When Iowa was first opened for settlement the pioneers could not preempt lands or secure title to them until they were surveyed; and then only at public sale. But the surveyor lagged far behind the pioneer, who considered not the law, but, anxious for a home, hurried into the new tracts and settled on his claim. The "squatter" had no legal title to his claim, nor could he obtain it by priority of occupancy; and he knew that any stranger or speculator with a longer purse string could purchase his land and oust him and his family the moment the Government should offer it for sale. It was the likelihood of this dire contingency that led to the formation of Claim Clubs or Associations in nearly every locality in Iowa. These clubs were composed of all the settlers in a township or county. They adopted a constitution, elected officers and conducted their affairs by definite procedure. They governed all matters relating to the amount and character of claims, their occupancy, improvement, abandonment, transfers, and disputes. The decisions of the club were rigidly enforced. Claims were recorded and the members were under solemn agreement not only to guard each other from interference but to prevent lands claimed from being sold to strangers at the public sales. Unhappy was the fate of a man who had the temerity to "jump" a claim or to outbid a claimant. Tar and feathers or unceremonious banishment or even harsher treatment was not unlikely. At the sale the club selected a member who would bid in the members' claims. He was accompanied by a posse whose presence always prevented outsiders from bidding as the law contemplated. If the Government officials were not always in sympathy with the settlers, at least they were always discreet enough to manifest no disapproval of the proceedings. These Claim Clubs of Iowa aroused fierce opposition in the East. Calhoun and Clay denounced them as "conspiracies of lawless men" who so terrorized would-be purchasers that bona fide sales were impossible, and they urged that vigorous measures be taken to abate them. Webster came to the settlers' defence. He pleaded for what he called their "reasonable rights" under the circumstances. The Government had delayed the surveys; yet the settlers had been encouraged to go into the new lands and make their homes; to dispossess them would work severe hardship; the clubs, although outside the pale of the law, had enforced order and maintained to a marked degree all the forms of law and government, and violence was extremely rare. To Webster's eloquence was due the passage of the early preemption laws. They were not liberal enough, however, and in 1848 a strong Claim Club was formed at Des Moines.