The 1861 withdrawal of the Southern delegations resulted in the chambers of the United States Congress being half-empty. However, with Southern Democrats no longer blocking Northern interests, the Congress, in spring and summer 1862, the 37th Congress passed three of the most far reaching pieces of domestic legislation from the second half of the nineteenth century: the Homestead Act, which provided to applicants free farmland west of the Mississippi River; the Morrill Land-Grant College Act, which bestowed land for states to finance the establishment of agricultural colleges; and the Pacific Railroad Act, which led to the construction of a transcontinental railroad.