President Lincoln and the Homestead Act

[David Lockmiller]

The New York Times wrote in a single paragraph near the end of its editorial:

“The purpose of the federal government, Lincoln wrote to Congress on July 4, 1861, was ‘to elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial burdens from all shoulders, and to give everyone an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.’ The Homestead Act in particular was a concrete step in that direction: 10 percent of all the land in the United States was ultimately distributed in 160-acre chunks. But Lincoln’s conception of ‘everyone’ did not include everyone: The Homestead Act rested on the expropriation of Native American lands.”

Implicit in this one paragraph statement made by the Editorial Board of the New York Times is that President Abraham Lincoln himself had done something morally wrong. In my opinion, the “cheap shot” denigration of the character and reputation of Abraham Lincoln in the Editorial pages of the New York Times in this manner (without President Abraham Lincoln being able to defend himself) is unwarranted and should not be permitted to go unchallenged.

On May 28, 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed by President Jackson. The Act allowed the government to divide land west of the Mississippi to give to Indian tribes in exchange for the land they’d lost. The government would pick up the cost of relocating the Indians and helping them resettle.

In 1838, President Martin Van Buren sent federal troops to march the remaining southern Cherokee holdouts 1,200 miles to Indian Territory in the Plains. Disease and starvation were rampant, and thousands died along the way, giving the tortuous journey the nickname “Trail of Tears.”

In 1851, Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act which created the Indian reservation system and provided funds to move Indian tribes onto farming reservations and hopefully keep them under control. Indians were not allowed to leave the reservations without permission. For Indians, reservation life was restraining, and the land Natives were forced to occupy were often too small to raise animals or hunt on and not viable agriculturally.

In response to Episcopal Bishop Henry Whipple, who lobbied the president to reform the corrupt Indian agency system, Lincoln pledged that "if we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed." In his December, 1862 annual message to Congress, President Lincoln urged that Congress change the system. (See “President Lincoln and the Sioux Indian uprising in Minnesota in 1862” thread, post #1, dated April 16, 2013.) President Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865.

Before the Civil War, similar legislative acts to the Homestead Act signed by President Lincoln in 1862 had been proposed in 1852, 1854 and 1859, but were defeated by a powerful southern lobby that feared new territories populated by homesteaders would be allowed into the Union as 'free states,' thereby giving more power to the abolitionist movement.

In fact, Homestead Act legislation had been passed by both houses of Congress in 1860 (before Lincoln became President) and only needed the signature of then President Buchanan to become law. However, in 1860, President James Buchanan vetoed this earlier homestead bill, succumbing to pressure from southern slave-holding interests.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to be President of the United States on the basis of promises made in the Republican Party platform of 1860, including the specific call for a Homestead Act.

In fact, in the second paragraph of the same New York Times editorial, the Editorial Board appears to be expressing its own whole-hearted approval of all the legislation signed into law by President Lincoln that day in 1862:

"Between May and July 1862, even as Confederate victories in Virginia raised doubts about the future of the Union, Congress and President Abraham Lincoln kept their eyes on the horizon, enacting three landmark laws that shaped the nation’s next chapter: The Homestead Act allowed Western settlers to claim 160 acres of public land apiece; the Morrill Act provided land grants for states to fund universities; and the Pacific Railway Act underwrote the transcontinental railroad.”