In June, 1860, a Homestead bill was passed by Congress, securing to actual settlers a quarter section of the public lands, at twenty-five cents per acre, which was vetoed by Mr. Buchanan. The veto message says: 'The Secretary of the Interior estimated the revenue from the public lands for the nest fiscal year at $4,000,000, on the presumption that the present land system would remain unchanged. Should this bill become a law, he does not believe that $1,000,000 will be derived from this source.' It would thus seem that Jacob Thompson, then Secretary of the Interior, was permitted to dictate the financial portion of this veto. He is now in the traitor army; but before leaving the Cabinet, he communicated to the enemy at Charleston important information he had received officially and confidentially. Whilst still Secretary, he was permitted by Mr. Buchanan to accept from Mississippi, _after_ she had seceded, the post of her ambassador to North Carolina, to induce her to secede; which public mission he openly fulfilled, still remaining a member of the Cabinet. Such was the abyss of degradation to which the late Administration had then fallen. Indeed, Thompson (like Floyd and Cobb), was never dismissed by Mr. Buchanan, but resigned his office, receiving then, after all these treasonable and perfidious acts, a most complimentary letter from the late President. Mr. Thompson's financial argument against the Homestead bill is most fallacious. Our national wealth, by the last census, was $16,159,616,068, and its increase during the last ten years $8,925,481,011, or 126.45 per cent. Now if, as a consequence of the Homestead bill, there should be occupied, improved, and cultivated, during the next ten years, 50,000 additional farms by settlers, or only 5,000 per annum, it would make an aggregate of 8,000,000 acres. If, including houses, fences, barns, and other improvements, we should value each of these farms at ten dollars an acre, it would make an aggregate of $80,000,000. But if we add the products of these farms, allowing only one half of each (80 acres) to be cultivated, and the average annual value of the crops, stock included, to be only ten dollars per acre, it would give $40,000,000 a year, and, in ten years, $400,000,000, independent of the reinvestment of capital. It is clear that, thus, vast additional employment would be given to labor, freight to steamers, railroads, and canals, and markets for manufactures. The homestead privilege will largely increase immigration. Now, beside the money brought here by immigrants, the census proves that the average annual value of the labor of Massachusetts _per capita_ was, in 1860, $220 for each man, woman, and child, independent of the gains of commerce--very large, but not given. Assuming that of the immigrants at an average annual value of only $100 each, or less than 33 cents a day, it would make, in ten years, at the rate of 100,000 each year, the following aggregate: