In 1812, Congress established a General Land Office within the Department of the Treasury. The General Land Office was responsible for the sales of public lands to extinguish the national debt. The payments into the treasury from the proceeds of the sales of public lands grew significantly over the years. By 1832, the US government had accumulated $40 million in land sales and in 1835 alone received an "unexpected sum of $11,000,000". The demand for public lands was astonishing but put great stress on the General Land Office. Things were so busy, that the Commissioner had to spend most of his time just signing the documents. Jackson urged Congress to consider a reorganization of the General Land Office, but did they go too far? In 1836, Congress repealed the 1812 law that created the Office, and now the Jackson administration was concerned that the office could be pulled out of the Department of the Treasury.
In President Andrew Jackson's 1835 State of the Union Address, he shared the "gratifying" news that an "unexpected sum of $11,000,000" was received from the sales of public lands. With this increase in sales came an increase in the obligations of the General Land Office "to promote the speedy settlement". Jackson explained that when the office was established in 1812, nobody could have imagined the needs it was facing a quarter of a century later. "[T]he land offices and surveying districts have been greatly multiplied, and that numerous legislative enactments from year to year since that time have imposed a great amount of new and additional duties upon that office." The needs of the General Land Office had increased so greatly, that Jackson was now urging Congress to weigh in and judge for themselves whether a new organization was needed. Jackson explained that "the variety of the concerns and the magnitude and complexity of the details occupying and dividing the attention of the Commissioner appear to render it difficult, if not impracticable, for that officer by any possible assiduity to bestow on all the multifarious subjects upon which he is called to act the ready and careful attention due to their respective importance". In other words, it was just too much for one officer to handle. The "mere manual operation of affixing his signature to the vast number of documents" was taking up most of his time. Additional officers were needed.
"Among the evidences of the increasing prosperity of the country, not the least gratifying is that afforded by the receipts from the sales of the public lands, which amount in the present year to the unexpected sum of $11,000,000. This circumstance attests the rapidity with which agriculture, the first and most important occupation of man, advances and contributes to the wealth and power of our extended territory. Being still of the opinion that it is our best policy, as far as we can consistently with the obligations under which those lands were ceded to the United States, to promote their speedy settlement, I beg leave to call the attention of the present Congress to the suggestions I have offered respecting it in my former messages.
The extraordinary receipts from the sales of the public lands invite you to consider what improvements the land system, and particularly the condition of the General Land Office, may require. At the time this institution was organized, near a quarter of a century ago, it would probably have been thought extravagant to anticipate for this period such an addition to its business as has been produced by the vast increase of those sales during the past and present years. It may also be observed that since the year 1812 the land offices and surveying districts have been greatly multiplied, and that numerous legislative enactments from year to year since that time have imposed a great amount of new and additional duties upon that office, while the want of a timely application of force commensurate with the care and labor required has caused the increasing embarrassment of accumulated arrears in the different branches of the establishment.
These impediments to the expedition of much duty in the General Land Office induce me to submit to your judgment whether some modification of the laws relating to its organization, or an organization of a new character, be not called for at the present juncture, to enable the office to accomplish all the ends of its institution with a greater degree of facility and promptitude than experience has proved to be practicable under existing regulations. The variety of the concerns and the magnitude and complexity of the details occupying and dividing the attention of the Commissioner appear to render it difficult, if not impracticable, for that officer by any possible assiduity to bestow on all the multifarious subjects upon which he is called to act the ready and careful attention due to their respective importance, unless the Legislature shall assist him by a law providing, or enabling him to provide, for a more regular and economical distribution of labor, with the incident responsibility among those employed under his direction. The mere manual operation of affixing his signature to the vast number of documents issuing from his office subtracts so largely from the time and attention claimed by the weighty and complicated subjects daily accumulating in that branch of the public service as to indicate the strong necessity of revising the organic law of the establishment. It will be easy for Congress hereafter to proportion the expenditure on account of this branch of the service to its real wants by abolishing from time to time the offices which can be dispensed with."
Congress responded accordingly, by July 4th, 1836, they passed an act to reorganize the General Land Office. Several new positions were created, and the office was expanded, but included in the new bill was a repeal of the original 1812 act that created the General Land Office under the Treasury Department. Section 11 of the new act, stated that "such provisions of the act of the twenty-fifth of April, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twelve, entitled ‘An act for the establishment of a General Land Office in the Department of the Treasury,’ and of all acts amendatory thereof, as are inconsistent with the provisions of this act, be, and the same are hereby, repealed." This concerned Jackson administration and the Attorney-General Benjamin Butler had to weigh in. In a letter of July 1836 Butler argued that the 11th section of the bill did not repeal the clause under the 1812 act that the General Land Office remained a branch of the Treasury, but a supplementary act of Congress could change this. Therefore, the Attorney General suggested to President Jackson that he direct his Secretary of the Treasury to declare by executive order that the General land office still fell under the Secretary of Treasury and thus the Executive branch. It was politics as usual, with two equal branches of law fighting over the control of an agency.
References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. 2020. Seventh Annual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: <https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/seventh-annual-message-2> [Accessed 14 October 2020].
Archive.org. 2020. Full Text Of "Official Opinions Of The Attorneys General Of The United States : Advising The President And Heads Of Departments In Relation To Their Official Duties". [online] Available at: <https://archive.org/stream/officialopinion04unkngoog/officialopinion04unkngoog_djvu.txt> [Accessed 14 October 2020].
Somit, Albert. “Andrew Jackson as Administrative Reformer.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 3, 1954, pp. 204–223. JSTOR, Available at: <www.jstor.org/stable/42621191> [Accessed 14 Oct. 2020].
Loc.gov. 2020. S- N Act To Reorganize The General Land Office. [online] Available at: <https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/24th-congress/Session%201/c24s1ch352.pdf> [Accessed 14 October 2020].
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