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Abolishing primogeniture and entail eventually led to a more egalitarian nation. "No sooner was the law of primogeniture abolished than fortunes began to diminish, and all the families of the country were simultaneously reduced to a state in which labor became necessary to procure the means of subsistence," observed Alexis de Tocqueville in he early 1830s.
Just having the land does not mean that the owners lived on it; instead, many held the land for speculative purposes or sold it to speculators. In the meantime, squatters often started farming lands wihtout a title. Squatters occupied some of George Washington's land in western Pennsylvania. He met with them in 1796, the last year of his presidency, and offered to sell the land to them. They preferred to dispute his title in court; the court decided in his favor and they had to leave.
At the time of the Revolution, Virginia offered actual settlers 400 acres and North Carolina offered 640 acres "at the merest nominal price." Settlers in Main could also get 100 acres merely for clearing 16 within four years. Within tree years, Virginia settlers were required to build a house, plant one acre, and keep stock for one year, or they would lose the land.
Just having the land does not mean that the owners lived on it; instead, many held the land for speculative purposes or sold it to speculators. In the meantime, squatters often started farming lands without a title. Squatters occupied some of George Washington's land in western Pennsylvania. He met with them in 1796, the last year of his presidency, and offered to sell the land to them. They preferred to dispute his title in court; the court decided in his favor and they had to leave.
At the time of the Revolution, Virginia offered actual settlers 400 acres and North Carolina offered 640 acres "at the merest nominal price." Settlers in Main could also get 100 acres merely for clearing 16 within four years. Within tree years, Virginia settlers were required to build a house, plant one acre, and keep stock for one year, or they would lose the land.
After the Revolution, the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized the United States' sovereignty over land as far west as the Mississippi River. The states ceded to the United States their claims to land west of Appalachians - about 237 million acres of land that eventually became Alabama, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and much of Minnesota. That was a huge amount of land, about 60 acres for every resident of the United States in 1790. Rather than give the land to settlers, however, Congress, at the urging of Alexander Hamilton, tried to sell the land to pay off the nation's debt.
In contrast to Hamilton, Jefferson was against selling land to pay the national debt. "The people who will migrate to the Westward whether they form part of the old, or of a new colony will be subject to their proportion of the Continental debt then unpaid," he wrote in 1776. "They ought not be subject to more." But by 1784, even Jefferson had accepted the idea of his land ordinance of that year provided for sales.
In 1785, Congress asked a minimum of 1$ an acre in cash for blocks of at least 640 acres. The lands were to be sold at auction, but only after lands had been surveyed. Surveys were slower than anticipated, and only about 1.5 million acres were sold to private parties, mostly speculators, under this system.
In 1796, Congress raised the price to 2$ an acre for a minimum of 640 acres, with half the money paid within 30 days and the other half within a year. That amount may sound inexpensive today, but in late 18th century those were high prices: based on the consumer price index, $640 dollars in 1785 would be almost $15,000 today. More significantly, in relation to the wages earned by unskilled workers, it would be more than 240,000 today. That amount is far more than an unskilled worker could pay in cash, especially for land that initially at least would have to be worked on a subsistence basis since it was located too far from markets to sell any crops. As a result, sales were slow, averaging only a little more than 500 640-acre parcels per year from 1800 through 1810.
In 1800, Congress reduced the down payment to one-twentieth of the total cost and extended the time allowed for full payment, at 6 percent interest, to four years. The 1800 law also reduced the minimum number of acres that could be purchased to 320, which was reduced still further to 160 acres in 1804. The low down payment encouraged speculators, while the high cost per acre still led large numbers of settlers to default on their payments, especially after the recession of 1819. As a result, in 1820 Congress once again changed the terms of land sales: purchasers could buy a few as 80 acres for 1.25 an acre. To discourage speculation, all purchases were to be in cash.
One settler who had trouble gaining secure title to land was Thomas Lincoln, the father of the future president. In 1803, he purchased a 250-acre farm in Kentucky for 118 English punds, but lost 38 acres of it because of an erroneous recording of the land survey. Five years later, he made a $200 down payment on a 348-acre farm, but lost the farm and the down payment because of a title dispute. He then bought a third farm that was part of a 10,000-acre grant received by Thomas Middleton in 1784. Lincoln and nine other farmers who had purchased part of that grant lost their land in a title dispute with Middleton's heirs. As one historian comments, "There were likely no people in America so cursed with land litigation as the pioneer Kentuckians, because of the lack of adequate land regulations pertaining to priority of ownership."
