The remaining public lands are subject to entry under the homestead law, the desert land law, and the timber and stone act; by the location of scrip; and as town-site entries. Mineral lands are subject to entry only under the mining laws; and special laws provide for the disposal of coal lands and lands containing petroleum. Any person who is the head of a family or is over twenty-one years old, and who is a citizen of the United States, or has declared his or her intention to become such, may enter 160 acres of land without cost, except the land-office fees provided by law, inhabiting, cultivating, and making actual residence thereon for the period of five years; or such a settler may at the expiration of fourteen months from date of settlement commute the entry by paying the government price for the land.
No part of the public domain is now (since 1889) subject to private cash entry, except in the state of Missouri and in cases where Congress has made special provision therefor. The preemption and timber culture laws were repealed in 1891. It has also been provided that no public lands of the United States shall be sold by public sale, except abandoned military reservations of less than 5,000 acres, mineral lands and other lands of a special nature, and isolated tracts that have been subject to homestead entry for three years after the surrounding land has been disposed of.
HOW SLAVERY WAS ABOLISHED IN THE SEVERAL STATES.
The slave trade was prohibited by congress in 1808. From that time on it was a felony to bring slaves into the United States.
Slavery never legally existed in the states carved out of the Northwest
Territory. It was forbidden by the ordinance of 1787.
Vermont abolished it in forming her state constitution in 1777. [Footnote:
Before her admission into the Union.]
Massachusetts, by constitution, 1780.
Pennsylvania, gradual abolition by statute, began in 1780; had 64 in 1840.
New Hampshire, by constitution, 1783.
Rhode Island and Connecticut, gradual abolition, 1784.