Land Policy and Tenancy in the Prairie States1

Paul Wallace Gates

The Journal of Economic History, 1941, vol. 1, issue 1, 60-82

Abstract: Thomas Jefferson believed that political democracy could be maintained in the United States only if it were made to rest on the firm foundation of economic democracy. “The small landowners are the most precious part of the State,” he said, contrasting this ideal economy with a congested population in urban centers which would, he feared, threaten democracy because it would be subject to control by agitators and demagogues. He urged the adoption of a policy of cheap land that would attract laborers from abroad and from the eastern cities to the newly developing areas of the West and the South. Thus he proposed to create a nation of farm owners who would be the very warp and woof of democracy.

Date: 1941
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