gradually adopted by nearly all the advocates of secession, and delayed
for years the success of the homestead policy. The measure also
encountered then serious opposition from the supporters of the bill
(opposed by Mr. Calhoun), distributing among the States the proceeds of
the sales of the public lands. A majority of the Committee of Public
Lands of the Senate favored then the distribution policy, and therefore
Mr. Calhoun's motion to refer the Homestead bill to that committee was
designed to defeat the measure.

Mr. Walker's bill granted a homestead of a quarter section to every
settler on payment of twenty dollars, _after_ three years' occupancy and
possession.

The special committee, to which this bill was referred, would not go so
far, but authorized Mr. Walker to report 'A bill to arrest monopolies of
the public lands and purchases thereof for speculation, and substitute
sales to actual settlers only, in limited quantities, and at reduced
prices,' &c. This report will be found in vol. 5, Sen. Doc., 1st
session, 24th Congress, No. 402. 'In Senate of the United States, June
15, 1836, Mr. Walker made the following report:'

_Extracts._--'The committee have adopted the principle that the public
lands should be held as a sacred reserve for the _cultivators of the
soil_; that monopolies by individuals or companies should be prevented;
that sales should be made only in limited quantities to _actual
settlers_, and the price in their favor reduced and graduated.' * * The
old system 'is throwing the public domain into the hands of speculating
monopolists. It is reviving many of the evils of the old feudal system
of Europe. Under that system, the lands were owned in vast bodies by a
few wealthy barons, and leased by them to an impoverished and dependent
tenantry.'

A bill based on this principle, and reported by Mr. Walker at a
succeeding session, passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House. In
each of his annual reports as Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Walker
strongly recommended the homestead policy, which encountered the
continual opposition of Mr. Calhoun.

In his inaugural address as Governor of Kansas, of the 27th May, 1857,
Mr. Walker thus strongly advocated the Homestead policy:

'If my will could have prevailed as regards the public lands, as
indicated in my public career, and especially in the bill presented
by me, as chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, to the Senate
of the