Possession is Nine Points of the Law: The Political Economy of Early Public Land Disposal

EXPLORATIONS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY ARTICLE NO.

33, 227–249 (1996)

0010

Possession is Nine Points of the Law: The Political Economy of Early Public Land Disposal MARK T. KANAZAWA1 Department of Economics, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota 55057 Early federal policies for disposal of public lands underwent significant changes in the first 40 years of their existence. Though the first policies established around 1800 called for sales of public lands based on competitive auction bidding, by the 1830s this system had been importantly supplanted by the policy of preemption, which legitimated the claims of squatters and freed them from competition for their lands. This paper examines the political economy of public land disposal from 1789 to 1830 and documents how squatters helped bring about this policy change: both by disrupting the operation of the auction system and by applying political pressure for favorable land policies. The paper also reports the results of an econometric analysis of congressional roll-call voting which provides insight into the nature of the political coalitions that formed in support of passage of the first general preemption act of 1830. r 1996 Academic Press, Inc.

I. INTRODUCTION During the early 1800s, settlement of the public lands was a major policy focus of the federal government. In 1796 and 1800, Congress passed two laws that established the first public land disposal programs under the new republic. In order to raise badly needed revenue for the federal treasury, these laws mandated disposal through competitive auction sales administered by a network of regional land offices, and established the General Land Office to oversee the regional offices. Also mandated were terms and conditions under which land would be sold; for example, settlers could buy on credit, and the auction price could not fall below a specified minimum level. For over 40 years, the auction system consti-

1 The author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the graduate division at UC— Berkeley, where he was Wantrup Fellow in Natural Resource Economics from 1989 to 1991. Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 1990 annual meetings of the Western Economic Association and the 1994 annual meetings of the Economic History Association. For useful comments, the author thanks Yoram Barzel, Gavin Wright, Ron Teeples, David Feeny, Loren Brandt, Alan Olmstead, seminar participants in the Economics Departments of UC—Berkeley, Stanford, UC— Davis, and Claremont, and two extremely helpful anonymous referees. All remaining errors are, of course, mine.

227 0014-4983/96 $18.00 Copyright r 1996 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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tuted the primary avenue whereby settlers could acquire public land. During this time, nearly 90 million acres of public lands passed into private hands.2 An interesting subsequent development was the superimposition on the auction system of an alternative avenue for public land acquisition. In the 1830s, Congress passed a series of temporary general statutes that permitted settlers already occupying public lands (squatters) to purchase the lands at the minimum price free from outside competition. These statutes established the principle of preemption, which was later permanently codified in the Preemption Act of 1841. Preemption contravened the auction system by making it unnecessary for squatters to bid competitively for their lands at auction. Since squatting was quite prevalent during this period, granting preemption rights may have jeopardized the ability of the government to raise revenues at auction sales. How do we understand Congress’ willingness to establish a policy of preemption which was apparently in direct conflict with the objectives of the auction system? The ascendancy of preemption may be understood as a process whereby squatter rights were legitimized and integrated into federal land disposal policies. Early congresses made every effort to suppress squatters’ rights, even passing a law in 1807 calling for the use of military force to remove squatters from public lands. Over time, however, Congress took an increasingly lenient stance toward squatters, granting preemption rights selectively in individual cases before passing the first general preemption law in 1830. Squatting activity probably influenced this policy evolution in two distinct ways. First, squatters exerted political pressure on Congress for preemption through numerous memorials and petitions, and through western congressmen who represented their interests in Congress. The story is, however, more than simply the emergence of a new interest group with effective political power. Squatters also disrupted the operation of the local land auctions, thus reducing auction revenues and making adoption of preemption less unacceptable to its (mostly eastern) opponents in Congress. They thus altered the terms of the political debate in their favor, enabling them to gain valuable policy concessions. The rise of preemption can be understood only if one recognizes the significant cost of enforcing federal property rights to the public lands. With zero enforcement costs, of course, squatters could have been effectively excluded from public lands, and the demand for preemption would not have arisen. This conception is quite different from that of recent studies which have taken a property rights approach to understanding early public land disposal. According to Anderson and Hill (1990), for example, settlers raced into the western territories to secure property rights under the Homestead Act, which resulted in rent dissipation and inefficiently early settlement.3 More recently, Allen (1991) has argued that acreage ceilings under the Homestead Act encouraged geographically concentrated settlement, which reduced the need for government protection against 2 3

See, for example, Hibbard, (1924), p. 103. Anderson and Hill (1990).

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hostile natives and helped to protect the borders against foreign governments.4 Both Anderson and Hill and Allen model settlers as essentially playing within the rules established by the government. Neither study investigates how settlers might try to alter the rules, either by behaving disruptively at the local auctions or by applying political pressure to create new land disposal programs or revise existing ones. This study examines the earliest period of public land settlement, in order to document the genesis and evolution over time of the early disposal programs. After a brief description of these programs, I develop a simple model of public land settlement that subsumes Anderson and Hill’s homesteading model and derives the efficiency implications of different land disposal mechanisms. This model also permits us to understand the motivations and behavior of squatters, which ultimately led to passage of the general preemption acts of the 1830s, and the beginning of the end of the competitive auction system. After a brief discussion of the tactics used by squatters to disrupt the operation of the local auctions, I examine the political history of the early land disposal programs, which documents how squatters may have influenced the evolution of these programs. I then report the results of an econometric analysis of congressional voting on the first general preemption act of 1830, which appear to confirm the political influence of squatters in the passage of that act. The analysis also characterizes the nature of the political coalition which ultimately supported preemption, an issue of some controversy among historians and economic historians. Finally, I conclude by offering some suggestions for future research. II. EARLY PUBLIC LAND DISPOSAL POLICIES Early federal policies attempted to provide for orderly settlement of the public lands. In 1796 and 1800, Congress passed the first of the public land laws, which called for public land surveys, the establishment of local land offices to administer federal land disposal policy, and the creation of the General Land Office to oversee the local offices. Local offices were directed to auction off designated tracts of public land to the highest bidder and were permitted to offer credit to prospective purchasers. Land was not to be sold for less than an established minimum price ($2 per acre prior to 1820, $1.25 thereafter), and any land not sold at auction was subject to private entry; that is, after the conclusion of the auction, anyone could purchase unsold land at the minimum price. Figure 1 illustrates the pattern of public land sale during the first four decades of the 1800s. Despite having established legal mechanisms for land sales, Congress quickly found that large numbers of settlers were squatting on federal lands. This occurred partly because it took time for the General Land Office to survey the lands and establish the administrative mechanisms for orderly land sales, and many settlers were unwilling to wait. Even in the immediate post-Revolutionary period,

4

Allen (1991).

