Mr. RICE, of Maine, who said: Mr. Speaker, as Ihad the honor to introduce this bill and move its reference to the committee, and as they have reported it back substantially as it was referred to them, I ask the attention of the House while I present some considerations in support mf the measure. Sir, in order to secure liberty and right and justice throughout these southern States which have been in rebellion, We must penetrate to the fundamental ditheulties existingthere difficulties growing out of the abnormal condition of those States before they went into rebellion One of which was the immense land monopolies which had grown up there for the support of slavery and oppression. Sir, it is impossible for us to give iberty, protection, and justice to the people of those States, unless We secure them in their homes and their homesteads. The bill now before us will, in myjudgment, accomplish this, and is therefore of great practical importance in its bearing upon these States, and upon the laboring masses of the people therein. What does it o? It lays its strong hand upon 46 million 900,000 acres of lands in 5 of these States, and in its iron grasp holds them forever from the rapacious talons of the monopolist and the speculator, and then distributes them in small parcels, under the beneficent provisions of the homestead law, to the Oppressed, wronged, and sufferin poor. It says to 586,250 of the landless, homeless, but loyal people of the South, stand up in the pride and in ependence of liberty and manhood. Gather around you your wives and your children, and build for yourselves and for them homes and homestead: nurseries of independence, citadels of liberty under the sunny skies of your native South. There, under the protection of this law, laboring in your own field, living in your own houses, intrenched in your own castles, instructin your children in your own schools, and worshiping God in your own churches, you can demand and extort from your enemies JUStice and equality of civil rights before the laws. This law is a notice to the exslaveholders of the South that each homestead erected under it is a“ city of refuge ” for the starving laborers, black and white, fieing, from the wrongs and extortions directed against them. With free lands to occupy and cultivate and own, no combinations of capital, of monopolies, no vagrant laws, nor all these combined, can make slaves of the laboring masses in any country. Where ever and whenever they can have homes and lands of their own, even if they be in the mountains and amid the swamps, there human nature and human, manhood will assert its prerogatives and its freedom. It has been said that liberty dwells in the mountains. Why does it dwell there? Because avarice and monopoly have driven men from the lains, where lands are valuable aud where selfishness and capital could gather to themselves more of this worlds goods; hence the poor and oppressed have been driven to the mountains. I 0t because the loved them better, but because only there could the enjoy their hearts greatest love, liberty. SH, liberty is just as indigenous to the broad plains of Illinois and Minnesota and other parts of this country as to the mountain districts; and it grows and flourishes thereas it does in the mountain regions, because the people are protected in their homes and by their firesides by equal and jnst laws. Monopolies are discouraged, and the rights of free labor and free men maintained. So it will be 1866. m all over our beloved land, provided we do our whole duty in the difficult emergency which is now upon us; and that this will be accomplishe I have an abiding faith. It is not possible, with the trials and sufferings of the last 5 years freshin our memories, with our oblitions to the noble soldiers and sailors who have saved the nation pressing upon us, that we can prove recreant to the high trust confided to our keeping. and, sir, with the blessing of God, we shall not, but shall complete the regen eration and redemption of the waste places of the South, and plant liberty and justice there, and protect their growth until they shall reach their full stature. Now, Mr. Speaker, what does this bill do? It takes 6, 700,000 acres of land in Alabama, 7, 700,000 acres in Mississip i, 6, 200,000 acres in Louisiana, 9, 300,000 in Xrkansas, and 20,000,000 or thereabouts in Florida, making a and total of 46, 900,000 acres, and under the iberal provisions of the homestead act, that act which shall live as a monument to the irisdom of the Congress that enacted it, and of the martyred patriot who approved it, and gives it all to the poor people of the South, and toothers who may go and dwell with them. If the people of the South shall be protected in the homesteads which they shall take up under this bill, then I defy all the accursed enginery of oppression there to drive freedom from that God avored, but manaccursed land. How many homesteads of 80 acres will this bill give? 586,000 250 It is a moderate estimate, that each homestead will provide a home and support for 5 persons each, thus ving homes to 2, 931, 250. But a portion of the lands may not be suitable for homesteads. If 40,000,000 acres are suitable for cultivation, then we have 500,000 homesteads, supportin 2, 500,00opersons. 