From the Cato Institute:THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND NINETEENTH CENTURY TRANSFER POLICY

A look at a major source of revenue for the national government prior to the Civil War. Texas too.

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During the 19th century, about 871.2 million acres of lands held in common by the federal government were transferred to private individuals, businesses, and state governments. The privatization of public lands began in 1796, when the public domain amounted to approximately 233 million acres. Between 1796 and 1923, private parties purchased nearly 279.3 million acres of public land. Even though the total amount of federal land holdings grew enormously, the government sold off more acreage than had been included in its original holdings. Most of these sales occurred before 1862; from 1800 until the beginning of the Civil War, proceeds from the sale of public lands constituted a major source of revenue for the federal government, accounting for 48 percent of net receipts in 1836.

Denationalization of the public domain was not limited to privatization via sales. By 1923, nearly 592 million additional acres of the public domain were transferred to individuals, railroad companies, and state governments through grants; the overwhelming proportion of these transfers occurred after 1862. What had begun as a major revenue-generating device for the U.S. Treasury had evolved into an immense transfer program. A system of allocating scarce resources via auction had been transformed into one of political allocation based on rent seeking, with large sections of the public domain being transferred to politically favored groups.