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FIG. 1. Annual federal land sales, 1800–1841. Source: Hibbard, Benjamin H. (1924), A History of the Public Lands Policies. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press. Pp. 100, 103.

squatting on the public lands was occurring with regularity.5 In floor debate in the very first Congress in 1789, one congressman alluded to the ‘‘great number of people’’ on the public lands.6 By the early 1800s, large numbers of squatters occupied a number of midwestern states. Robbins (1962) estimates, for example, that by 1828 fully two-thirds of the population of Illinois were illegally squatting on federal land.7 Squatters were a disruptive element whose presence on the frontier created conflicts between squatters and both Indians and legitimate settlers and damaged the ability of the Land Office to raise revenues at auction. In an address to Congress shortly before passage of the 1796 act, for example, Washington alludes to the possible need for government action to stem conflicts between squatters and Indians: ‘‘The provisions heretofore made with a view to the protection of the Indians from the violences of the lawless part of our frontier inhabitants are insufficient. . . . Unless the murdering of Indians can be restrained by bringing the murderers to condign punishment, all the exertions of the Government, to prevent destructive retaliations by the Indians will prove fruitless, and all our present agreeable prospects illusory.’’8

Some early attempts were made to evict squatters from the public lands, but these efforts were largely unsuccessful. During the late 1780s, the militia was sent 5

Hibbard (1924), pp. 144–145. Annals of Congress, 1st Congress, 1st session, p. 428. 7 Robbins (1962), p. 49. For other discussions of the magnitude of squatting activity, see Bogue (1958), and Turner (1958). 8 Annals of Congress, 4th Congress, 1st session, p. 13. See also earlier remarks made by Congressman Scott on such conflicts in Annals, 1st Congress, 1st session, p. 648. 6

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into the Ohio Valley at least four times to remove illegal squatters and destroy their settlements. In each case, the settlers quickly came back and in greater numbers.9 In one early recorded instance, the government dispatched troops to block settlers from moving onto federal lands.10 In 1807 Congress passed a law prohibiting unauthorized settlement on federal lands and empowered the president to take steps to remove squatters, including the use of military force.11 This law remained on the books for many years, but was rarely invoked. Most of the time, the government responded passively to intrusions on the public lands, either taking no action or action which was largely symbolic.12 After some early futile attempts to evict squatters, Congress began to grant special exemptions to squatters on a selective basis, which in effect legitimized their settlements on public lands. The exemptions, known as preemptions, allowed squatters to purchase lands which they had settled and developed, at the minimum price and free from competitive bids. By 1816 Congress had granted preemption rights to nearly 212,000 acres, mostly in Ohio and Mississippi.13 Then in 1830 Congress passed the first of a series of temporary preemption laws which applied generally to all squatter claims on federal lands. This law was renewed in 1832, 1834, and 1838, and was then followed by a permanent preemption law in 1841. When these laws were passed, the federal government was still relying heavily on land auctions to dispose of the public lands. Thus, for a number of years after 1830, settlers could acquire land either by bidding for it at auction or by attempting to gain a preemption right. III. ENFORCEMENT COSTS AND SETTLER BEHAVIOR How do we understand the decision of early settlers whether to bid for public lands at auction? In the absence of an alternative means of acquiring public land, a settler would simply weigh the discounted stream of future benefits (over and above the next best alternative, e.g., staying put back east) against the acquisition price plus any additional costs required to perfect the claim. Calling the value of this future stream of benefits X and the cost of perfecting the claim C, the settler would place a maximum bid of B*, equal to (X 2 C). Bidding competition would then tend to drive the rents of settlers to zero and, in the absence of information problems (regarding, say, the quality of the tract), would lead to reasonably efficient settlement.14 Now suppose that the settler has the option to squat on public lands in order to avoid competition at auction. The advantage of squatting is, of course, that he avoids paying B*. On the other hand, he faces the possibility of discovery and 9

Rohrbough (1990), pp. 14–15; Hibbard (1924), p. 42. Hibbard (1924), p. 145. 11 ‘‘An Act to prevent settlements being made on lands ceded to the United States, until authorized by law.’’ U.S. Stats., 9th Congress, 2nd session, chap. 46. 12 Hibbard (1924), p. 151. 13 American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 3, p. 149. 14 See also Dennen (1977), and Anderson and Hill (1990). 10

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eviction, thus losing his claim to the future stream of benefits X, plus possibly being assessed a further penalty. Call this penalty Y, which is incurred only if the settler is evicted, and let P be the probability that the settler is evicted. Assuming that the costs C are incurred before eviction occurs, this settler can then expect a return of ER 5 (1 2 P)X 2 PY 2 C

(1)

and has incentive to squat if ER . 0.15 To the settler, the attractiveness of squatting depends upon the probability of eviction, as does the efficiency of the resulting settlement pattern. At one extreme, P 5 0, and the expected returns from squatting reduce to (X 2 C). In this case, the settler will prefer to squat, as he can avoid having to pay the competitive bid B*. However, with positive rents at stake, squatters may use resources in competing to establish claims, thus dissipating a significant portion of these rents. If so, the result can be a race for property rights a la Anderson and Hill, leading to inefficiently early settlement. At the other extreme, P 5 1, and the expected returns from squatting are negative. In this case, there is no incentive to squat and settlers will revert to bidding for their lands at auction, which again leads to efficient settlement.16 In actuality, it was probably costly for the government to monitor trespassing on the public lands in many cases, making eviction unlikely to occur. With P significantly less than one, squatting could have been profitable as long as the penalty for squatting was sufficiently low. During this time period, the only penalty which appears to have been assessed was destruction of the squatter’s investment in his claim, or C. Assuming this to be the penalty, substitute in C for Y in Eq. (1) ER 5 (1 2 P)X 2 (1 2 P)C

(2)

which is positive as long as P , (X 2 C)/(X 1 C).

(3)

Thus, the larger is X relative to C, the higher is the threshold probability of 15 This analysis makes the simplifying assumption that the squatter, if not evicted, can realize the full net benefits X from developing the land. In some cases, squatting may have merely served to postpone the date at which the settler would have to pay for a valid land title. The value of squatting would then have to net out the eventual transaction price, which would likely be more favorable to the settler than the competitive price, for two reasons. First, all else equal, the squatter would have saved an amount equal to interest on the deferred payment. Second, the act of squatting, by conferring informal property rights to the land, may have made it unnecessary for the squatter ultimately to bid competitively for the land, particularly under the implicit rules of the frontier. In any case, making this simplifying assumption does not qualitatively change the results of the analysis. 16 The argument is slightly more complicated if squatters simply move on to other claims after being evicted, which was a definite possibility. In this case, discovery and eviction at one site will not necessarily result in total loss of X, so that settlers could still have incentive to squat, even if the probability of eviction was high.

