themselves held the land "on credit." Some of them eventually paid
for the lands out of the profits made from the settlers, but a great
number of the purchasers cheated the Government almost entirely out
of what they owed. [Footnote: On Sept. 30, 1822, "credit purchasers"
owed the Government: In Ohio, $1,260,870.87; in Indiana,
$1,212,815.28; in Illinois, $841,302.80; in Missouri, $734,108.87; in
Alabama, $5,760,728.01; in Mississippi, $684,093.50; and in Michigan,
$50,584.82--a total of nearly $10,550,000. (Executive Reports, First
Session, Eighteenth Congress, 1824, Report No. 61.) Most of these
creditors were capitalist land speculators.]

The capitalists of the period contrived to use the land laws wholly
to their own advantage and profit. In 1824, the Illinois Legislature
memorialized Congress to change the existing laws. Under them, it
recited, the best selections of land had been made by non-resident
speculators, and it called upon Congress to pass a law providing for
selling the remaining lands at fifty cents an acre. [Footnote: U. S.
Senate Documents, Second Session, Eighteenth Congress, 1824-25, Vol.
ii, Doc. No. 25.] Other legislatures petitioned similarly. Yet,
notwithstanding the fact that United States officials and committees
of Congress were continually unearthing great frauds, no real change
for the benefit of the poor settler was made.


GREAT EXTENT OF THE LAND FRAUDS.

The land frauds were great and incessant. In a long report, the
United States Senate Committee on Public Lands, reporting on June 20,
1834, declared that the evidence it had taken established the fact
that in Ohio and elsewhere, combinations of capitalist speculators,