Describing the great frauds in Louisiana, Benjamin F. Linton, U. S.
District Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, wrote, on
August 25, 1835, to President Jackson: "Governments, like
corporations, are considered without souls, and according to the code
of some people's morality, should be swindled and cheated on every
occasion." Linton gave this picture of "a notorious speculator who
has an immense extent of claims":

He could be seen followed to and from the land office by crowds of
free negroes, Indians and Spaniards, and the very lowest dregs of
society, in the counties of Opelousas and Rapides, with their
affidavits already prepared by himself, and sworn to before some
justice of the peace in some remote county. These claims, to an
immense extent, are presented and allowed. And upon what evidence?
Simply upon the evidence of the parties themselves who desire to make
the entry! [Footnote: U. S. Senate Documents, Second Session, Twenty-
fourth Congress, 1836-37, Vol. ii, Doc. No. 168: 5.]

The "credit" system was gradually abandoned by the Government, but
the auction system was retained for decades. In 1847, the Government
was still selling large tracts at $1.25 an acre, nominally to
settlers, actually to capitalist speculators or investors. More than
two million acres had been sold every year for a long period. The
House Committee on Public Lands, reporting in 1847, disclosed how
most of the lands were bought up by capitalists. It cited the case of
the Milwaukee district where, although 6,441 land entries had been
made, there were only forty actual settlers up to 1847. "This clearly
shows," the committee stated, "that those who claimed the land as
settlers, are either the tools of speculators, to sequester the best