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eviction that the potential squatter will tolerate. For example, if X was twice the initial investment C, then a risk-neutral settler would have incentive to squat only if the probability of eviction was relatively low: less than 0.33. However, if X was five times C, then the settler would have incentive to squat if P was as high as 0.67. It is easy to see how settlers would have incentive to squat, especially when high-quality land was at stake. Any positive rents from squatting, of course, would tend to be dissipated as squatters use up resources in competing to establish claims. That is, even when government enforcement costs are significant, squatter returns tend to be driven to zero.17 Under these circumstances, many squatters would have favored a federal policy that legitimized their claims, as long as they were not required to pay a stiff acquisition price. The policy of preemption provided this by setting P 5 0, while requiring the squatter to pay a price below the competitive bid B*. Specifically, under preemption, the squatter’s expected returns became ER 5 X 2 C 2 Bmin,

(4)

where Bmin is the actual preemption price ($1.25 per acre after 1820). Assuming that competition to develop claims had driven the expected returns of the squatter’s claim to zero, (1 2 P)X 2 (1 1 P)C 5 0. This implies that the squatter would have used resources to develop his claim such that C5

(1 2 P) (1 1 P)

X.

(5)

Combining Eqs. (4) and (5) and rearranging, we may derive the following condition for positive expected returns from preemption: Bmin ,

2 PX (1 1 P)

.

(6)

Equation (6) says that preemption would have benefited existing squatters as long as the preemption price Bmin was sufficiently low and/or P or X were sufficiently high. Thus, under these conditions we would expect to observe political demand by squatters for preemption. Such political demand for preemption would have been particularly strong when squatters were more likely to be evicted, or when the land on which they were squatting was particularly valuable.

17 The government could have reduced rent dissipation by taking steps to increase P and/or Y, which would have discouraged more settlers to bid for lands at auction. This analysis indicates that if the government had set P . B*/(X 1 Y), this would have been sufficient to deter squatting, as this would have driven the expected returns from squatting to zero. Of course, increasing P would require greater expenditure of resources by the government, and these additional resources would have to be weighed against the losses from rent dissipation.

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IV. SQUATTERS AND THE LOCAL LAND AUCTIONS If squatters would have benefited from reduced competition for their claims, then one might expect them to take private steps to discourage such competition. During a period in which effective local policing agencies were absent in much of the western territories, they accomplished this through active intimidation of local land officials and prospective purchasers at auction. Many historians have remarked on attempts by squatters to discourage competition at the local auctions. Rohrbough (1990), for example, describes an attempt by the Land Office to sell lands in Alabama in 1815: ‘‘As the date for the sale of the district lands approached, the little town of St. Stephens swarmed with squatters, who bullied or begged indulgence from prospective purchasers. When the sales began, it was only with the greatest difficulty and the aid of the marshal that the register could preserve order. Few of the large crowd intended to purchase, but the bulk of the onlookers intended to prevent the sale of squatter tracts.’’18

In other instances, they attempted to deny information to prospective purchasers about the attributes of the land by refusing to let them inspect it prior to the auction. In at least one case, squatters even succeeded in intimidating the local land officer into opening up the land for private entries prior to the conclusion of the auction.19 In order to help enforce their claims, many squatters organized into local extra-legal associations known as claim clubs. The main purpose of the claim clubs was to help squatters secure and maintain rights to land. These claim clubs developed rules and by-laws which governed squatter claims, including regulations on the allowable size of claims and procedures for resolving conflicts among squatters.20 They also facilitated collusion among squatters, enabling them to intimidate auction bidders more effectively and to restrict entry into the public lands by newcomers. Available evidence indicates that these claim clubs were quite numerous. For example, over 100 of these clubs existed during the 1830s in Iowa alone.21 One additional consequence of squatting on the public lands was to encourage the Land Office to dispose of these lands, which occurred when squatting led to conflicts among settlers, or between settlers and the federal government. Sometimes the federal government had to bear significant costs as a result of these conflicts, for example, because they required military intervention. Federal

18

Rohrbough (1990), p. 90. Ibid., pp. 92–93. 20 These claim clubs thus served many of the same functions as the miners’ associations described by Umbeck which developed during the California Gold Rush. See Umbeck (1977). 21 Robbins (1962), pp. 67–68. Many histories have remarked on the use of intimidation by squatters at the auctions, and the central role of claim clubs in defending squatter claims. See, for example, Bogue (1958), and Hibbard (1924), pp. 198–208. 19

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FIG. 2. Average revenue per acre of federal land sold, 1800–1841. Source: Hibbard, Benjamin H. (1924), A History of the Public Lands Policies. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press. Pp. 100, 103.

officials believed that selling the land would largely resolve these conflicts and consequently expedited the land auctions.22 Rohrbough documents, for example, that this occurred with the Creek Cession of 1832 in Alabama, where land surveys were quickly performed and land hurriedly marketed. Interestingly, Commissioner Hayward of the General Land office explicitly argued at the time that the Creek land sales obviated the need to take measures to deal with squatters: ‘‘It is believed that these sales . . . have produced the beneficial effects anticipated, so far as to dissipate the popular excitement previously existing in favor of the actual settlers and to render unnecessary, in a great degree, the resort to active and coercive measure to remove intruders.’’23

V. SQUATTING AND THE POLITICS OF PUBLIC LAND DISPOSAL Even when they were able to organize effectively into claim clubs, collusion and intimidation by squatters at the land auctions only partly solved the problem of acquiring public land at minimum cost. In the late 1810s, auction prices at various land offices soared above the minimum government price of $2.00 per acre, reflecting significant bidding competition at the land auctions (see Fig. 2). It was in the squatters’ interest to somehow eliminate competition for their lands, relief which was provided by the general preemption acts. The right of preemption was won, however, only after nearly 40 years of political pressure had been brought to bear. This section traces the political history of the preemption acts, 22 This is an example of the argument in the property rights literature that de jure property rights will tend to flow toward those agents who can more easily enforce those rights. See, for example, Barzel (1989). 23 Rohrbough (1990). p. 184.

