as judged by those representing the free holding tradition, offered some hope that the laws were in a state of transition and that land soon would be available at a price and in parcels they could afford.

A first term delegate to the House of Representatives from the Northwest Territory, William Henry Harrison, later to become President of the United States, proposed a further revision of the existing land laws on the day before Christmas 1799. The Congress appointed a Committee to study the resolution with Harrison as its Chairman. 23/

Two months later, the Harrison Committee issued its report to the Congress. The revisions recommended by the Committee were quickly translated into the Land Law of 1800.

The Harrison Act provided for the sale of land west of the Muskingum River in Ohio at public auction in half sections of 320 acres for $2.00 per acre. The lands east of the river were to be sold in 640-acre tracts.

The operations of the land offices were enlarged by making provision for a register at four land offices of Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Marietta, and Steubenville.

The Act introduced another feature attractive to settlers -- a system of credit. 24

In 1804, the Congress further reduced the minimum quantity of land that could be purchased from 320 to 160 acres; thereby continuing the trend of favoring the small farm purchasers. 25/

Up to the time of the passage of the Land Act of 1800, the Federal Government had sold 1,281,860 acres for $1,050,085. In the two years following the passage of the Act of 1804, the Federal Government had grossed $2,190,354 in land revenue. 26/

The raise constituted a substantial increase in land revenue. The increase can be attributed, in part, to the liberalization of the land laws in favor of the small purchasers.

In April 1803, President Jefferson's diplomatic mission to France acquired Louisiana from Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The purchase added about 530 million acres to the already existing public lands making a total of more than 760 million acres.

Monroe and Livingston, the American ministers who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, obtained it for $23,213,568, or about four cents an acre. 27 The purchase, added to the already existing domain, constituted approximately 108.5 acres per person in the United States. This can be appreciated by contrasting it with the slightly more than two acres per capita of public land now remaining.

He

Jefferson sensed the right moment to approach Napoleon. knew France had financial problems. He was aware of the war clouds forming over the English Channel, between France and England. He knew, as did Napoleon, that the two nations could be at war any moment. Combining the two situations, Jefferson instructed the American representatives to inform France that the United States must have Louisiana either by purchase or by war. Bonaparte chose the former.

The ink had hardly dried on the Louisiana transaction when Jefferson began formulating a policy for the new acquisition. In a letter to John Brenkenridge Jefferson wrote:

The future inhabitants of the Atlantic and
Mississippi States will be our sons. We leave
them in distinct but bordering establishments.
We think we see their happiness in their union
and we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise;
and if they see their interest in separation,
why should we take side with our Atlantic
rather than our Mississippi descendants? It
is the elder and the younger son differing.
God bless them both, and keep them in union,
if it be for their good, but separate them if
it be better. The inhabited part of Louisiana,
from Point Coupee to the sea, will of course be
immediately a territorial government, and soon
a State. But above that, the best use we can
make of the country for some time, will be to
give establishments in it to the Indians on the
East side of the Mississippi, in exchange for

their present country, and open land offices
in the last, and thus make this acquisition
the means of filling up the eastern side,
instead of drawing off its population.

When
we shall be full on this side, we may lay off

a range of States on the western bank from the
head to the mouth, and, so, range after range,
advancing compactly as we multiply.
28

Jefferson penned his letter only four months after the "Purchase was signed in Paris.

Frederick Jackson Turner summed his evaluation of the significance of the Louisiana Purchase in his The Frontier in American History, when he wrote:

The purchase of Louisiana was perhaps the
constitutional turning point in the history
of the Republic. 29

If it were possible to prepare a ledger of the benefits that America has derived from the Louisiana Purchase, it most certainly would include such descriptive phrases as the bread basket of America, the heartland, and America's mineral reservoir.

The lands acquired in the Purchase became the backbone of the later Homestead Act, the Land Grant Agricultural College Act, and the transcontinental railroad grants. Thirteen States were eventually created out of the Louisiana Purchase. 30/

The United States with more than 700 million acres of land in 1803 was still without a Bureau or office charged with the management of its landed estate.

In a short period between the time we purchased Louisiana and the formation of the General Land Office in 1812, there was a steady and ever-increasing number of land hungry Americans moving westward over the Appalachian Mountains into the Mississippi River Basin. The great demand for land eventually persuaded Congress to establish a General Land Office.

On April 25, 1812, the advocates of such an office won their battle. 31/

The legislation creating the General Land Office came on the eve of the war of 1812 at a critical period in our history. Many of the representatives who wanted a Land Bureau were also exerting pressure in and out of the legislative branch for a declaration of war against Great Britain to protect the Nation's western lands, and its freedom of the seas.

It is interesting that many of the important laws concerning the United States public domain were passed in periods of great national emergency. The Homestead Act, the Land Grant Railroad Act, and the Land Grant College Act for instance were passed in 1862 at a very low point for the Union during the Civil War.

The new office assumed the responsibility for the management of 766,737,280 acres of public land; of assisting the ever growing numbers of Americans seeking a home on the public lands; of managing the lands in such a way as to assure the maximum revenue to the Federal Government. Therein were the major responsibilities of the newly formed General Land Office.

The Organization of the General Land Office

The Congress, in creating the General Land Office, drew upon many of the earlier land laws for a basis on which to build. The Act of April 25, 1812 provided for the appointment of a Commissioner by the President with the "advice and consent" of the Congress. The Commissioner was charged with the duties of "performing all such acts and things touching or respecting the public lands of the United States ..." His salary was set at $2250 per year. He was given authorization for a chief clerk and a certain number of subordinate clerks as the work demanded. 32/

The Secretary of the Treasury was to remain as the receiver of all accounts, and the Secretary of War as the administrator of all military land warrants.