For decades, the Democratic Party of Jefferson and Jackson had supported making public land as free as possible to farmers. They championed cheap land prices and pre-emption, the doctrine that those who squatted on land had the first right to purchase it. In these ways, the Democratic Party tried to make universal land ownership by free, white men a reality. Democrats dropped the proposal in the 1850s because southern supporters thought it would increase opposition to slavery. In his one term in Congress, Lincoln's Whig Party had opposed such policies, fearing that they allowed lazy men to steal land and encouraged land speculation. The new Republican Party took up the cry of free land. In 1862 Congress passed and Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which provided a material base for Lincoln's "farm ladder" by giving every farmer a 160-acre quarter section of federal land – as long as he improved it. Later historians agreed, arguing that the American frontier was a "safety valve" for urban masses.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "For decades, the Democratic Party of Jefferson and Jackson had supported making public land as free as possible to farmers. They championed cheap land prices and pre-emption, the doctrine that those who squatted on land had the first right to purchase it. In these ways, the Democratic Party tried to make universal land ownership by free, white men a reality. Democrats dropped the proposal in the 1850s because southern supporters thought it would increase opposition to slavery. In his one term in Congress, Lincoln's Whig Party had opposed such policies, fearing that they allowed lazy men to steal land and encouraged land speculation. The new Republican Party took up the cry of free land. In 1862 Congress passed and Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which provided a material base for Lincoln's "farm ladder" by giving every farmer a 160-acre quarter section of federal land – as long as he improved it. Later historians agreed, arguing that the American frontier was a "safety valve" for urban masses." in the context of "Allan Kulikoff, as quoted in Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx in Dialogue, 2018, P.5" to mean that wisdom is timeless.