From the poor whites of the upland
region of the South came a similar demand formulated by the Tennessee
tailor, Andrew Johnson, later President of the United States, who
introduced his first homestead bill in 1845. From the Western pioneers
and settlers came the demand for increased population and development of
resources, leading both to homesteads for settlers and land grants for
railways. The opposition came from manufacturers and landowners of the
East and from the Southern slave owners. The West and East finally
combined and the policy of the West prevailed, but not before the South
had seceded from the Union.
Not the entire reform was accepted. The Western spirit dominated. The
homestead law, as finally adopted in 1862, granted one hundred and sixty
acres as a free gift to every settler. But the same Congress launched
upon a policy of extensive land grants to railways. The homestead
legislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to those which
sprang of a different policy of the Australian colonies, but did not
carry out the broad principles of inalienability and land limitation of
the original Agrarians.
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