education generally. Douglas, while declining to prolong the debate, as his views had been known for years on the measure, declared that "he could not, if he desired to do so, add any thing to the force and power of the argument presented by the Senator from Tennessee to-day on the subject."

On the 10th of May the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 44 to 8, as follows:

Anthony, of Rhode Island
Bigler, of Pennsylvania
Bingham, of Michigan
Bright, of Indiana
Brown, of Mississippi
Cameron, of Pennsylvania
Chandler, of Michigan
Chesnut, of South Carolina
Clark, of New Hampshire
Clay, of Alabama
Collamer, of Vermont
Davis, of Mississippi
Dixon, of Connecticut
Doolittle, of Wisconsin
Douglas, of Illinois
Durkee, of Wisconsin
Fitzpatrick, of Alabama
Foster, of Connecticut
Green, of Missouri
Grimes, of Iowa

Gwin, of California

Hale, of New Hampshire

Bragg, of North Carolina

Clingman, of North Carolina

YEAS.

Hammond, of South Carolina
Harlan, of Iowa

Hemphill, of Texas

Johnson, of Arkansas

Johnson, of Tennessee
King, of New York
Lane, of Oregon
Latham, of California
Nicholson, of Tennessee
Polk, of Missouri
Pugh, of Ohio
Rice, of Minnesota
Sebastian, of Arkansas
Seward, of New York
Slidell, of Louisiana
Sumner, of Massachusetts
Ten Eyck, of New Jersey
Trumbull, of Illinois
Wade, of Ohio

Wilkinson, of Minnesota

Wilson, of Massachusetts

Yulee, of Florida—44.

NAYS.

Mason, of Virginia

Pearce, of Maryland

Hamlin, of Maine

Powell, of Kentucky

Hunter, of Virginia

Toombs, of Georgia-8.

On the next day the House was informed of the action On the 19th the bill was referred to the

by the Senate.

House Committee on Public Lands. On the 21st the House adopted a substitute by a vote of 162 to 63, and thus amended, the Homestead bill was passed by the following vote:

Robinson, of Illinois
Royce, of Vermont
Schwartz, of Pennsylvania
Scranton, of Pennsylvania
Sedgwick, of New York
Sherman, of Ohio
Sickles, of New York
Somes, of Maine
Spinner, of New York
Stanton, of Ohio
Stewart, of Pennsylvania
Stout, of Oregon
Stratton, of New Jersey
Tappan, of New Hampshire
Thayer, of Massachusetts

Adams, of Kentucky

Tompkins, of Ohio
Train, of Massachusetts
Trimble, of Ohio
Vandever, of Iowa

Van Wyck, of New York
Wade, of Ohio
Waldron, of Michigan
Walton, of Vermont
Washburne, of Illinois
Washburn, of Maine
Wells, of New York
Wilson, of Indiana
Windom, of Minnesota
Woodruff, of Connecticut-103.

Anderson, of Missouri

Anderson, of Kentucky
Ashmore, of South Carolina
Avery, of Tennessee*
Bocock, of Virginia
Brabson, of Tennessee†
Branch, of North Carolina
Bristow, of Kentucky
Burch, of California

Clark, of Missouri
Clopton, of Alabama
Cobb, of Alabama
Craige, of North Carolina
Curry, of Alabama
De Jarnette, of Virginia
Edmundson, of Virginia
Etheridge, of Tennessee
Gartrell, of Georgia
Gilmer, of North Carolina
Hamilton, of Texas
Hardeman, of Georgia
Harris, of Maryland
Harris, of Virginia

* Democrat.

NAYS.

Hatton, of Tennessee †
Hawkins, of Florida
Hill, of Georgia
Hughes, of Maryland
Jenkins, of Virginia
Leach, of North Carolina
Love, of Georgia
Mallory, of Kentucky
Maynard, of Tennesseet

McQueen, of South Carolina

Millson, of Virginia

Moore, of Kentucky
Nelson, of Tennessee†
Noell, of Missouri
Peyton, of Kentucky
Phelps, of Missouri
Pryor, of Virginia
Quarles, of Tennessee†
Reagan, of Texas

Ruffin, of North Carolina
Rust, of Arkansas

Scott, of California

Singleton, of Missouri

Stewart, of Maryland

"Native Americans."

Whig.

Stokes, of Tennessee†

Taylor, of Louisiana

Thomas, of Tennessee*

Vance, of North Carolina

Webster, of Maryland
Winslow, of North Carolina
Wright, of Tennessee*-55.

It is worthy of remark that the whole of the Tennessee. delegation in the House of Representatives, the entire ten members, voted against the Homestead bill. The controlling power of the delegation was "American." The ten embraced one Whig, three Democrats, and six elected by the so-called "American" party. Mr. A. O. P. Nicholson, the Senatorial colleague of Senator Johnson, voted for the bill.

After three committees of conference, of which Senator Johnson was a leading member, had met and discussed the provisions of the bill, a majority of the managers on the part of both Houses agreed on a report, which was presented by Senator Johnson to the one, and by Mr. Schuyler Colfax to the other, respectively, on June 19.

As passed, the Senate bill provided that the pre-emptors then upon the public lands might remain there two years before they should be required to purchase their lands, but should then pay for them at the rate of one dollar twenty-five cents per acre. The House, regarding this as removing the pre-emptors from within the purview of the benefits which would apply to subsequent settlers, refused to accede to it. A compromise was effected, and the House changed the bill so as to protect the thousands of pre-emptors now on Government land" to be advertised in the fall for sale, from land sales for at least two years, and to allow them then to secure their homes at one-half the Government price, namely, sixtytwo and a-half cents per acre. Compromises on some other points of disagreement were effected, as the best that could be done at the period, and the report agreed upon was con

* Democrats.

"Native American."

curred in by both Houses on the day of its presentation.*

The bill was presented to President Buchanan for approval on the 20th, but was vetoed by a message to the Senate on the 23d; and thus was the patient labor and enthusiastic devotion of years nullified by the Presidential veto.

Of course, Senator Johnson did not permit his measure to fall under the veto without a vigorous effort to keep it in a position to withstand the powerful blow, but it was in vain. There seemed to be an understanding between Johnson's antagonists, many of whom voted for the bill, and the President, that the former would sustain the latter if he vetoed it. In this, as in all other measures of his Administration, President Buchanan proved himself to be completely under the control of the conspirators; and the conclusion of his official term in its cowardly and parricidal postponement of action against the traitors, was only the natural result of the plans into which Mr. Buchanan had been led by a hatred of Douglas on the one hand, and an obsequious abandonment of his power into the hands of the Southern leaders on the other, to crush the great Illinois Senator. In furthering Mr. Buchanan's purposes for the annihilation of Douglas, the Southern leaders were less successful than in using the power of the Government to foster treason. On every necessary point they used Mr. Buchanan to forward their designs; and it cannot be doubted that the veto was incited through fear of the effect of a Homestead bill, if carried into a law, on the population, of the South. One of the charges made against the measure was, that it would induce numbers of men to leave the Southern States. In view of the armed revolt which was then in contemplation, the Southern leaders did not want any such exodus of

The vote to concur in the report of the Committee of Conference which finally framed the Homestead law, stood thus: In the Senate-yeas, 36; nays, 2, In the House--yeas, 115; nays, 51.