30 million acres W! I give 376,000 homestends, and at 5 acres each will support 1, 875,000 persons. This last estimate, I believe, from the best information I can obtain, will be easily attainable under the bill and the homesteads be made from good arable lands. But. if oppression and wrong shall drive the peeple from remunerative labor in other fields and pursuits. this 30,000,000 acres of good land will give support and independence to at least double the number I have estimated, which will be 3, 750,000. Ay, sir, if aristocracy and capital and unjust laws shall do their worst in those States against the freedman and the loyal whites of the South, this bill, ifitbeenacted, and the rights of the people under it be maintained and protected by the federal Government, will of itself, secure to them all the God given rights of “ lifeI liberty, and the pursuit of a iness.” Each and ever acre of the fertile araihiie lands of the South will ive support and independence to each ablebo ied a tilt person who may own and cultivate it. Ifwe admitthat but 1/2 of the laudlcss laboring masses of the Soutlf are ablebodied adults, and that they number 5 millions, and that but 20 million acres of these lands are of good quality, then each adult may have a farm of 4 acres, which will be ample to support him and his helpless dependents. I doubt not that this last. estimate reduces the farms to much smaller dimensions than the facts will warrant, which will make my argument so much the better and the argument is based upon the suposition that the class of persons who have rulbd and Oppressed the southern people will continue to do so. But this, thank (10d, will be impossible, and the passage of this bill will give one of the most steadfast and abiding instrumentalities to prevent it. The laws which we may pass here may be effective to secure the 00 e against wrong and injustice there while aced by the strong arm of Federal power, but no longer. This bill gives to the pea ile thein eans whereby they may live independent of capitalists and land monopolists, and thus they Will be enabled to protect themselves. No man can be made a slave so long as he has the means to support himself, and those whom nature has made to submit to extortion and oppression or to labor on his own land for his own and their support, even if the latter be eked out from the sterile mountain side, and he will accept the latter. Again, this law and the protection which it will afford will be a better surety that the present land monopolists of the South will do what right and justice require toward their former dependents and slaves than all the laws that can be enacted to accomplish such results. Give freedom and independence to labor, and then the capitalist and the landhold or will be forced to respect it. They must have labor, for they will not labor themselves, and they will contract for it and pay for it liberally and just rather than to starve. Sir, I agree with the honorable gentleman who reported this bill, [Mr. JULIAN] that the lands of the leading rebels of the South should have been con1 loyal men of the South and to our gallant soldiers who, by their rowess, have saved them from the control of e most accursed despotism and aristocracy that can be imagined. More especially shouid the lands which belonged to the several rebel States have been so confis cated, if they did not inure and revert to the Federal Government by virtue of their conuest. Then, instead of bein forced to give these 47 million acresIor this purpose, we. would have more than 3 times that amount, justly forfeited as the penalty of trea son. I believe there are about 100 million acres now owned or claimed to be owned by rebellious Texas alone, which should in justice be thus distributed. But, sir, we must do justice even if we do not exact it. We must give to the libertyloving, loyal men of the South the means to live and to preserve their independence in proportion as we aregenerous and orgiving to the traitors who seek to oppress them. p to this rule I trust even the gentlemen on the other side of the House may be induced to act. I have said that we must strike to the very foundation of the difficulties existing in the South. We must educate the people in the rights and duties of free men. This can be done in no other way than by planting them upon the soil and protecting them there. Why, sir, what is the use of giving liberty and the right of suffragelto men, if you so. that they shall not have the right to live an support themselves by honest labor? Unless you grant them this, you give them a stone when they ask you for bread. Wherever there are small farms, there you find liberty and independence. Give the lands of any country into the control and owaership of great monopolies, and there the masses of the people will be oppressed, ignorant, and miserable. The greatest and most ditheult problem to solve in this century is a political and social one combined; and that is to protect the poor and the ignorant against the wrongs and oppressions of capital and aristoc racy. This is a labor which needs to be done everywhere, in the North as well as in the South, in the East and the West; and most abundantly in the monarchies and oligarchies of the Old World. May its solution be wrought out to. its greatest perfection in our own favored country. Mr. Speakcr, this bill is free from the charge of class cgislation. It operates upon all alike whether they be white or black. admit that more of the black race will be able to avail themselves of its revisions than the white race of the South, for the reason that they are mostly loyal, and the whites are mostly disloyal and the blacks, too, are more anxious to tak up farms and labor upon them than the whites. The evidence comes up to us from every source thdt the great desire of the freedman is to have a small farm for the support of himself and family, and therefore they will speedily avail themselves of the provisions of his bill, and very soon release t ie Government from all expense on their account. The following is an extraot from one of the letters of the commer pendent upon him. Give him the choice whether fiscated and given out in homesteads to the oial correspondent of an