k, had obtained its Homestead
Act, by which land titles were conveyed to the farmer who cleared the
land and used it. Thomas H. Benton had fought for this through a long
lifetime. He died too soon to see the full apotheosis of the squatter,
who gradually developed, in point of law, from the criminal stealing the
public land to the public-spirited pioneer in whose interest a wise
Congress ought to shape its laws. Under the influence of this new
Homestead Law, aided by the Preemption Law, which remained in force,
land titles were established in the Mountain States as rapidly as the
Indians could be removed.

The frontier mining territories were loud in demanding that Congress
should give them more land, remove the Indians, extend police
protection, and give them mails and railroads. The miner disliked the
isolation which his speculations brought upon him, and Congress unfolded
new powers to remove it for him. In 1858 it organized the great overland
mail that ran coaches to California in less than twenty-five days. The
pony express provided faster service in 1860-61. And after private money
had built the telegraph line to the Pacific, both Congress and the West
took up the subject of a continental railway.

In the summer of 1862 a group of railroad companies was authorized to
build a track from the Missouri River (which had already been reached at
St. Joseph by a railway from the East) to California. As modified by law
in 1864 the contract provided for extensive government aid in the
speculation: twenty sections of land for every mile of track, and a loan
of United States bonds at the rate of at least $16,000 per mile. But the
West had little capital, and the prosperous East had better investments
at home, so that money could hardly be got into this scheme on any
terms. The Western promoters were driven to shifty extremes before they
overcame the Eastern belief that no continental railroad could pay. Not
until 1866 was the construction work begun in earnest.

[Illustration: THE WESTERN RAILWAY LANDGRANTS, 1850-1871

Explanation of the map of

THE WESTERN RAILWAY LAND GRANTS, 1850-1871

(This map is based upon the one in Donaldson, Public Domain, 948, and
includes certain wagon-road lands.)

There never were any public lands in the State of Texas. Oklahoma lay
within the Indian Country in which no lands were available for grants
between 1850 and 1871.

The railway land grants, authorized between 1850 and 1871 lay w