Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1847-10-13

monopolizing large tracts Of the best pub
lie lands, by which to speculate on the fu-
turc settlers. They petition the State
Legislatures to exempt homestead for
every family from sale for debt, and limit
the quantity of land hereafter to be acquir-
ed by one person to 100, 200 or 300 acres.
Something should we think be done to pro-
tect the weak against the grasping, and
gripping Of the MonoaoGsts. Several
States have lately exempted the Home
stead. The following article from a Mich
igan paper, will give your readers toler-
able cor rect view OF the objects of the Ma
tional Reformers:
From the True Democrat.
National Reform.
MR. DEmocRxT:-As the doctrines Of the Ma
tional Reformers are exciting much attention,
and are making rapid progress: it is right that
the public should be generally informed Of the
nature and design of the measures proposed by
that party, in order that, if ,orong, they may be
opposed and just and ezpedien:, that they may
be adopted.
The National Reformers lay down the funda-
mental principles that Jehovah is the Lord of
the land; in other words the only legitimate
LANDLORD-and that he has bestowed the
use of it upon the whole human family, so that
each individual, without regard to color, shall
have % right t. u home. AS each individual has
this right to home it follows that no individ-
ual can honestly or religiously possess two or
more M homes that is to say, he cannot monopohze
ing that there is, by Divine justice and should
be, by human law, a limit to the amount of land
that any one person may obtain. A right to live,
implies right to place to live, and as a mans
life is exempt from sale by execution, you shall
not put him to death to pay his debt, so mans
home should be exempt from compulsory sale by
execution for debt. This exemption of the home
stead from compulsory sale so far from impairing
credit, would strengthen credit; for men would
have the means to pay, and credit would be iven
to character and not as it is in the present per-
verted state Of society, to the mere accident of
wealth. Besides this, debts would then be felt
to be debts of honor, and person who did not
stunned as dishonorable, and he would pay his
debts to preserve his respectable standing in so
ciety, even if insensible to more worthy consider
ations. -
In order to attain this free and happy state Of
society, the National Reformers allege that it is
unnecessary to invade any inuested right to lands
as now held. They estimate that there are about
one thousaed ndsfour hundred million acres Of
the public lands in the Unitnd States and Terri
tories for which no vested title has yet been OBJ
tanned, and they say that these public lands
should be no longer sold to spectators and mo-
nopolists, but should be surveyed into townships
of six miles square, and these townships into
farms CT a limited quantity, say not exceeding
one hundred and sixty acres, and the center of
each township crossed by the public roads, should
be laid out in towns villages with lots of con-
venient definite size, and then that their farms
or their lots should be free for the use of actual
settlers, without money and without prizes, except
the payment of such sums as may be necessary,
to defray the mere expenses of the survey.
Here then, we have three land principles, as
constituting the system Of the National Re-
formers viz: 1st the freedom of the public lands,
in limited quantities to actual settlers only to be
called the homestead; End, the exemption Of the
homestead from compulsory sale, by execution
for debt other cause; 3dly. the land limitation
or limit to the Quantity of land, which any one
person may hereafter acquire either by gift or
purchase, devise or descent which principle of
limitation would in short time. destroy the land
monopoly already existing and which the regula-
ton in regard to the public lands could not reach
Children hereafter inheriting landed estates
would get the limited quantity say not exceeding
one handred and sixty acres for each child, and
all over that proportion to be sold and the pro-
ceeds divided among the children of representa-
tives, according to the intestate laws of the will
of the deceased. A farmer then having six hun
dred and forty acres and four children would
keep his whole estate during his life. and at his
death no child could take more than one hundred
and sixty acres. 1.-THE father had but one hun
dred and sixty acres, thenhe could give his farm
to which child he pleased, or to whoever he pleased
so that the devisee were not already in possession
Of his just quantity in other land, and the child
or children not provided for, would have their
right to their homes on lands not settled by 9th
ers.
National Reformers contend that the present
evils of society result from land monopoly The
landless and destitute workingmen and mechau-
les have no home, no means of employment and
support upon which they can fall back, and are
therefore compelled daily to sell the labor of their
hands for what it will bring. The over-compe-
tition ofworkingman against workingnan, of art
ist against artist, and of all departments of the
producing classes diminishes their wages and
profits to the mere starving point, and also, tho
small capitalists are destroyed by the larger cap
italists, and thus ruin, misery, and crime every
where surround us. But if each man and wo-
man had free and sure home, as God given
right, sacred as the right to life person might
become his own employer; and abundance NOR
ality, freedom and happiness everywhere prevail
But we have no space to trace out the operations
of principles by which all these great results
would be achieved. The Reformers contend
that one example of free soil people, would ex-
tend over all nations, until the whole earth
| should be paradise, and all men brethren
having one lord and one father, the Lord Jesus,
and our Father in Heaven.