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focusing on the Congressional deliberations which culminated in passage of the first general preemption act in 1830. The possibility of granting preemption rights to squatters was raised in the very first Congress, in debates over establishment of a Land Office and the terms under which land would be disposed of. In July 1789, the House passed a resolution calling for the creation of a Land Office. Among other things, this resolution also called for squatters to be granted preemption rights to land which they had occupied and settled.24 A bill pursuant to these conditions was brought in by committee and considered on the House floor, but was never passed. Two years later, a similar bill actually passed the House, which contained a more vaguely worded preemption right to the effect that ‘‘preference be given for a limited time to those actual settlers,’’ without specifying to what this preference was to pertain, or what it was to consist of.25 This bill, however, died in the Senate, and the preemption issue was not considered again in Congress for several years. In these early congresses, the debates over granting preemption rights were strongly colored by the view that the public lands were an important potential source of revenue for the federal government. This view stemmed in part from the fact that the government had emerged from the Revolutionary period with a substantial debt burden. The following statement by Albert Gallatin in an early House debate over creation of a Land Office, though a bit hyperbolic, communicates the sentiment of many congressmen: ‘‘(T)here (is) no object of so great importance to the United States as the extinction of the curse of the country, the Public Debt. . . .’’26

In his address to the Second Congress, George Washington clearly echoes these sentiments in urging Congress to establish a mechanism for public land sales: ‘‘A provision for the sale of the vacant lands of the United States is particularly urged, among other reasons, by the important considerations, that they are pledged as a fund for reimbursing the public debt; that, if timely and judiciously applied, they may save the necessity of burthening (sic) our citizens with new taxes for the extinguishment of the principal.’’27

Beginning in the late 1790s, petitions and memorials from the western territories requesting preemption rights began to appear in virtually every session of Congress. Many congressmen, however, determined to hold a firm line against preemption. In debates over the 1800 land bill, opponents of preemption defeated an amendment that would have granted to squatters a general right of preemption to a half-section of land.28 Over the next 10 years, the House Committee on Public 24 25 26 27 28

Annals of Congress, 1st Congress, 1st session, pp. 691–692. Annals of Congress, 1st Congress, 3rd session, p. 1964. Annals of Congress, 4th Congress, 1st session, p. 340. U.S. Congressional Globe, Proceedings of the Senate, 2nd Congress, 1st session, p. 15. The congressman who proposed the amendment argued the ‘‘necessity of granting some

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Lands consistently opposed granting the petitions because of their adverse effects on public revenues. In 1806, for example, the committee commented unfavorably on petitions for preemption rights in the Indiana and Mississippi territories, clearly stating the antagonism between preemption rights and auction sales: ‘‘An indulgence in the present instance would encourage abuses in the future, and might eventually lead to an entire abandonment of the existing land system, in exchange for one wholly incompatible with the idea of deriving a revenue from the sale of public lands. . . . (B)y an extension of this right to the claimants, we enable individuals to select and engross the most eligible spots in point of situation and soil, and thereby destroy all competition in the public sales.’’29

Congress did not settle for passively denying petitions for preemption rights, but rather actively attempted to discourage squatting. In 1802, the House Committee on Ways and Means introduced a bill to prevent intrusions into the public lands. Though this bill died, a similar bill was introduced in the Senate in 1807, where it passed by the narrowest of margins, 17 to 15. After a contentious and heated House debate in which several attempts to weaken the bill through amendment were defeated, Congress passed ‘‘An Act to prevent settlements being made on lands ceded to the United States, until authorized by law.’’ This law forbade settlement on public lands and required existing squatters to apply to local land offices for permission to remain as tenants until their claim was sold, at which time they ceded all right to the land. The president was empowered to remove from their claims all squatters not in compliance, by force if necessary. From the debates on the 1807 law, it is clear that Congress viewed squatting as a serious problem and demanding of immediate attention. One congressman even characterized the bill as ‘‘of the greatest importance which had been before the Legislature this session.’’30 Opponents tended to concede that some action was necessary, but argued that the proposed law was draconian and deprived squatters of due process of law. Supporters, on the other hand, argued that the very integrity of public lands policy was at stake; ‘‘The simple question (is), whether the United States should derive any benefit from the public lands, or whether they should be given up to intruders.’’31

In the end, such arguments carried the day. Despite its opposition to squatters’ rights, early congresses occasionally granted indulgence to the intruders on the public lands’’ and actually received significant support: seventeen congressmen voted in favor. Annals of Congress, 6th Congress, 1st session, p. 652. 29 American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, p. 242. See also the 1/23/1804 report of the Committee on Public Lands; Annals of Congress, 8th Congress, 1st session, p. 1588. See also the 11/21/1808 report of the Committee on Public Lands; American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, p. 546. 30 Annals of Congress, 9th Congress, 2nd session, p. 621. 31 Ibid., p. 666.

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MARK T. KANAZAWA TABLE 1 Major Preemption Acts, 1801–1829

Date

Region

Affected settlers

3/3/1801 3/3/1803 3/3/1807 1/19/1808

Northwest Territory Mississippi Michigan Mississippi

4/25/1808

Michigan

2/5/1813 4/12/1814 5/26/1824 5/26/1824

Illinois Louisiana, Missouri Public lands states Arkansas

4/22/1826 3/19/1828

Florida, Mississippi Louisiana

Settlers who had purchased lands from Symmes. Prior British or Spanish grantees; other actual settlers. Prior French or British grantees. Actual settlers who had obtained permission to remain under Act of 1807. Prior French or British grantees; other actual settlers, as of 3/26/1804. All actual settlers. Prior French or Spanish grantees. States given limited grants for locating seats of justice.a Preemption grantees on lands ceded to Cherokees in 1817; settlers permitted to locate other claims. All actual settlers. Actual settlers, as of 3/3/1819.

Source. U.S. Congress, Annals of Congress, various sessions, 1800–1829. Superceded acts passed in 1820 and 1823 which provided grants for locating seats of justice in Ohio and Alabama. a

limited preemption rights on a selective basis. However, far from legitimizing squatters’ rights on principle, these grants were typically conferred only when there were compelling extenuating circumstances. In 1801, for example, Congress granted preemption rights to settlers in the Northwest Territory who had purchased lands from John Cleves Symmes, a judge of the Territory whose own claims to the lands had been nullified.32 Congress also occasionally awarded limited preemption rights when the legitimacy of prior grants made by foreign governments (i.e., France, Britain, or Spain) was at issue, or when it was difficult to separate legitimate prior grants from illegal squatters’ claims. For example, in 1807 Congress passed a law granting preemption rights to certain settlers in Michigan Territory, where a number of grants had been made under both prior French and British rule.33 Table 1 lists all major special preemption acts passed by Congress prior to 1830.34 32 ‘‘An Act giving a right of preemption to certain persons who have contracted with John Cleves Symmes, or his associates, for lands lying between the Miami rivers, in the Territory of the United States Northwest of the Ohio.’’ See Annals of Congress, 6th Congress, 2nd session, pp. 1559–1563. For a more detailed discussion of the Symmes case, see Hibbard (1924), pp. 50–53. 33 ‘‘An Act regulating the grants of land in the Territory of Michigan,’’ Annals of Congress, 9th Congress, 2nd session, pp. 1280–1282. Interestingly, a select House Committee recommended passage of the Michigan law partly on the basis that it would encourage population of the territory and thus make it unnecessary to maintain a military presence there. See American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, p. 244. This position is obviously consistent with Allen’s hypothesis that selfenforcement was an important consideration for early governments. 34 Not listed in this table, for example, are preemption acts which temporarily extended the provisions of earlier acts or which were passed for the benefit of single individuals.

