, as is now proposed, his land will be worth but little to him. It will not sell, at the present time. And with him and his necessitous family, the present time is emphatically all time. They cannot wait, as can the speculator, until the land shall become saleable.

My reference to the speculator affords me an occasion for saying, that, not only the lands, which you let soldiers have, but also the lands, which you let railroad companies and canal companies have, will get into the hands of land speculators. That is their sure and speedy destination; and it is in those hands, that land monopoly works its mightiest mischief, and develops its guiltiest character.

Nor let it be supposed, that there is no railroad and no canal, that I would have Government aid in building. Wherever it can be fairly plead in behalf of the proposed canal or railroad, that it cannot be built without the aid of Government, and that the building of it will furnish Government with an indispensable, or, at least, very important, means for extending that protection, which is ever due from Government; there, I admit, is a case, in which Government is bound to aid. Hence is it, that whilst, on the one hand, I pronounce it to be a gross perversion of its powers, and a wide and guilty departure from its province, for Government to help build canals and railroads, which are to subserve but the ordinary purposes of commerce and travel; I hold, on the other, that Government is bound to offer a liberal, though not an extravagant sum to the company, that shall build the Pacific Railroad— that road being greatly needed, as a facility for affording Governmental protection. Hence is it, too, that the claim on Government to help build the canal around the Falls of St. Mary was a just one. And for the, like reason should Government aid in building the proposed canal around the Falls of Niagara. It is true, that the commercial interests of many of our States call loudly for the building of this canal. Indeed, there is no one thing for which they call so loudly. Nevertheless, I would not, for that reason, have Government respond to the call. But because this canal might prove an important means in the hands of Government of affording that protection, which it owes to the persons and property of its subjects, I should feel bound to vote the liberal aid of Government in building it. Moreover, Government would be grossly inconsistent, if, so long as it looks to the possibility of war, it should refuse to vote two or three millions of dollars to the company, that might thereby be induced to furnish Government with this means of transporting its vessels, munitions, and provisions of war, between Lakes Erie and Ontario.