For years, Southern lawmakers actively blocked legislation of the Homestead Act, fearing they would lose support for slavery in new territories and states. Once the southern states seceded, the act passed, and President Abraham Lincoln signed it into law. Waves of farmers, European immigrants, and even widows and single women moved West, hoping to cultivate the land and establish permanent settlements. For the next 100+ years, 10% of national land passed into private ownership to settlers who, in turn, faced bitter weather, disease, and poverty. The Homestead Act of 1862 rapidly transformed the American frontier.