Washington passes a law granting all heads of families or those at least 21 years old who had not taken up arms against the Union a right to a plot of land at the symbolic price of $1.25 per acre ($2.50 if not already occupied). This is the Homestead Act, which assigns the vast lands of the West to the poor, practically free of charge. Lincoln, a man of the Midwest, always believed in this measure tailored specifically for freesoilers. The consequences are revolutionary: the Southern states are cut off from the rush to the West, while the North begins a mass march toward the West in search of fortune.