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During the 1810s, petitions for preemption rights continued to flow into Congress. Congress simply denied these petitions in most cases, but did enact two laws in 1813 and 1814 which granted preemption rights to certain settlers in Louisiana and the Illinois and Missouri Territories (see Table 1). The 1813 Illinois law is noteworthy because it was the first law passed by Congress which conveyed blanket preemption rights to all squatters in a specified region and not simply to certain categories of claimants. Furthermore, in enacting this law, Congress took the unusual step of going against the recommendation of the House Committee on Public Lands, which strongly opposed granting blanket preemption rights on the grounds that doing so would encourage future squatting.35 This law was not, however, followed by a flurry of blanket preemption acts and seems anomalous when compared with other preemption laws enacted during this early period. With regard to the remaining squatters, Congress avoided taking any substantive action to suppress their claims, while making feeble attempts to assert its authority. In March 1816, Congress enacted a controversial law which permitted existing squatters to apply to remain as tenants until their claims were sold.36 This privilege was then extended to new squatters in each of the following two sessions of Congress.37 At the same time, Congress continued to be strongly opposed to granting general preemption rights. In congressional deliberations over a bill passed in 1820 which abolished the credit system, Senator Edwards of Illinois proposed an amendment which would have awarded general preemption rights to all actual settlers on the public lands. This amendment was defeated by an overwhelming majority.38 A similar amendment proposed in the House in the following session was also soundly defeated.39 In the 1820s, however, opponents of preemption were gradually forced to give ground before increasingly insistent calls for some form of preemption rights. In 1824, Congress passed a law which awarded limited preemption rights to the governments of all public lands states for locating seats of justice.40 In the same session, the Senate defeated a resolution to repeal the 1807 act to prevent settlements on the public lands.41 In 1826, a bill was introduced into the House which would have permitted squatters to harvest and sell crops grown on public lands. This bill, which obviously had much larger implications than the 1824 bill, was defeated after an adverse report from the Public Lands Committee.42 In the same year, however, supporters of preemption introduced a bill, obviously 35

See American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 2, p. 605. Annals of Congress, 14th Congress, 1st session, pp. 1804–1805. 37 Annals of Congress, 14th Congress, 2nd session, pp. 1340–1341; Annals of Congress, 15th Congress, 1st session, pp. 2570–2571. 38 Annals of Congress, 16th Congress, 1st session, p. 486. 39 Annals of Congress, 16th Congress, 2nd session, p. 1234. 40 Annals of Congress, 18th Congress, 1st session, p. 3270. 41 Ibid., p. 132. 42 American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 4, p. 468. 36

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reminiscent of the 1813 Illinois bill, which would grant blanket preemption rights to squatters in Florida. This bill was subsequently passed.43 During the debate in the House, Congressman White of Florida argued that settlers in his state were only asking for the same right that had already been given to settlers in eight other public land states: ‘‘It is manifest . . . that the system has been adopted and continued almost uniformly in all the States and Territories where there were public lands, and if it was inexpedient, why has it not been arrested before? All that is solicited for Florida is what has been granted elsewhere.’’44

Interestingly, in the debate over the 1826 Florida bill, congressmen from the public lands states were by no means in agreement over the granting of preemption rights. For example, the debate contained a heated exchange between White and a congressman from another public lands state, Samuel Vinton of Ohio. Vinton argued at length against passage of the bill, on the familiar grounds that it would encourage further squatting. White sarcastically retorted: ‘‘The gentleman says we have gone far enough; it is time to stop. Sir, he ought to have been here 30 years ago, when you were voting away such extensive donations to the State he represents; his arguments might have been more forcible then than now: but how does the account stand? Ohio has gotten all that she could ask, and it is time to stop: ‘the system is a bad one.’ ’’45

In the following year, the Senate passed a bill which granted preemption rights to settlers who had forfeited their lands for nonpayment under the credit system. This bill received a favorable report from the House Public Lands Committee before opponents managed to have it tabled. During the House debate, the argument was made that preemption had become a de facto component of public lands policy, with one congressman stating that preemption was ‘‘an established principle of policy.’’46 Then, in 1828, the House Committee on Public Lands came down in favor of a petition for special preemption rights in Michigan and Indiana, arguing for the first time that granting these rights would have little effect on revenues from the public lands: ‘‘The committee conceive(s) that the limited amount above the minimum price per acre which might accrue to the government by refusing the prayer of the petitioners should not be an inducement in coming to the conclusion that the prayer is reasonable and ought to be granted.’’47 43 ‘‘An Act giving the right of preemption in the purchase of Lands, to certain settlers in the State of Alabama, Mississippi, and Territory of Florida.’’ Annals of Congress. 19th Congress, 1st session, Appendix, p. x. 44 Annals of Congress, 19th Congress, 1st session, p. 1424. 45 Ibid., p. 1484. 46 Annals of Congress, 19th Congress, 2nd session, p. 309. 47 American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 5, p. 473.

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The same House committee also explicitly argued that difficulty of enforcing federal rights in the public lands: ‘‘It may be contended that the laws interdict settlement on the public lands. But it is impossible to prevent settlements on the public lands.’’48

These sentiments were given full expression when Congress finally passed the first of the general preemption acts in 1830. Opponents continued to argue that granting preemption rights would encourage further squatting. However, the day was carried by supporters of preemption, who advanced three main arguments. First, as in 1828, they argued that granting preemption rights would not damage public lands revenues because the auction price barely exceeded the preemption price. In addition, they maintained that the 1807 law, though still on the books, was irrelevant because Congress had granted so many exceptions over the years: ‘‘So far from its being settled policy of the Government to prevent intrusions on the public land by others than actual purchasers, the general prohibition of the law of 1807 had been . . . departed from in various instances, so that the bad precedent of reward in violation of the law . . . had in fact been often set, and long ago.’’49

Finally, supporters played down the revenue-generating feature of the public lands, arguing that ‘‘As a source of revenue is by no means the most important view of our public lands, they ought . . . to be considered as a fund, with which to elevate the numerous non-freeholders of our country to the proud rank of freeholders; and to give them new interests in their country, and new motives to promote its prosperity and protect its existence.’’50

This statement stands in stark contrast to the general sentiment, expressed in the early congressional debates, that the ability to raise revenues from the public lands was of paramount importance in setting public lands policy. VI. ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE 1830 PREEMPTION ACT As we have seen, squatters would have favored the preemption acts because they eliminated the possibility of being evicted from their claims, while permitting them to purchase the lands at the minimum price, free from competition at auction. The political history of preemption strongly suggests that squatters exerted long-term political pressure to gain preemption rights. This section examines congressional roll-call voting for evidence that squatters directly contributed to the legislative installation of preemption, through passage of the general preemption acts in the 1830s.

