Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2066

Carbon (on a Heath letterhead sheet) of a signed letter found in the Giddings-Julian Mss. in the library of Congress. George W. Julian was a United States Representative from Indiana for many years, and a prominent leader of the anti-slavery movement and of the movement to put the lands owned by the United States into the hands of actual settlers by means of the various homestead acts.

 

                           

                            Blackheath Park, Kent

May 29, 1868

Dear Sir:

I have received your speech on the land question with great interest. I have no doubt that you are right in endeavoring to prevent the sale of the public lands to mere speculators who buy to re-sell at a profit; but it seems to me that the land in the hands of its actual cultivators is a perfectly legitimate source of revenue. I often think that it would be much better if a new country retained all its lands as state property, giving, as we do in India, leases renewable forever at rents guaranteed against any augmentation except by a general measure. But perhaps jacta est alea, and the people of the United States would not take land except on the same terms of absolute property on which it has been hitherto acquired. According to my own notions, absolute property in land, even when owned by the cultivators, is a prejudice and an abuse. I am dear Sir

Yours very Sincerely

 

                                  S. T. Hill   

Hon. Geo. W. Julian