one hand, and with his land
acquisitions, on the other.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] Doc. No. 13, State Papers, Second Session, 18th Congress, Vol. ii.

[91] "Stole on a monstrous scale." The land frauds, by which many of the
Southern planters obtained estates in Louisiana, Mississippi and other
States were a national scandal. Benjamin F. Linton, United States
Attorney for Western Louisiana, reported to President Andrew Jackson on
August 27, 1835, that in seizing possession of Government land in that
region "the most shameful frauds, impositions and perjuries had been
committed in Louisiana." Sent to investigate, V. M. Garesche, an agent
of the Government Land Office, complained that he could get no one to
testify. "Is it surprising," he wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury,
"when you consider that those engaged in this business belong to every
class of society from the member of the Legislature (if I am informed
correctly) down to the quarter quarter-section settler!" Up to that time
the Government held title to immense tracts of land in the South and had
thrown it open to settlers. Few of these were able to get it, however.
Southern plantation men and Northern capitalists and speculators
obtained possession by fraud. "A large company," Garesche reported, "was
formed in New York for the purpose, and have an agent who is continually
scouring the country." The final report was a whitewashing one; hence,
none of the frauds was sent to jail.--Doc. No. 168, Twenty-fourth
Congress, 2d Session, ii:4-25, also Doc. No. 213, Ibid.

[92] "America," admits Houghton, "never presented a more shameful
spectacle than was exhibited when the courts of the cotton-growing
regions united with the piratical infringers of Whitney's rights in
robbing their greatest benefactor.... In spite of the far-reaching
benefits of his invention, he had not realized one dollar above his
expenses. He had given millions upon millions of dollars to the
cotton-growing states, he had opened the way for the establishment of
the vast cotton-spinning interests of his own country and Europe, and
yet, after fourteen years of hard labor, he was a poor man, the victim
of wealthy, powerful, and, in his case, a dishonest class."--"Kings of
Fortune":337. All other of Whitney's biographers relate likewise.

[93] See Senate Documents, First Session, 24th Congress, 1835, Vol. vi,
Doc. No. 425. A few extracts from the great mass of correspondence will
lucidly show the nature