48 49 50

Hibbard (1924), p. 151. Annals of Congress, 21st Congress, 1st session, p. 8. Ibid., p. 9.

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The focus of the econometric analysis will be the 1830 preemption act rather than the subsequent acts, for two reasons. First, since the 1830 act was the first general preemption act, its passage was considered a milestone for squatters’ rights. With the idea of preemption thus legitimized, it became more difficult for opponents to muster effective arguments against preemption, and they increasingly treated it as a fait accompli. Thus, congressional attitudes toward preemption, as manifested in their voting behavior, should be revealed most starkly in the 1830 law. Second, the 1830 act was only about preemption, as compared to later acts which mandated other changes in public lands policy. The permanent preemption act of 1841, for example, contained both preemption and provisions for the distribution of land sale proceeds to states on the basis of population. Consequently, available roll-call votes on the 1841 act have an ambiguous interpretation, reflecting ambivalence about the combined effect of the two policies. The results of two roll-call votes in the House are recorded in the House Journal for the 1830 session. The first was a vote to table the bill prior to the final vote, which failed, 85 to 67; the second was the final vote on passage, which succeeded, 100 to 58.51 Using these two votes, the dummy variables VOTE1 and VOTE2 were constructed, which serve as the dependent variables in the econometric analysis. In each case, a propreemption vote is assigned a value of 1, while an antipreemption vote is assigned a value of 0.52 Direct quantitative information on squatting is not available. However, some indirect evidence may be gleaned from available information on preemption claims. Under the temporary preemption acts of the 1830s, squatters could claim up to 160 acres of land which they had occupied and cultivated in the previous year. Consequently, for each act the amount of preemption acreage subsequently claimed will roughly reflect the extent of squatting activity in the year prior to its passage.53 The political influence of squatters will depend, of course, not upon their absolute numbers but, rather, their numbers relative to other settlers. Therefore, preemption acreage claimed in 1830 was divided by the total number of persons engaged in agricultural activity in the district, to create the variable PREEMP. The coefficient of PREEMP is predicted to be positive. In addition to squatting activity, House votes on the preemption acts may have been influenced by congressional party affiliation. Historians have noted a marked difference in the positions of the main political parties regarding disposal of the public lands during the 1820s. Jacksonian Democrats tended to strongly favor

51

Journal of the House, 21st Congress, 1st session, pp. 768–769, 779. Thus, in VOTE1, a ‘‘yes’’ vote was assigned a value of 0, whereas in VOTE2, a ‘‘yes’’ vote was assigned a value of 1. Abstentions have been discarded. 53 Greater squatting acreage means a larger number of squatters, since claim size was restricted to a maximum of 160 acres under the preemption acts. Under the economic theory of politics, larger organized interests are more effective political constituencies, all else equal. See, for example, Noll (1989). 52

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land disposal on terms favorable to settlers.54 The National Republican party, the main rival of the Jacksonians, was dominated by easterners and viewed the public lands more for their potential to supplement the federal treasury, from which they expected to benefit disproportionately.55 To capture the effect of party affiliation, the dummy variable PARTY was created, which equals 1 if the congressman was a Democrat, and 0 otherwise.56 Historians have also remarked on a sectional alliance that emerged between the West and the South during the 1820s in opposition to a common enemy, eastern manufacturers. The southern states wanted lower tariffs on manufactured goods, and western settlers wanted lower land prices. Both of these policies were strongly opposed by eastern manufacturers, the latter because migration to the West would tend to drive up wages in the East.57 Thus, vote-trading between western and southern congressman may have occurred, resulting in southern support for preemption.58 To control for this possibility, the dummy variable SOUTH was created, which equals 1 if the congressman was from a southern state and 0 otherwise. Since the SOUTH variable may in fact proxy for more general agricultural opposition to tariffs, the variable AGRIC was also created, defined as farmers as a percentage of total population in the district. Including AGRIC in some of the regressions not only allows us to characterize more precisely the political coalitions that formed on public lands policy, but also allows us to investigate the robustness of the estimated coefficients. Finally, voting behavior on preemption may have been influenced by sectionalism between public land and nonpublic land states. Because preemption redistributed wealth from the latter to the former, greater support for preemption might be observed among congressmen from public land states. Thus, the dummy variable PUBLIC was created, which equals 1 for congressmen from public land states and 0 otherwise. Table 2 provides definitions and summary statistics for the explanatory variables. 54 The Jackson Democrats were the main surviving offshoot of the old Democratic Republican party, which dominated national politics during the late 1810s and early 1820s after the demise of the Federalists. 55 The National Republican party formed the core of the Whig party, which emerged in the 1830s. 56 Information on party affiliation is available for the vast majority of sitting representatives in the 1829–1831 session of Congress. See Parsons (1978). 57 Recent cliometric studies indicate that tariffs imposed a significant tax burden on southern farmers, while increasing the incomes of eastern manufacturers and laborers. See, for example, Fogel (1989), p. 296. See also Robbins (1962), Chap. 3. 58 Weingast and Marshall argue that logrolling agreements may be difficult to enforce, particularly when votes do not come up simultaneously or when benefits are conferred at different points in time. However, as they note, repeated interactions among congressmen can help alleviate the enforcement problem, as can legislative institutions such as committees. See Weingast and Marshall (1988). During this period, there was a marked tendency for public lands congressmen to self-select onto the Public Lands Committees, which may have helped enforce legislative agreements. For example, congressmen from public lands states held majorities on the Public Lands Committees of both the House and Senate in every session of Congress from 1823 to 1831. See Journal of the House and Journal of the Senate, 18th–21st Congresses.

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MARK T. KANAZAWA TABLE 2 Definitions and Summary Statistics for Explanatory Variables in Logit Analysis of 1830 Preemption Act

Variable

Mean

Standard deviation

Minimum

Maximum

PREEMP PARTY SOUTH PUBLIC AGRIC

0.289 0.607 0.399 0.135 0.212

1.835 0.490 0.491 0.343 0.079

0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001

17.665 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.476

Correlation Matrix

PREEMP PARTY SOUTH PUBLIC AGRIC

PREEMP

PARTY

SOUTH

PUBLIC

AGRIC

1.00 0.10 20.13 0.40 0.08

1.00 0.21 0.02 0.12

1.00 20.32 0.56

1.00 0.03

1.00

Variable Definitions PREEMP: PARTY: SOUTH: PUBLIC:

AGRIC:

Per farmer preemption claims; total preemption acres, in thousands, divided by the number of farmers in the district. 0–1 dummy variable; 1 if Democrat, 0 otherwise. 0–1 dummy variable; 1 if district was located in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Georgia, Tennessee, or Kentucky; 0 otherwise. 0–1 dummy variable; 1 if district was located in a public land state (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, or Florida); 0 otherwise. Per capita farmers; number of farmers divided by total population.