Giving up on Kentucky, in 1816 Lincoln moved his family to Indiana. There he claimed 160 acres of federal land in 1817 with a down payment of $16, or one-twentieth of the total costs. Within 40 days, as specified by law, he paid another $64, bringing his total payment to one-fourth of the cost. However, he was unable to make any further payments. In 1821, Congress passed a law extending the payment period to as long as eight years. In 1827, Lincoln gave up some of his land to gain clear title of the rest, but then turned around and sold the land in 1830.
Congress debated the sale of trans-Appalachian lands for more than 70 years. "More than half our time has been taken up with the discussion of propositions connected with the public lands," complained South Carolina Senator Robert Hayne in 1830. "Day after day the charges are rung on this topic, from the grave inquiry into the rights of the new States to the absolute sovereignty and property in the soil, down to the grant of a preemption to a few quarter sections to actual settlers."
Meanwhile, settlers who could not afford to put up $640 were nevertheless moving west of the mountains, staking claims, and claiming squatters' rights to the land. In 1787, the federal government sent troops to burn homes and evict squatters along the Ohio River. But the squatters returned as soon as the troops left. From 1781 through 1788, Massachusetts aggressively tried to remove squatters from Maine. Continuing troubles with squatters contributed to the decision to spin off Maine as a separate state in 1820.
Another obstacle to pioneers' taking title to the land was Indian ownership of some lands. Although the federal government recognized Indian title to much of the trans-Appalachian territory, it did not recognize the right of Indian tribes to sell land to white settlers. This policy and the government's acquisition was based on an 1823 Supreme Court decision, Jonson v. McIntosh, which in turn was based on a long-standing European tradition that only a sovereign nation has the right to extinguish Indians' interests in their land. The British government, for example, proclaimed in 1763 that "no private person do presume to make any purchase from the said Indians of any land reserved to the said Indians."
Although the federal government did eventually negotiate the purchase of most trans-Appalachian lands from Indian tribes, the government's acquisition further delayed the ability of settlers to take title to land. In 1807, Jefferson ordered troops to expel squatters from lands recently purchased from the Chickasaw and Cherokee Indians as well as from lands still owned by Indians.
32
AMERICAN NIGHTMARE
Giving Away the Federal Domain
Eventually, Congress gave up on the idea of selling land to repay the Revolutionary War debt and began giving land to various groups.
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To the officers and soldiers in the service of the king of Great Britain, not subjects of the said king :
The citizens of the United States of America are engaged in a just and necessary war—a war in which they are not the only persons interested. They contend for the rights of human nature, and therefore merit the patronage and assistance of all mankind. Their success will secure a refuge from persecution and tyranny to those who wish to pursue the dictates of their own consciences, and to reap the fruits of their own industry.
That kind Providence, who from seeming evil often produces real good, in permitting us to be involved in this cruel war, and you to be compelled to aid our enemies in their vain attempts to enslave us, doubtless hath in view to establish perfect freedom in the new world, for those who are borne down by the oppression and tyranny of the old.
Considering, therefore, that you are reluctantly compelled to be instruments of avarice and ambition, we not only forgive the injuries which you have been constrained to offer us, but we hold out to your acceptance a participation of the privileges of free and independent states. Large and fertile tracts of country invite and will amply reward your industry.
Townships, from twenty to thirty thousand acres of land, shall be laid out and appropriated to such of you as will come over to us, in the following manner.
[Every captain who shall bring with himself forty men from the service of the enemy, before the first day of September, 1778, shall receive eight hundred acres of good woodland; also four oxen, one bull, three cows, and four hogs.2 If this captain is accompanied with his lieutenant, the lieutenant shall receive four hundred acres of woodland, also two oxen, two cows, and four hogs.
[Every sergeant who shall accompany his captain shall receive two hundred acres of land, two oxen, one bull, one cow, and three hogs.
[Every soldier who shall accompany his captain shall receive fifty acres of land, one ox, one cow, and two hogs.
