The Homestead Act — proposed by President Abraham Lincoln and signed into law during 1862, at the height of the Civil War — was a brilliant and farseeing effort to oppose the Southern slave economy with a Jeffersonian vision of a continent-sized nation of independent property-holders, stretching from ocean to ocean. The device Lincoln created to establish this vision was simple: Allowing any American citizen, or prospective citizen, to file a claim on the millions of acres of surveyed but unappropriated public lands. Applicants for a homestead had to be at least 21 years of age, to be the head of a household, and to swear that they had never taken up arms against the US government.
Lincoln’s Homestead Act didn’t favor educated classes or elite financial institutions at the expense of ordinary people. Lincoln’s goal was for as many Americans as possible to become self-sufficient, raise healthy families, and pursue opportunity. Upon payment of a small filing fee, applicants to the Homestead Act received a grant of 160 acres of public land upon which to live, build a home, and farm. After five continuous years of residence and cultivation, and after the payment of a second small fee, applicants were deeded full ownership of their land. Instead of being slaves or slave-masters, or the captives of urban political machines, Lincoln’s new Americans would be free men and women — people who could shape a new and better American future.
In practice, of course, Lincoln’s plan did not always go the way the Great Emancipator hoped. Much of the land distributed by the Homestead Act wound up in the hands of speculators and big railroads. Many would-be farmers failed and quit, went bankrupt, or worse. But for millions of Americans who pursued the opportunity to own land, the Homestead Act proved itself a spur to independence and became a fantastically successful device in settling the West. In fact, the Homestead Act was so successful that it remained the law of the land for well over a century, until it was repealed through the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. The last claim under the Homestead Act was granted in Alaska, twelve years later.
We at County Highway don’t favor a massive giveaway of America’s remaining public lands. In most cases, their climates are too inhospitable for viable agricultural homesteads, and are too remote for commercial endeavors. The Grand Tetons are doing just fine the way they are. We do believe, however, that America and Americans would be well served by a wise investment in programs that would make it possible for individuals and families to support themselves outside of large cities, where the housing stock is largely owned by banks and giant corporations, failing schools are the captives of teachers’ unions, the food supply consists of chemically laden and genetically altered Frankenfoods that make us sick — and where the social pyramid consists of a top layer of multimillionaires; a middle layer of their insecure professional retainers and trainers and chefs; and a giant underclass of Uber drivers, healthcare workers, and the dispossessed.