Source. Parsons et al., United States Congressional Districts; U.S. Congress, American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 8, pp. 700–701; U.S. Census Office, Census for 1820.

The results of a series of logit estimations of VOTE1 and VOTE2 are reported in Tables 3 and 4. The results for the two votes are quite consistent with each other. It appears that greater squatting activity generated significantly greater support for preemption, even after controlling for party and North–South regional differences. Interestingly, though PUBLIC is highly significant in the absence of PREEMP, it loses all significance when PREEMP is included and its coefficient even changes sign in VOTE1. Note also that the specifications including PREEMP instead of PUBLIC perform slightly better in terms of likelihood value and prediction success. This all suggests that public lands congressmen were probably influenced more strongly by the local level of squatting activity than by whether they represented a public lands state. This finding is consistent with the political history presented in the previous section, which indicated conflicts among public lands congressmen over granting preemption rights in the late 1820s. The results also indicate that while southern congressmen were important

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POSSESSION IS NINE POINTS OF THE LAW TABLE 3 Logit Analysis of House Vote to Table the 1830 Preemption Act (VOTE1) (1) CONSTANT PREEMP PARTY SOUTH PUBLIC AGRIC

(2)

0.86*** 2.32*** (2.89) (3.71) 24.44** 24.48** (21.89) (21.86) 21.51*** 21.51*** (24.06) (23.93) — — — — — — — — — 26.93*** — (22.76)

Log likelihood 288.32 Percentage (%) of correct predictions 0.69

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

1.84*** 1.48*** 1.45*** (2.96) (4.06) (4.01) 26.60** 26.91*** — (22.24) (22.59) — 21.35*** 21.33*** 21.33*** (23.40) (23.37) (23.43) 21.36*** 21.56*** 21.53*** (22.80) (23.87) (23.79) — — 22.17*** — — (23.41) 22.09 — — (20.73) — —

1.44*** (3.95) 257.97* (21.38) 21.32*** (23.31) 21.53*** (23.79) 12.33 (1.26) — —

284.07

280.10

280.37

283.15

278.86

0.69

0.73

0.73

0.72

0.73

Note. Figures in parentheses are standard t statistics. The number of observations is 157. Significance tests for PREEMP and PUBLIC are one-tailed. * Significant at 90%. ** Significant at 95%. *** Significant at 99%.

supporters of preemption, the importance of Democratic support is less clear. Southern support was very strong and highly significant, suggesting that votetrading between the West and South was occurring. It should also be noted that the importance of SOUTH is little affected by inclusion of the agricultural interest variable AGRIC, suggesting that southern support for preemption may have transcended farmer desires for lower tariffs. This interpretation is also supported by the fact that congressmen from Virginia and North Carolina, who were ardent supporters of reduced tariffs, were split almost evenly on support for preemption.59 The results on the importance of Democratic support for preemption are more mixed. The fact that inclusion of SOUTH reduces the significance of PARTY to marginal levels in the vote on passage suggests that certain historical accounts may be overstating the importance of Jacksonian support for preemption.60 To help interpret the results, Table 5 reports the predicted probabilities of support for preemption as a function of party affiliation, region, and subsequent preemption levels. These calculations are based on Eqs. (4) in Tables 3 and 4, and use the sample mean, minimum, and maximum values for PREEMP provided in 59 Overall, congressmen in these two states combined actually opposed passage of the 1830 preemption act, 13–12. Excluding these two states, the South voted 38–1 for passage. 60 See Schlesinger (1945), p. 347.

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MARK T. KANAZAWA TABLE 4 Logit Analysis of House Vote to Pass the 1830 Preemption Act (VOTE2)

CONSTANT PREEMP PARTY SOUTH PUBLIC AGRIC

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

20.05 (20.18) 2.26* (1.47) 0.82*** (2.35) — — — — — —

20.77 (21.47) 2.26* (1.46) 0.78** (2.21) — — — — 3.58* (1.60)

20.21 (20.38) 3.74** (1.88) 0.57* (1.56) 1.48*** (3.08) — — 21.49 (20.54)

20.47* (21.54) 3.56** (1.84) 0.58* (1.59) 1.33*** (3.41) — — — —

20.46* (21.51) — — 0.62* (1.72) 1.30*** (3.31) 1.31** (2.31) — —

20.43* (21.40) 9.46 (0.77) 0.56* (1.53) 1.31*** (3.33) 21.69 (20.55) — —

295.34

290.27

290.42

292.97

290.15

0.64

0.67

0.67

0.67

0.68

Log likelihood 296.66 Percentage (%) of correct predictions 0.62

Note. Figures in parentheses are standard t statistics. The number of observations is 157. Significance tests for PREEMP and PUBLIC are one-tailed. * Significant at 90%. ** Significant at 95%. *** Significant at 99%.

Table 2. For example, there was a 0.54 probability that a Democrat from a nonsouthern district with no squatters (PREEMP 5 0) would vote to table the preemption act. The results indicate two interesting patterns. First, in all cases, the probability that southern congressmen would oppose preemption was less than 0.5: southern congressmen were likely to support preemption regardless of party affiliation. This finding confirms the precedence of regional ties over party TABLE 5 Predicted Probabilities of Support for Preemption Nonsouthern Democrat Southern