association of cotton manufacturersas published in the Nation: “ORANGBBURGS. o., September 8, ” 1&5. The sole ambition of the freedman at the present time appears to be to become the owner of a little pieceof land, there to perpet a humble home and to well in peace and security at his own free will and pleasure: if he wishcsto cultivate the round to cotton on his own account, to be able to to so without anyone to dio tatcto him hours or systems of labor; if he wishes instead to plant corn or sorghum or sweetpotatoes. to be able to do that free from any outside control in one word. to be free to control his own time and efforts without anything that can remind him of past sufferings in bondage. “This is his idea. his desire and his hope. It ll common to allI but much strontr among them amed and middle aged.” I also read the following from a southern man, as well illustrating the views which I have have had the honor to submit, and the importance and necessity of this menare: “Gsoacu av A Riemann The freemans 1st want is not the ballot, but a chance to live: mg. air. itchnnes tdoom live. You say the government hpllVQfl him free and that many good men in the lloith btllQVO he must have the ballot to secure that freuloxp. I tell you hes not got his freedom yet. aidusntlikcly to get it right away. Why He cant evenlive Without the consent of the white man. ile has no laudhe can make no crops except the white man giveshim a chance. He hasnt any timber be cant get a stick of wood without leave from a white man. We crowd him into the fewest possible employments, and then he can scarcely get work anywhere but in the price fields and cotton plantations of a white man who has owned him and given up slavery only at the pouit of the bayonet. Even in this city o canft got a pnil of water from a well without nskm a whiteman or the privilege. He can hardly hreat le, and he certainly cant live in a house, unless a white man gives his consent. What sort of freedom is that? He has freedom in name, but not in fact. In many respects boil worse off than he was before iyotimade him two. for then the property interest o his master protected him and now his masters hand, as well as the hand of overybodyelse is against him. True, he has the military here for his protection, but there are 1,000 things done here every day under the coloncls very nose that he dont know anything aboutthing he couldnt remedyif hotlid knowaboutthem. llien, besides, there are 100s of wrongs of which he knows. that he cant reach and cant make right. Tisnt such whippings as het old you about that most i nwjurosntigcte he negro: its the small, endless, mean, little of over day thats going to kill him off. Hes only partially protected now; take the troops laig what ywaonodd his chance wouldnt he as good as a piece of “I in a house on fire. have not much faith in the idea that capital and labor will reconcile themselves. Things are exceptional here. Our capital is all in the hands of a few and invested in great plantations. Our labor lS all in the hands of a race supremely ignorant and against whom we all have a strong preiudice. In myopinion, you cant reconcile these 2 interests unless you put the labor in subicction to the capital: that is. unless you give the white man contro of the negro. Of course that cant again be allowed and there ore there is an almostim assublegulf between the negro and freedom, unless t ie Governmentaids him. I will tell you what I policy of confiseation should be our ilgdidhlyaveeardroiende. The out at once. Mercy to the individual is death to the State: and in pardoning all the leading men. the President is killing the free State he might have built here. The landed aristocracy have always been the curse of the State I saythat. as a man born and reared in georgiaban bound to her by every possibletic. lill that is roken down there can be no real freedom here for either the negro or the poor white. The result of the war gave on a chance you neverwill not again to overthrow t iit monopoly. lhc negroes and the poor whites are bitter onomiesin many respects, but they agree in wanting land. You should have carried out your cpnfiscation policy; divided up the great plantations into 5acre lots and sold them to the highest and best bidders. That would have thrown some of the land into other larite plantations, but it would have been fair, and would have given the poor whites and the negroes aohapec. give a man a piece of land; let him have acubin ofhis own upon his own lot, and then you make him free. Civi rights are good for nothing, the ballot is good for nothing till you make some men of every class landholders. You must give the negroes and poor whites a chance to live; thats the 1st thing ou should do. The negro has a great notion to set ima piece of land and you should help him along by that notion. What does he want of a vote? lle wouldnt know how to use it and twouldnt bring him anything to out or wear if he had a dozen. Give him land and then you touch his case exactly. 110 u got none now. There is not one plpnter in 1,000who would sell bim any; but if youd carried out your confisclatign pohoy e could have bought it. like any ye so. Mr. Speaker, I fully concur in all this writer has said, unless he be understood as opposing the enfranchisement of the negro. I, sir, contend that he should in justice have this great right. I believe it is the greatest and best power which the poor man can have for his Protection against the oppressious of capital. Give him a homestead and the ballot, and he will soon understand his rights and maintain them. They should go together to be effect ual. If we cannot confer but one now, let us give him that, the homestead, and with that he will soon extort and secure the others.