For the people to buy themselves out, would be the only honest way of transfer; but this would be like a man standing in a corn-basket and trying to … - Joel Benton

Sea-like in billowy distance, far away </br> The half-broke prairies stretch on every hand; </br> How wide the circuit of their summer day— </br> What measureless acres of primeval land, </br> Treeless and birdless, by no eyesight spanned!

Nor moves his pen our heedless nation now, </br> Which, sworn to justice, stirred the people so. </br> In some far world his much-loved face must glow </br> With rapture still. This breeze once fanned his brow. </br> This is the peaceful Mecca all men know!

The history of land-ownership ... is as strikingly a history of losses as it is of profits. We see the successes, as we see the ships which float on the ocean, while the unnumbered wrecks in both cases are out of thought and beyond vision.