The voice in the wilderness cried for a legalized natural right that would not disturb vested rights, for an individualism based on private property given without cost, for equality by a limitation of that property to one hundred and sixty acres, and finally for the Inalienability from sale or mortgage of that little plot of earth.
"The French in the Heart of America"
John Finley
The homestead legislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to those which sprang of a different policy of the Australian colonies, but did not carry out the broad principles of Inalienability and land limitation of the original Agrarians.
"A History of Trade Unionism in the United States"
Selig Perlman