The memorial of the General assembly of the State of Illinois,

Respectfully represent that on the 19^th of June of the past said year the act of Congress on the subject of preemption rights to actual settlers on public Lands expired by its own limitation, Your memorialists hoped that the provisions of that act would have been extended by your Honourable Body during its last Session, but having been disappointed in their expectation, It has become the duty of your memorialists, and they hereby respectfully urge on your honourable body the reenactment of that Law, or one containing similar provisions at your present Session

Your memorialists have understood that among the reasons which operated on Congress to allow the preemption Law to expire was the alledged frauds by persons entering on the public Lands, putting up temporary improvements, and on the first favorable opportunity disposing of their improvements at a high price to persons disposed to enter and settle on the Lands, To what extent this practice may have been carried on in other States your memorialists will not undertake to determine but they have no hesitation in saying, that in this State but few instances of the kind can be Established

Whatever degree of censure or punishment may be due to persons thus engaged, it is not the intention of your memorialists to excuse or defend, Your memorialists hope that your honourable Body will agree that no part of these punishments should be visited on the humble and Enterprising pioneer who has settled down with his family in the wilderness, and labouring to secure a home for himself and children, In short the innocent should not suffer with the guilty

Your memorialists will further take the Liberty of suggesting for your consideration, That our State composes a part of the country known as the Great West. The acquisition of

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which to this great and magnanimous Union has been made by the unparalleled sufferings and bloo^d^shed of many very many of our Illustrious patriots and fathers, who being actuated by the spirit of Republicanism have migrated into the far West, bidding defiance to the cruelties of the Ruthless and insatiable Savage, But at the loss of Thousands of the noblest and best of patriots, forming of themselves beacons to the eye of enterprising Emigrants and they have been followed by an influx of population which is rapidly inundating the whole Western Country with the sordid and avaricious schemes of speculation in amassing undue quantities of the Lands of our happy Country, and it cannot be misunderstood that this is one of the most alarming misfortunes which can befall our country, Your memorialists appeal to a Benevolent Government to appreciate the toils[,] privations[,] and sufferings of the Western pioneer, should your honourable body not grant our request the pioneer must soon again render submission to the unfeeling and insatiable speculator by a miserable Tenantry, or give place by wending his way into the farther west, In the untrodden paths of civilized man, we need only call to mind a repetition of the many tragical and Inhuman Butcheries that this western country has been particularly subject to, in the acquisition of this fair portion of the union, while we cannot be insensible that the pioneers of the West have invariably suffered all the privations and difficulties contemplated, and no portion of our country citizens have been more ready from the impulse of patriotism to defend our rights from hostile invasion. We have in addition a highly respectable portion of citizens who have left the original walks of early life to find an asylum in the west, when by the dint of Industry and economy they might have an opportunity of becoming an independent Yeomanry, which had long since been denied them in the original walks of their fathers. Believing that our Republican government cannot act with more propriety regarding that high standing

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for magnanimity and benevolence to which she has attained than to act with benevolence towards its people and in protecting and administering to the wants of the pioneer, and poor man of the West, By extending to him such whole some provisions of Law as may enable him to procure a portion of the soil necessary for the maintainance of his family. Your memorialists further mo[re] represents to your honourable body that since the present preemption law expired many of our worthy and honest citizens have been driven from their homes not being able to enter their Lands, others in order to save a small tract of Land have parted with all their property and there still remains many who are left entirely to the cold charity of the speculator, a miserable condition for the poor man, and from which your honourabl[e] body alone canreleive .

Your memorialists would further represent that in addition to those settled on the public Lands as cultivators of the soil many mechanics and in the Northern parts of our state other persons have on the invitation of the government commenced mining for Lead ore on the public lands and have made valuable discoveries thereon, and as most of the country is in progress of survey and preparation for market, both the cultivators of the soil, the mechanic[,] and those engaged in mining operations, will be brought into competition with the capitalist and speculator, we would therefore respectfully and most earnestly request that these classes of ^our^ citizens may be protected in the possession of their homes, the fruit of their labour by an extension of the right of preemption, or the restriction of the sales of the public Lands to actual settlers, and that where improvements have been made on the public lands previous to their being

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surveyed or offered for sale, that the occupant if a farmer or mechanic shall be entitled to purchase 160 acres of Land in forty or eighty acre tracts so as to be secure their improvements in the best manner and that those engaged in mining operations shall be entitled to a preemption to forty acres of Land, to include his diggings if a subdivision of any quarter section by East and West or North and South lines will secure his lot. If it will not, then he shall take such subdivision of said quarter Section as will include the greatest portion of his mineral Lotts to be ascertained by lines as aforesaid, And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.2