CHAPTER XX
FULL FRUITS OF AMERICANISM
It is simply a deduction from facts given in the preceding pages to say that by 1825 the trans-Alleghenian region had come into its own. It was sufficient to itself in population, resources, and leadership. The premiership of the Atlantic plain had passed. Foreign relations were secondary to domestic concerns. The Monroe doctrine was called out by foreign menace. It was voiced by Eastern statesmen; but it was based upon the support of the inland people, who had nerved the Administration to the War of 1812.
The fidelity of the Western people was no longer questioned. The Union cherished their interests and they supported the Union. Their dealings were almost exclusively with the Federal Government and not with the States. The public land, from which their homes had been secured and their States largely formed, was administered by the central power and entirely for their accommodation. The land policy of the Government was unselfish to a marked degree.
The original two million acres of public lands sold to the Ohio Company was reduced to less than a million. Soon after, another million was sold to John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, on a speculation, of which about one-fourth was eventually taken. The State of Pennsylvania purchased the "Erie triangle," in order to get a north-west frontage on Lake Erie. These three sales were accomplished under the Confederation. The price averaged about seventy-five cents an acre.
The care of the public lands had been given to the Treasury Department. Hamilton, in 1790, presented to Congress an elaborate plan for their disposal. Under this plan, individuals were to be dealt with as well as companies. Lots of one square mile, containing 640 acres, were to be placed upon sale at two dollars per acre. Public offerings were to be made at Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia. But the hostility of the Indians reduced the number of purchasers. Prior to 1800, only a million acres had been disposed of in this manner. A law of that year provided a system of registers and receivers, to be stationed at land offices scattered through the North-west Territory. A credit system was also established, whereby so small a portion as a half-section could be purchased on instalment payments, with interest at six per cent. This law made the lands very attractive, as credit propositions always are. Prospective landholders rushed across the mountains and stood in line before the register's doors. The saying, "Doing a land-office business," brings the scene to the imagination. As the embargo and the War of 1812 cut off men from employment on the sea and along the coast, their attention was directed to the possibilities of the public lands. Between 1800 and 1820, nearly twenty million acres were sold, bringing in cash receipts of over forty-five million dollars. After 1806, the old certificates and other forms of government paper were no longer received in payment for lands. The credit system had been adopted to allow poor men to purchase farms and pay for them from the products of the land. But it tempted many to purchase more land than they could pay for. In order to relieve these creditors, Congress passed no less than fourteen acts. One of these reduced the price for future purchasers to $1.25 an acre and made it possible to purchase so small a quantity as eighty acres. This clemency brought further demands and paved the way for the later pre-emption acts.
The Ordinance of 1787 had declared that schools and the means of education should be for ever encouraged, while the Land Ordinance of 1785 provided funds by setting aside a section of land in every township of the public domain. Endowments had also been made for religious purposes from the Ohio Company lands and from the Symmes purchase; but the practice was discontinued thereafter, probably owing to the difficulty of administering the land without recognising some sect. After much discussion, Congress decided not to retain the management of the school lands, but to hand them over to the inhabitants of the township, the State acting as trustee. This provision was incorporated in the formative act of every State and Territory until the organisation of the Oregon Territory. It was a tribute to home rule. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were the States benefited in this way before 1825. The States which contained no public lands were obviously deprived of this resource. The income from the school lands has been small in each State compared with the sum raised by local taxation for educational purposes; but the gratitude inuring to the Central Government for its charity toward what has become almost a fetich, free education, must be noticed in describing the unification of the American people.
Mention has been made of the share of land sale receipts under which the Cumberland Road was begun. The original purpose was to cross the watershed from the Potomac to the Ohio. In 1820, the great work was completed to Wheeling, on the Ohio. Three waggons could be drawn abreast over the greater part of its length. Solid stone bridges arched the watercourses. The well-paved surface greatly reduced the length of time required for carrying the mails across the mountains. Rapid stage lines and freight waggons of large capacity passed to and fro. Droves of cattle and hogs were frequently met, passing over it to an Eastern market. More than $1,800,000 had already been spent by the National Government on its construction, being "advanced" in anticipation of the land sales.
Here the hand of compulsion showed itself. The States of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, with whom bargains had been made for spending part of the proceeds of the land sales in building roads to their borders, complained that a road to the Ohio did not fulfill the contract. Hence the road was extended through the capitals of these States, committing the Federal Government for many years to come to one form at least of internal improvement. The farce of "advancing" the money was continued a while longer.
Of the four great highways over the Allegheny watershed, contemplated by Gallatin in his report in 1808, the Cumberland Road was the only one realised. No excuse similar to the one under which it was begun ever presented itself, and the party vision was not sufficiently national to undertake public improvements unless in disguise. The strict-construction theory that these works should be built by the individual States threw upon the newer States a burden which they could ill afford to bear. The West was almost ready to revolt against the hidebound policy of the Administrations.