Many of the nation's first railroads were constructed on land grants.
A federal land grant is a gift of land taken from the public domain. The government owns public domain lands, i.e., the taxpayers as a collective body, with the governing authorities administering and managing the public acreage. According to the "Oxford Companion to United States History," at one point the majority of the 2.3 billion acres encompassing what is known now as the United States belonged to the federal government.
Constitutional Provisions
Article IV, Section 3, of the United States Constitution states: "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States. . . ." This section of the Constitution also specifies that new states may be admitted. Throughout U.S. history, the majority of federal land grants given out have gone to the states.
Land Grant Use
In U.S. history, federal land grants have been utilized to establish state colleges and universities, infrastructures that benefit the citizenry as a whole, as in the case of railroads in the late 1800s, and for public parks and access areas, like the public grazing lands of the late 19th and early 20th century. During early U.S. history, land grants were used as incentives to entice homesteaders into settling frontier territories. Grants of public lands have also been given to military veterans rewarding their service to U.S. interests. For example, land grants were awarded to soldiers that fought in the American Revolution.
Homestead Land Grants
The Homestead Act of 1862 granted 160-acre parcels of federal land to settlers who agreed to live on the land for a minimum of five years, to cultivate the land and to build a home. To qualify for a federal land grant under the Homestead Act, the applicant had to make an affidavit, a sworn statement, that he or she was 21 years of age or the head of a family and a citizen of the United States, in the process of becoming naturalized or have served in the U.S. Army or Navy. In addition, the federal law required that the applicant affirm that he or she had "never borne arms against the Government of the United States or given aid and comfort to its enemies." After the homesteader had resided on the plot of land for five years, an application for a patent could be submitted. If approved, a deed of ownership was transferred to the homesteader.
Grants for Educational Institutions
The Morrill Land Grant Act in 1862 established procedures for transferring public land from federal oversight to the authority of the states with the clear intention of establishing public institutions of higher education to teach "agriculture and the mechanic arts." Each state received a thirty-thousand acre land grant per each residing member of Congress. The states were permitted to choose the lands within their jurisdiction and to sell the acreage to set up an endowment fund for establishing a state college or university. Some states chose to fund existing universities and others opted to establish new institutions.
