he Union.

Not the entire reform was accepted. The Western spirit dominated. The
homestead law, as finally adopted in 1862, granted one hundred and sixty
acres as a free gift to every settler. But the same Congress launched
upon a policy of extensive land grants to railways. The homestead
legislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to those which
sprang of a different policy of the Australian colonies, but did not
carry out the broad principles of inalienability and land limitation of
the original Agrarians.

Their principle of homestead exemption, however, is now almost
universally adopted. Thus the homestead agitation begun by Evans and a
group of wage earners and farmers in 1844 was carried to victory, though
to an incomplete victory. It contained a fruitful lesson to labor in
politics. The vested interests in the East were seen ultimately to
capitulate before a popular movement which at no time aspired toward
political power and office, but, concentrating on one issue, endeavored
instead to permeate with its ideas the public opinion of the country at
large.

Of all the "isms" so prevalent during the forties, "Agrarianism" alone
came close to modern socialism, as it alone advocated class struggle and
carried it into the political field, although, owing to the peculiarity
of the American party structure, it urged a policy of "reward your
friends, and punish your enemies" rather than an out and out labor
party. It is noteworthy that of all social reform movements of the
forties Agrarianism alone was not initiated by the intellectuals. On
the other hand, another movement for legislative reform, namely the
shorter-hour movement for women and children working in the mills and
factories, was entirely managed by humanitarians. Its philosophy was the
furthest removed from the class struggle idea.

For only a short year or two did prosperity show itself from behind the
clouds to cause a mushroom growth of trade unions, once in 1850-1851 and
again in 1853-1854, following the gold discoveries in California. During
these few years unionism disentangled itself from humanitarianism and
cooperationism and came out in its wholly modern form of restrictive
craft unionism, only to be again suppressed by the business depressions
that preceded and followed the panic of 1857. Considered as a whole,
however, the period of the forties and fifties was the zenith in
American history of theories of social reform, of "panaceas,"