[If a lieutenant, or other commissioned officer under the rank of a captain, shall bring off from his company twenty five men, he shall receive six hundred acres of land, two oxen, two cows, and four hogs.
[Every sergeant, or non-commissioned officer who shall bring off parties of men, shall receive an additional bounty of twenty acres of land for every man so brought off. And every soldier, who shall come off without a commissioned or non-commissioned officer, shall receive fifty acres of land; and if he brings off his arms and accoutrements, an additional bounty of twenty dollars.
Both Officers and Soldiers who shall come off together, shall be at Liberty either to separate themselves, or to unite for the purpose of affording to each other Mutual Succor in the Establishments they make, and to form themselves into Townships after the Model of many German Settlements in various Parts of these States, which Exhibit an Example of that Happiness which is now offered to those who are wise Enough to accept of it.
[Such officers and soldiers shall be at Liberty immediately to employ themselves in the settlement of their farms, without being obliged to do any military duty;2 and they shall receive rations in proportion to their rank for the space of six weeks.3
[The stock hereby offered shall be given to such officers and soldiers as shall actually settle on the lands respectively granted to them.4
Such of the officers and non-commissioned officers as choose to enter into the military line, shall receive an additional rank in detached corps, which shall be formed of native Germans of those who now reside in America; which corps shall not be employed but with their own consent in any other service than that of guards at a distance from the enemy, or in garrison upon the western frontier. 1
Such of you as are skilled in manufactures, over and above these lands and other articles, will find riches in prosecuting your occupations, the necessaries of life being very cheap in proportion to the price of manufactures, and the demand for them is so great, that every mechanick will find full employment. Some of you have had an opportunity of observing the truth of these assertions, and will doubtless inform their countrymen and acquaintance of these facts.
We have hitherto met you in the field of battle, with hostile minds, urged on by the great principle of self-defense; yet in those instances, where the fortune of war hath delivered any of your countrymen into our hands, we appeal to them that our enmity hath ceased the moment they were disarmed; and we have treated them more like citizens than prisoners of war. We now address you as part of the great family of mankind, whose freedom and happiness we most earnestly wish to promote and establish.
Distain, then, to continue the instruments of frantick ambition and lawless power. Feel the dignity and importance of your nature. Rise to the rank of free citizens of free states. Desist from the vain attempt to ravage and depopulate a country you cannot subdue, and accept from our munificence what can never be obtained from our fears. We are willing to receive you with open arms into the bosom of our country. Come, then, and partake of the blessings we tender to you in sincerity of heart.
In the name of these sovereign, free, and independent states we promise and engage to you that great privilege of man, the free and uninterrupted exercise of your religion, complete protection of your persons from injury, the peaceable possessions of the fruits of your honest industry, the absolute property in the soil granted to you to defend, unless you shall otherwise dispose of it, to your children and your children's children for ever.1
Resolved, That it be recommended to the several states, who have vacant lands, to lay off with as much expedition as possible, a sufficient quantity of lands to answer the purposes expressed in the forgoing address; for which lands no charge is to be made against the United States.1
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https://tinyurl.com/lo82dtu
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Add to the above sourced information the following:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffvir.asp
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The mode of acquiring lands, in the earliest times of our settlement, was by petition to the general assembly. If the lands prayed for were already cleared of the Indian title, and the assembly thought the prayer reasonable, they passed the property by their vote to the petitioner. But if they had not yet been ceded by the Indians, it was necessary that the petitioner should previously purchase their right. This purchase the assembly verified, by enquiries of the Indian proprietors; and being satisfied of its reality and fairness, proceeded further to examine the reasonableness of the petition, and its consistence with policy; and, according to the result, either granted or rejected the petition. The company also sometimes, though very rarely, granted lands, independently of the general assembly. As the colony increased, and individual applications for land multiplied, it was found to give too much occupation to the general assembly to enquire into and execute the grant in every special case. They therefore thought it better to establish general rules, according to which all grants should be made, and to leave to the governor the execution of them, under these rules. This they did by what have been usually called the land laws, amending them from time to time, as their defects were developed. According to these laws, when an individual wished a portion of unappropriated land, he was to locate and survey it by a public officer, appointed for that purpose: its breadth was to bear a certain proportion to its length: the grant was to be executed by the governor: and the lands were to be improved in a certain manner, within a given time. From these regulations there resulted to the state a sole and exclusive power of taking conveyances of the Indian right of soil: since, according to them, an Indian conveyance alone could give no right to an individual, which the laws would acknowledge. The state, or the crown, thereafter, made general purchases of the Indians from time to time, and the governor parcelled them out by special grants, conformed to the rules before described, which it was not in his power, or in that of the crown, to dispense with. Grants, unaccompanied by their proper legal circumstances, were set aside regularly by _scire facias_, or by bill in Chancery. Since the establishment of our new government, this order of things is but little changed. An individual, wishing to appropriate to himself lands still unappropriated by any other, pays to the public treasurer a sum of money proportioned to the quantity he wants. He carries the treasurer's receipt to the auditors of public accompts, who thereupon debit the treasurer with the sum, and order the register of the land-office to give the party a warrant for his land. With this warrant from the register, he goes to the surveyor of the county where the land lies on which he has cast his eye. The surveyor lays it off for him, gives him its exact description, in the form of a certificate, which certificate he returns to the land-office, where a grant is made out, and is signed by the governor. This vests in him a perfect dominion in his lands, transmissible to whom he pleases by deed or will, or by descent to his heirs if he die intestate.
