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sale, are accurately surveyed by practical surveyors, in ranges of townships, each six miles square, containing therefore 23,040 acres. Townships are subdivided by lines crossing each other at right angles, and running to the cardinal points of the compass, into thirty-six sections, each of one mile square, or 640 acres.

§ 565. The sections are numbered from one to thirtysix, beginning at the northeast corner of the township and counting alternately from east to west and west to east. The sections are again divided into quarters, each containing 160 acres. Prior to 1820, no person could purchase less than a quarter section; but in that year legal authority was given for the division of the sections into eighths, containing eighty acres; and in 1832, as a further accommodation to settlers, they were divided into sixteenths, or forty-acre lots. Certain sections or townships of land in each territory, are reserved for schools or for the establishment of a university.

§ 566. The corners of townships, sections, and quarter sections, are designated by marks established by the surveyors on the ground.

After the lands have been thus surveyed, they are proclaimed by the President for sale, and offered at public auction, at not less than a dollar and twenty-five cents per acre; and such as remain unsold at the close of such public sale, are subject to be purchased at private sale at that rate.

§ 567. By an act passed August 4, 1854, the price of the public lands was graduated and reduced in favour of those who should actually settle upon and cultivate them. Lands (with a few exceptions) which shall have been in the market for ten years or upward prior to the application to purchase, are made subject to sale to actual settlers and

cultivators at the price of one dollar per acre; those which have been in the market for fifteen years or upward, may be sold at seventy-five cents per acre; for twenty years or upward, fifty cents per acre; for twenty-five years or upward, twenty-five cents per acre; for thirty years or upward, twelve and a half cents per acre. But no settler is allowed to acquire more than three hundred and twenty acres in pursuance of these provisions.

$568. Land offices are established in the different States. and territories, under the supervision of the General Land Office, for the sale of the public lands. Each office is under the direction of two officers: a register, who receives the applications and sells the lands; and a receiver, who receives the purchase-money. These two officers act as a check upon each other. The grant for the land, issued by the United States, is termed a patent.

§ 569. The patents issue from the General Land Office, under its seal, in the name of the United States, signed by the President of the United States, (or by a secretary who is authorized by law to sign for him,) and countersigned by the Commissioner of Public Lands; they are then recorded in the land office in books kept for that purpose.

§ 570. Under this clause in the Constitution, Congress from time to time erects governments in portions of the territories of the United States. These are regularly organized territorial governments. They include a governor, judges, and other officers, appointed by the President, and a legislature elected by the people of the territory, and are allowed one delegate in the House of Representatives, who may participate in the debates, but cannot vote.

§ 571. The organized territories, after their population has sufficiently increased to entitle them to a representative in Congress according to the ratio of representation,

may apply for admission into the Union as States. But they cannot be admitted unless they establish a republican form of government, and the Constitution which they propose to adopt, must, prior to their admission, be submitted to and approved by Congress.

§ 572. There are at present seven organized territories, viz:

(1.) Oregon Territory; erected into a territory August 14, 1848.

(2.) Minnesota Territory; erected into a territory March 3, 1849.

(3.) Utah Territory; erected into a territory September 9, 1850.

(4.) New Mexico Territory; erected into a territory September 9, 1850.

(5.) Washington Territory; erected into a territory March 2, 1853.

(6.) Kansas Territory; erected into a territory May 30, 1854.

(7.) Nebraska Territory; erected into a territory May 30, 1854.

The Indian Territory is not an organized territory.

§ 573. The limits of the United States, at the treaty of peace which closed the Revolution, are estimated to have included not more than 820,680 square miles. The total area of the Union on the first of July, 1854, was, by official calculations estimated at 2,963,666 square miles. Our territory doubled itself in the first twenty years of its existence, and it. has increased over threefold in less than sixty years.

We have now a territorial extent nearly ten times as large as that of Great Britain and France combined; three times as large as the whole of France, Britain, Austria,

Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark together; one and a half times as large as the Russian empire in Europe; about one-sixth less than the area of all Europe, and of equal extent with the Roman empire, or that of Alexander, neither of which is said to have exceeded 3,000,000 square miles.

SECTION. 4. [Clause 4.] "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion, and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

§ 574. The Articles of Confederation contained no provision similar to the above, which was one cause of the weakness of the government under those Articles. This section contains three important particulars:

(1.) A guaranty of a republican form of government to the States.

(2.) Protection of the States against invasion.

(3.) Protection of the States against domestic violence. § 575. The United States guarantees to every State in the Union, a republican form of government. An outbreak or rebellion in a single State, might be strong enough not only to establish therein a monarchical or despotic form of government, but to endanger the whole Union. Without a provision like that we are now considering, the State in which such an attempt should be made would have no right to call upon the general government för protection, and the general government would have no legal right, and would be under no obligation, to interfere; whereas now the whole power of the United States, and its

army and navy, may be employed to assure to each State the enjoyment of a republican form of government.

§ 576. The guaranty contained in this clause does not restrict the right of a State to alter its constitution at pleasure; but it cannot, while it remains a member of the Union, adopt any other than a republican form of govern

ment.

§ 577. The United States is also bound to protect each State from invasion. This secures to every State, the power of the general government for its protection, and it is a great advantage which the Federal Constitution affords.

§ 578. In case of violence within a State, such as riot or rebellion, the legislature of the State, if in session, or, if not in session, the governor, may upon application, obtain the aid of the United States to repress such disorder. Thus each State, under the Constitution, secures the force of the United States for its protection against invasion from without, and from domestic violence, (§ 310.)

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