The Homestead Act marked the end of using public land to raise federal revenue

Evidence

In the second half of the 19th century, public land was, if anything, an even greater empire: the Mexican War added a vast new domain. But, politically, using this treasure to raise money for the government was all but dead. The famous Homestead Act of 1862 actually gave land away for nothing, at least to settlers. A homestead act was passed in 1859; but the president (Buchanan) vetoed it. Once the Civil War had began—​and the southern states were gone, for the moment, a free-​land act was passed and signed by Abraham Lincoln into law. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2394

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nineteenth-century federal law gave away vast public lands to promote private resource exploitation — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 791; Early federal land administration was chronically underfunded and poorly run — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 553; The Homestead Act never delivered free land to ordinary settlers — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2414 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Homestead land was nearly free to acquire and built generational wealth #corroborates (0.85)
• Homestead Act claims were affordable for ordinary settlers with little money down #corroborates (0.80) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 332
• Entrenched property-ownership ideals defeated the effort to treat land as a social resource #complicates (0.75) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 1077