Some Tiny Advantages in a Huge Calamity
Moving forward on the Homestead Act and other traditional Republican platform positions - Lincoln pulled off a similar dramatic success with the transcontinental railroad - was relatively easy since the Democratic Party of his day had been eviscerated by the removal of the seceded states. The gargantuan price the nation paid in the form of that terrible civil war provided Lincoln with a few such relatively painless victories. In addition, the Homestead Act represented a clean encapsulating into law of a philosophy he had often expressed: everyone should have a fair chance in the race of life. For example, how many times did he say things like this: “I am not ashamed to confess that 25 years ago I was a hired laborer hauling rails at work on a flatboat - just what might happen to any poor man's son. I want every man to have a chance." I suppose there is advantage [the easy passage of the Homestead Act] in every disadvantage [620,000 casualties in the Civil War], no matter how horrendous.
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