San Francisco Daily Alta California, November 11, 1860

It is the interest of California that the Federal Homestead Bill, adopted by the House of Representatives at its last session, should be again brought forward and urged upon Congress during the coming session, and forced to a passage if possible. The Senate would no doubt amend the bill, as it did last session, and the President would probably veto the amended bill, as he did when it was adopted before. But these are dangers to which we must submit. If the bill be lost finally, our coast will lose nothing thereby; if it can be curried, an important step will be made to advance our interests.

We want a bill substantially the same with that adopted by the House. We object strenuously to all the amendments made by the Senate. The Homestead law should be as broad as the Preemption law; it should include all Government land, and not, as the Senate proposed, exclude all the unsurveyed and one-half of the surveyed public land. It should be a donation, as the House wished—not a sale, as required by the amendment of the Senate. But the Senate bill, unsatisfactory as it is, is better than no Homestead bill at all, and therefore we solicit its adoption, if there be no hope for the House bill at the coming session. And if the Senate bill be carried through both Houses, and vetoed by the President, we believe there is a very fair prospect to carry it over his veto; for the friends of the bill came very near having a two-thirds vote last session when the veto came up in the Senate, and it is not improbable that a full two-thirds will be now in favor of the measure. It will have several active advocates who were not in the Senate at the last session, and some of those who were warmly opposed to it then will now be lukewarm, to say the least.

The measure is one of great importance to this coast, and indeed, next to the Pacific Railroad, we doubt whether any measure now suggested for Congressional action would do more to draw population to our coast, and to fill up the valleys between us and the border of Missouri, than the Homestead bill, as adopted by the House. It is a measure, which we should urge upon Congress by every means of influence within our reach. The Legislature of Oregon has instructed its Senators to vote for a Homestead bill, and California should do likewise, instructing them not only to vote for it, but to work for it. The subject is well worth a memorial, declaring that the interests of this State demand the passage of a bill as broad as that drafted by Mr. Grow. It is well understood that all the Northern and Western States are in favor of this measure, and that Mr. Douglas is as warm an advocate of it as Mr. Lincoln, and therefore the majority of our Legislature can have no objection to the adoption of such a memorial.

The donation system, as provided by the House bill, is not an untried experiment. A donation law was in operation nine years in Oregon and Washington, and was found to have a very strong influence in securing permanent settlers. Indeed, nearly, if not quite one-half, and, perhaps, much more of the land now owned, by individuals; between the Umpqua River and Puget Sound, is held under the Donation Law of 1850, and its amendatory acts, without which a large proportion of the people of Oregon and Washington would have been attracted from their present homes to California. We have a very distinct recollection of the excitement caused in 1850, by the passage of the Donation Law. All Oregon was in a ferment of rejoicing and business when the news arrived, and the excitement extended to this State; for handbills, announcing the reward offered to settlers in Oregon, were posted about the streets of San Francisco and many persons went from here to take advantage of the offer. The passage of Grow's Homestead Bill would, we hope, cause a similar excitement throughout the West, and exercise similar beneficial influences. Let it, then, be distinctly understood that California urgently demands the passage of the House bill, and never will sympathize with any political party that opposes it.