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Note:
This vests in him a perfect dominion in his lands, transmissible to whom he pleases by deed or will, or by descent to his heirs if he die intestate.
Another source:
Jefferson's Freeholders and the Politics of Ownership in the Old Dominion
By Christopher Michael Curtis
References to terms "dominion" and "allodial"
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Aristocracy through land control:
The People's Panel
The Grand Jury in the United States, 1634 - 1941
Richard D. Younger
Pages 16
The constitution of the Carolinas, like that of Pennsylvania, made specific provision for grand juries. However, the elaborate and artificial Fundamental Constitutions written by John Locke also included a property qualification. In keeping with his attempt to establish a feudal aristocracy, Locke restricted grand jury service in the precinct courts to persons holding fifty acres of land and in the county and provincial courts to persons owning at least three hundred acres. Early presentments in the Carolinas followed the same pattern as those in the other colonies. In addition to indictments for various crimes and misdemeanors, the juries took an active part in local government.
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"I propose to begin by speaking briefly of the Forms of Action, with especial relation to those which protected the possession and ownership of land. It may---I am well aware of it---be objected that procedure is not a good theme for academic discussion. Substantive law should come first--adjective law, procedural law, afterwards. The former may perhaps be studied in a university, the latter must be studied in chambers. As to obsolete procedure, a knowledge of it can be profitable to no man, least of all to a beginner. With this opinion I cannot agree. Some time ago I wished to say a little about seisin, which still, with all our modern improvements, is one of the central ideas of Real Property Law; but to say that little I found impossible if I could not assume some knowledge of the forms of action. Let us remember one of Maine's most striking phrases, "So great is the ascendancy of the Law of Actions in the infancy of Courts of Justice, that substantive law has at first the look of being gradually secreted in the interstices of procedure." [Maine, Early Law and Custom, p. 389]. Assuredly this is true of our real property law, it has been secreted in the interstices of the forms of action. The system of Forms of Action or the Writ System is the most important characteristic of English medieval law, and it was not abolished until its piecemeal destruction in the nineteenth century."
Medieval Sourcebook:
F. W. Maitland:
The Forms of Action at Common Law, 1909
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/maitland-formsofaction.asp
seisin
"In brief, the term refers to the possession of land. However, the nature of this possession is a complex matter deserving a full academic explanation. In early English property law, a landholder was considered "seised of" his estate- an idea which somewhat overlaps with the modern meaning of ownership- but differs in a number of respects."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/seisin
John Adams (aristocrat?)
"Harrington has shown that power always follows property. This I believe to be as infallible a maxim, in politicks, as, that action and re-action are equal, is in mechanics. Nay I believe we may advance one step farther and affirm that the balance of power in a society, accompanies the balance of property in land. The only possible way then of preserving the balance of power on the side of equal liberty and public virtue, is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society: to make a division of the land into small quantities, so that the multitude may be possessed of landed estates. If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government."
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/files/2018/09/Documents-and-Debates-in-American-History-and-Government-Vol.-1-and-Vol.-2.pdf