The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-12-07
From pte KnozsiIie (Isnn,) Register.
The Bounty Land Law should he Modified .

We have understood that there is a great deal of
complaint on the part of the soldiers residing in
East Tennessee, that Congress did not allow them,
by the act which is intended to confer a bounty
upon them, to sell their land warrants as has al
ways been done heretofore. We think these com
plants are we'll iounded-not because we suppose
that those who voted for this law Intended any
thing else than, as they supposed, to protect the
soldier from the merciless speculator but for the
reason thai 1t ID UNJUST the part of the Govern
nen tp say that, of two classes Of soldiers equally
meritorions shall have the privilege of selling
and transferring their idnd ,tarrdns while the other
shall not only not sell their warrants. but, to make
them worth even a silver TO them, they must leave
their homes. and at great expense Tor send
agent at greater cXpenae) ride hundreds of miles
to the frontier territory, in order to locate forty
or eighty acre tcarTdnt; and then, unless they in
their old wish to remove with their families from
the homes made dear to them by the associations
o forty or nifty years, and settle upon their little
tract of bounty land, it is worthless To them, as no
one will buy it without having seen it, So that the
Spectator who traverses the country when these
warrants may be located, and learns the value Of
each location, is at last the man who will buy up
the lands of the soldier for "a song,'
If Congress intended that the soldier should settle
upon his bounty land, whether he wishes to do
not, then, of course, it well enough to enact
that he should not sell his warrant; but if the OBJ
ject of the law bounty TO the soldier, then he
ought TO be left perfectly free to dispose of his
rant as he may see tit. We regard the law, in its
present form, as imposing improper restrictions
upon the soldiers it was intended to benefit and we
perfectly satisfied that If it remain is there
hundreds of those who might claim its benefits
that will no, do 30, simply because they feel that
forty, eighty even hundred and sixty acres OF
land, Of the location and quality Of which they
know nothing, will not be worth the small trouble Of
applying for III and then, again, there thou
sands of those who may obtain their warrants, and
have their lands located by Governm- mt agents,
that will sell for any price that may be offered.
In view of these considerations, in behalf Of the
soldiers of East Tennessee particularly, we call
upon Congress to remove the restriction and allow
the soldier to sell his warrant tchen and TO trhon he
pedses Those who arc entitled 10 bounty land
der the late law, we'll advanced in life
who ought TO be presumed capable of taking care
of their own interests, and for them protest
against the impniaticn which this law casts upon
them, to the effect that If they be allowed sell
their warrants, they will be incapable OF knowing
their value, and may, therefore, be defrauded. Let
every press and every politician, then, who is the
friend OF the soldier, demand such modf alton of
the law will make the bounty which il gives,
something worthy the attention of those to whom il
is offered; that the soldier may thus lie benefited,
while the Government can lose nothing. matter
to whom or for what he sells his warrant.