Non-Democrat Preemption levels

Democrat

Non-Democrat

0.20

0.48

Minimum

Mean

Maximum

Minimum

Mean

Maximum

0.37

0.00

0.64

1.00

I. VOTE1: To table the 1830 Preemption Act 0.54

0.14

0.00

0.81

II. VOTE2: To pass the 1830 Preemption Act 0.81

0.70

0.53

0.76

1.00

0.39

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affiliation in the South. Second, in nonsouthern states support for preemption reflected important party differences at low levels of preemption. However, these differences tended to vanish at higher levels, with equally strong support for preemption among both parties. This finding reinforces the importance of squatting in influencing congressional support for preemption. VII. CONCLUSIONS The central focus of this study has been to explain the evolution over time of early public land disposal policy, away from one based exclusively on the land auction system to one that included the policy of preemption as an important component. Squatters importantly influenced this evolution, both by disrupting the operation of the local land auctions and by applying political pressure for congressional legitimation of their status on the public lands. The econometric evidence presented here suggests that congressmen from public lands states responded to squatter demands for preemption: their voting behavior on the 1830 preemption act was connected to the potential gains to be conferred on squatters in their districts. The alternative hypothesis that they simply voted as a public lands bloc against eastern interests is not as strongly supported by the data. These results are counter to the conclusions of some influential public lands historians who have tended to treat preemption as largely a sectional issue.61 In successfully installing preemption in 1830, congressmen from public lands states received significant support from their counterparts in the South. The significance of this result lies partly in the fact that economic historians have disagreed over how to properly characterize southern support for cheap-land policies during this period. In the 1970s, some economists argued that southern support for such policies was sharply divided, in part because of southern fears of increased agricultural competition.62 More recently, Fogel (1989) has played down such concerns, arguing that southern congressmen were strong supporters of early cheap-land policies.63 The results here seem to support Fogel, though two factors cloud the issue. The first is the fact mentioned earlier that congressmen from Virginia and North Carolina were sharply divided on passage of the 1830 preemption act. It might be fruitful to examine political conditions in these two states in order to better characterize early southern attitudes toward cheap-land policies. Second, the results here may be consistent with both stories if broad southern opposition to cheap-land policies only began to emerge after 1830, as western competition became more of a reality and other factors such as slavery became salient. Certainly by the eve of the Civil War, the South had become implacably opposed to cheap land, vigorously opposing the Homestead Acts. Future research will examine and characterize the shifting coalitions on public

61 62 63

See, for example, Robbins (1962), Chap. 3; Gates (1968), p. 224. See, for example, Wright (1978), p. 134. Fogel (1989), p. 316.

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lands policies that occurred between the 1820s and the 1850s in order to understand how and why southern support for cheap land eroded over time. Another interesting result concerns the importance of party affiliation in influencing congressional support for preemption. Though Democrats tended to support preemption, controlling for the influence of the South diminishes party differences considerably. The finding that party differences were weak is not necessarily inconsistent with modern political science research which emphasizes the importance of party voting as reflecting legislative collusion or signaling long-term legislative preferences.64 With party designations in a state of flux during the 1820s and 1830s, party labels may not have conveyed much information on long-term political preferences, or only weakly facilitated legislative cartels. This finding is also consistent with historical research by political scientists which concludes that in national politics, regional identification dominated party loyalty until at least the 1830s.65 The subsequent evolution of the strength of party voting on public lands policy will also be the subject of future research. Finally, it should be emphasized that the preemption movement was importantly a result of costly enforcement of federal property rights in the public lands. As we have seen, such enforcement costs significantly affected the politics of early public lands policies. It would be interesting to examine ways in which enforcement costs influenced other public lands programs. Evidence suggests, for example, that the Land Office experienced difficulties in enforcing payments by settlers under the credit system, which led Congress repeatedly to grant legislative relief, and may have contributed to abolishment of the credit system in 1820. Historical studies provide many other examples of enforcement difficulties in public land programs, such as timber and minerals policy, swamp and arid lands reclamation, and the railroad land grants program. Libecap and Johnson (1979), for example, have argued that in the late-19th century, mandated acreage restrictions in federal timber sales programs actually encouraged fraud by private timber companies, which led to overharvesting.66 The need remains, however, for more complete documentation of the role of enforcement costs in the genesis and evolution of these programs, and the implications for how well the resulting programs served the developmental needs of the economy. REFERENCES Allen, Douglas W. (1991), ‘‘Homesteading and Property Rights: or, ‘How the West was Really Won’.’’ Journal of Law and Economics 34, 1–23. Anderson, Terry L., and Hill, Peter J. (1990), ‘‘The Race for Property Rights.’’ Journal of Law and Economics 33, 177–198. Barzel, Yoram (1989), Economic Analysis of Property Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. 64 For an extensive treatment of the former interpretation, see Cox and McCubbins (1993). For the latter interpretation, see the work of Poole and Rosenthal (1993). 65 See, for example, Shade (1981), p. 93. 66 Libecap and Johnson (1979).

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Bogue, Allan G. (1958), ‘‘The Iowa Claim Clubs: Symbol and Substance.’’ Mississippi Valley Historical Review 45, 231–253. Cox, Gary W., and McCubbins, Mathew D. (1993), Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. Dennen, Taylor A. (1977), ‘‘Some Efficiency Effects of Nineteenth Century Federal Land Policy.’’ Agricultural History 51, 718–736. Fogel, Robert W. (1989), Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. New York: Norton. Gates, Paul W. (1968), History of Public Land Law Development. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Hibbard, Benjamin H. (1924), A History of the Public Land Policies. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press. Libecap, Gary D., and Johnson, Ronald N. (1979), ‘‘Property Rights, Nineteenth-Century Federal Timber Policy, and the Conservation Movement.’’ Journal of Economic History 39, 129–142. Noll, Roger G. (1989), ‘‘Economic Perspectives on the Politics of Regulation.’’ In R. Schmalensee and R. Willig (Eds.), Handbook of Industrial Organization. New York: North-Holland. Vol. 2. Parker, William N. (1972), ‘‘Resources, Natural and Human.’’ In L. Davis et al., American Economic Growth: An Economist’s History of the United States. New York: Harper & Row. Parsons, Stanley B., Beach, William W., and Hermann, Dan. (1978), United States Congressional Districts, 1788–1841. Westport: Greenwood. Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard (1993), ‘‘The Enduring Nineteenth-Century Battle for Economic Regulation: The Interstate Commerce Act Revisited.’’ Journal of Law and Economics 36, 837–860. Robbins, Roy M. (1962), Our Landed Heritage: The Public Domain, 1776–1936. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press. Rohrbough, Malcolm J. (1990), The Land Offıce Business. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Second ed. Schlesinger, Arthur M. (1945), The Age of Jackson. Boston: Little, Brown. Shade, William G. (1981), ‘‘Political Pluralism and Party Development: The Creation of a Modern Party System, 1815–1852.’’ In P. Kleppner et al., The Evolution of American Electoral Systems. Westport: Greenwood. Turner, Frederick J. (1958), The United States: 1830–1850. Gloucester: Peter Smith. Umbeck, J. R. (1977), ‘‘The California Gold Rush: A Study of Emerging Property Rights.’’ Explorations in Economic History 14, 197–226. U.S. Congress (1789–1819), Annals of Congress: Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States. Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton. U.S. Congress (1820–1831), Annals of Congress: Register of Debates in Congress. Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton. U.S. Congress (1834, 1859–1861), American State Papers: Public Lands, Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton. Vols. 1–8. U.S. Congress, House (1819–1831), Journal of the House of Representatives. Washington, DC: Green. U.S. Congress, Senate (1819–1831), Journal of the Senate. Washington, DC: Green. U.S. Department of Interior, Census Office (1821), Census for 1820. Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton. Weingast, B. R., and Marshall, W. J. (1988), ‘‘The Industrial Organization of Congress; or Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets.’’ Journal of Political Economy 96, 132–163. Wright, Gavin (1978), The Political Economy of the Cotton South. New York: Norton.

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