Homestead Act

Examples of Homestead Act in the following topics:

• Government During the War

  • With the establishment of the Confederacy, Republicans in Congress enacted sweeping federal changes, including implementation of the Morrill Tariff and passage of the Homestead Act, Pacific Railroad Act, and National Banking Act.
  • The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 promoted the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the United States.
  • The 1862 Homestead Act opened up public-domain lands for family farms at no cost.
  • This act was unpopular among Southern slaveholders, who wanted to see more land dedicated to plantations.
  • The government also sponsored agricultural training programs during this period, through the newly established Department of Agriculture and the Morrill Land Grant College Act.

• The End of the Frontier

  • The Southerners resisted Homestead Acts because they supported the growth of a free farmer population that might oppose slavery.
  • When the Republican Party came to power in 1860, it promoted a free land policy—notably the Homestead Act of 1862—coupled with railroad land grants that opened cheap (but not free) lands for settlers.

• The Rise of the Republican Party

  • Republicans sponsored bills, such as the homestead program, that would give western lands to individual (non-slave owning) farmers, and supported internal improvements designed to facilitate commercial travel to the frontier and develop infrastructure.
  • To that end, Republicans supported various railroad- and steamboat-building projects, approved the construction of new canals and roads, wrote legislation for higher tariffs as entrepreneurial incentives for financiers and industrialists, and passed homestead acts that enabled thousands of families to move west to establish productive farms and form larger communities.

• Women and the Law

  • The Married Women's Property Act of 1839 was an act of statute in the state of Mississippi that significantly altered the law regarding property rights granted to married women, allowing them to own and control their own property.
  • This was the first of a series of Married Women's Property Acts issued in the United States.
  • The Married Women's Property Act of 1848 was a statute in New York State.
  • Paulina Wright Davis, Ernestine Rose, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were among the activists who pressed for the act.
  • The Married Women's Property Act set a precedent for women's property rights that is thought to have influenced legislators' decision to maintain gender-neutral language in the Homestead Act of 1862, allowing any individual to file an application for a federal land grant.

• Union Finances

  • The Morrill Tariff and the Homestead Act were among the far-reaching changes enacted by Congress in this period to fulfill the Republican vision of an industrial nation.
  • The Union also levied the nation's first income tax with the Revenue Act of 1862.
  • The Legal Tender Act of 1862 was enacted in February 1862 to issue paper money to finance the war.

• Allocating Scarce Natural Resources

  • It is equally arbitrary to assume the government is the owner and then give the resources away or sell them (e.g. in the US, the Homestead Act) as it is to assume the government is the owner and always will be (e.g. in classical "Communist" countries).
  • Government-as-trustee II, acting for the public, could lease selected portions of these resources to the highest bidder, and the net receipts disbursed in equal amounts to all members of the public in the form of a social dividend.

• Territorial Government

  • The Homestead Act granted 160 acres to each settler (whether a citizen or noncitizen, and including squatters and women) who improved the land for five years, for no more than modest filing fees.
  • The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 provided for the land needed to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
  • The land given to the railroads alternated with government-owned tracts saved for distribution to homesteaders.

• The Farm Problem and Agrarian Protest Movements

  • Part of this settlement can be attributed to: the influx of immigrants, the Homestead Act, and railroad construction.

• The End of the Open Range

  • With the Homestead Act of 1862, more settlers came west to set up farms.
  • Barbed wire, invented in 1874, gradually made inroads in fencing off privately owned land, especially for homesteads.

• Women in the West

  • Pioneer women made important decisions and were considered by their husbands to be more equal partners in the success of the homestead.
  • While homesteaders were often families, gold speculators and ranchers tended to be single men in pursuit of fortune.
  • Protestant missionaries eventually joined the women in their efforts, and Congress responded by passing both the Comstock Law (named after its chief proponent, anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock) in 1873 to ban the spread of “lewd and lascivious literature” through the mail, and the subsequent Page Act of 1875 to prohibit transportation of women into the United States for employment as prostitutes.