Senate Roll Call on the Homestead Act, May 6, 1862
By May 1862, senators and representatives from 11 Southern states no longer attended the 37th Congress (1861–1863). The Homestead Act easily passed both houses, supported in the Senate by most Republicans and by its leading proponent, Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a Southern Democrat who had remained loyal to the Union.
Records of the U.S. Senate, National Archives and Records Administration
