Congress granted great tracts of lands to companies and to individuals, selling to the highest bidder, whether or not he intended personally to occupy the country.

Public sales were thus conducted by competition, and Congress even declined to grant to the men in actual possession the right of pre-emption at the average rate of sale, refusing the request of settlers in both Mississippi and Indiana that they should be given the first choice to the lands which they had already partially cleared.

[Footnote: American State Papers, Public Lands, I., 261; also pp.

71, 74, 99, etc.] It was not until many years later that we adopted the wise policy of selling the National domain in small lots to actual occupants.
Sullen Jealousy of the Pioneers.
Clouded Economic Notions.
The pioneer in his constant struggle with poverty was prone to look with puzzled anger at those who made more money than he did, and whose lives were easier.

The backwoods farmer or planter of that day looked upon the merchant with much the same suspicion and hostility now felt by his successor for the banker or the railroad magnate.