The homestead act of 1862 contributed not a little to the extension of settlements in the state. The original bill for that act, passed in 1860 after bitter opposition from Southern senators and representatives, had been vetoed by President Buchanan on the ground that the government had no power under the constitution to give away property of the people held by it in trust. Cyrus Aldrich, one of Minnesota’s members, introduced and actively supported the later bill, which became law on February 28, 1862, and took effect January 8, 1863. In the three years following, 9529 homestead entries were made in Minnesota, thirty-six per cent. of the whole number. There can be no question that the operation of the homestead act was beneficial so long as confined to arable lands. The use made of its provisions in later years to obtain possession of timber and mineral lands by processes morally, if not technically, criminal, depriving the nation and states of untold millions of value, gives room for regret that President Buchanan’s judgment had not governed his successor. CHAPTER XV REVIVAL It was to be expected that, upon the anticipated retirement of Governor Miller, General William R. Marshall, the most prominent among the founders of the Republican party in Minnesota, who had added a highly honorable military career to his civil record, would be called to succeed. And he was; but not without opposition from other gentlemen who had also distinguished themselves in both civil and military duties. It took twenty-two ballotings in the Republican convention to secure his nomination. At the polls he met that veteran of Democracy, the Hon. Henry M. Rice, whose popularity, especially among “old Territorians,” was so great as to reduce his majority to less than 3600 in a total of 31,000 votes. He took office in January, 1866, and so commended himself by a judicious practical administration that his reëlection in the fall of the following year was but formally contested. Mr. Rice closed his political career with the campaign of 1865, which he survived for a quarter of a century. Marshall’s double term was a period of recovery and repair after the exhaustion of the wars; and it was something more. Neither the people severally nor the state were heavily burdened with debt, and there was work for all and good prices for produce. Railroad building was continued on a scale of a few more than one hundred miles a year. In 1867 the line now known as the Iowa and Minnesota Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, begun at both ends, was completed, and trains were put on from the Falls of St. Anthony to Prairie du Chien, whence rail connection eastward already existed. Minnesota was now in the great world all the year round. No important terminals were reached by additions to other lines, although seven hundred and sixty-six miles had been constructed by the close of the decade.