at this moment, and we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio sha flow.1

Repeated attempts were made by the friends and advocates of slavery in Congress early in this century to repeal the ordinance of 1787, but they were always defeated, on the ground stated by Mr. Webster.

In his celebrated speech in reply to Hayne, January 26, 1830, Mr. Webster said:

Having had occasion to recur to the ordinance of 1787,

*
*

冬

I am not willing now entirely to take leave of it without another remark. It need hardly be said that that paper expresses just sentiments on the great subject of civil and religious liberty. Such sentiments were common and abound in all our state papers of that day. But this ordinance did that which was not so common, and which is not even now universal; that is, it set forth and declared it to be a high and binding duty of government itself to support schools and advance the means of education, on the plain reason that religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good government and to the happiness of mankind.

The ordinance of 1787 was followed in 1803 by an act of Congress granting the sixteenth section of each township in the Mississippi Territory for education, and, later, by similar enactments for other territorial acquisitions, except Texas, which retained the title to her public lands under a bargain made at the time of her admission into the Union. In 1805 the legislative council and house of representatives of the Territory of Orleans memorialized Congress in favor of a grant of lands for public schools. On February 27, 1806, the committee of the House of Representatives to which these memorials were referred submitted a favorable report, in which they said:

Your committee are of opinion it ought to be a primary object with the General Government to encourage and promote education in every part of the Union, so far as the same can be done consistent [ly] with the general policy of the nation and so as not to infringe the municipal regulations that are or may be adopted by the respective State authorities on this subject.

The benefits resulting to society in general from the establishment and support of public institutions for the education of youth and the general diffusion of science, are too well known to all discerning persons to require any particular investigation on the present occasion. The National Legislature has by several of its acts on former occasions evinced in the strongest manner its disposition to afford the means of establishing and fostering, with a liberal hand, such public institutions.2

The State of North Carolina, in 1790, ceded to the United States her "western lands," which comprised the present State of Tennessee.

In

1 Webster's Works, iii, 263, 264. The provision of the ordinance to which Mr. Webster referred was as follows: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

2 American State Papers, Public Lands, vol. 1, p. 258.

3 It will be remembered that before this, in 1785, the inhabitants west of the mountains had set up a State government under the name of Franklin. A legislature was convened, and third among the fourteen acts passed at its first (and only ?) session was one for "the promotion of learning in the county of Washington." This was the first legislative action west of the Alleghanies for the encouragement of learing. Under the provisions of the act Martin Academy was founded.-(Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 294.)

1806 the United States ceded all the public lands remaining in the State to Tennessee on certain conditions, one of these being that one hundred thousand acres of land should be set apart for the use of two colleges, the same amount for the support of academies, the lands so set apart to be subject to the disposition of the legislature at not less than $2 an acre, "and the proceeds of the sales of the lands aforesaid shall be vested in funds for the respective uses aforesaid forever. And the State of Tennessee shall moreover, in issuing grants and perfecting titles, locate six hundred and forty acres to every six miles square in the territory hereby ceded, where existing claims will allow the same, which shall be appropriated for the use of schools for the instruction of children forever."1

The policy inaugurated by the ordinance of 1787 was not confined to the Northwest Territory. In the act approved March 3, 1803, providing for the disposal of lands belonging to the United States south of Tennessee, the reservation was made of lot No. 16 of each township and of an entire township for the purposes of common school and university education.

From that time until 1848, on the organization of each new Territory similar provisions were made for public education. In that year, on the organization of the Territory of Oregon, the quantity of land reserved for the benefit of common schools was doubled; and to each new Territory organized and State admitted since, except West Virginia, the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections of every township, one-eighteenth of the entire area, have been granted for common schools.

To each State admitted into the Union since the year 1800, except Maine, Texas, and West Virginia, and to the Territories of New Mexico, Utah, and Washington, have been granted two or more townships of land to endow a university. The States that received more than two townships, or 46,080 acres, are: Ohio, 69,120 acres; Florida and Wisconsin, 92,160 acres each; and Minnesota, 82,640 acres.

In 1862 the law granting lands to each State to endow colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts was enacted. The lands granted to the several States under this act aggregate 9,600,000 acres.

The State of Texas, on her admission into the Union, retained the title to her public land, and is consequently excepted from the grants to endow common schools and universities; but she shared the benefits of the act endowing colleges of agriculture, receiving as her share land scrip representing 180,000 acres.

United States Statutes at Large, vol. 2, p. 383.

* In 1839 the Republic of Texas set apart three leagues (13,284 acres) of land in each county for the support of a common school or academy therein, and the following year increased the grant to each county for this purpose to four leagues, or 17,712 acres. By the act of 1839, fifty leagues, or 221,400 acres, were granted for university purposes. Since her admission into the Union, and since the civil war, Texas has reaffirmed her consecration of these lands to the purpose for which they were thus designated, and added by constitutional provisions to these liberal grants in aid of education by

INDIVIDUAL GRANTS OF LAND.

Besides the general grants there have been special grants of land and buildings to institutions of learning in several States and Territories, as follows:

Connecticut.-Asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb........

23,049

Dakota.-Holy Cross Mission

16

Georgia.-Dahlonega arsenal, grounds, buildings, &c., for agricultural college.

10

Florida.-Chattahoochee arsenal, buildings, lands, &c., to State....

Kentucky.- Asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb; benefit trans- 22,400 ferred to Centre College.

Louisiana.-Pine Grove Academy (quitclaim by the United States)

Michigan. Public schools, Sault Ste. Marie

Public schools, Mackinac, lot and building..

Minnesota.-Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Mississippi.-Jefferson College, outlot at Natchez....

---

Tennessee. Fisk University, Nashville, land and buildings..

West Virginia.-Storer College, four lots and buildings at Harper's Ferry.... Missouri.-Under acts of June 13, 1812, May 26, 1824, and January 27, 1831, confirming to inhabitants of certain towns certain outlots, commons, &c., for purposes of education, as follows:

Portage des Sioux

St. Charles.

St. Louis

St. Ferdinand

Villa A. Robert

Carondelet.

Ste. Geneviève..

4.040

1.26

30

3.25

298.38

68.79

394.86

33.30

12.39

37.10

561.68

The quantity of land thus granted, aside from lots the area of which is unknown, is 51,651.01 acres.

By an act of September 4, 1841, 500,000 acres of land were granted to each of the following States, for the purpose of internal improvement, viz: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri; and the same grant has been made to each State since admitted into the Union, except Texas and West Virginia. The quantity of land thus granted is 9,000,000 acres. Six of the States since admitted into the Union-California, Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Nevada, and Wisconsin-have set apart the proceeds of the sales of these lands, by provisions in their respective constitutions, for the benefit of free schools.

PROCEEDS OF SALES OF PUBLIC LANDS.

At an early period Congress inaugurated the policy of granting a portion of the net proceeds of the sales of public lands to the States in which they were situated. Thus, in 1803 an act was passed granting 3 per reserving the alternate sections of land granted to railroads and other corporations, together with the entire proceeds of all future sales of public lands. Texas has also made a grant of 1,000,000 acres for the endowment of a branch college of the State university for the benefit of the colored people.

cent. of such net proceeds to the State of Ohio for "laying out, opening, and making roads within the said State, and to no other purpose whatever; and an annual account of the application of the same shall be transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury." Similar grants (in some cases of 3 and in others of 5 per cent.) have been made to the States admitted into the Union since Ohio, except to Maine, Texas, and West Virginia, in none of which did the General Government possess any public land. In some States the grants were dedicated to purposes of internal improvement, in others to education. The terms of the grant to Illinois are as follows:

SEC. 1. Be it enacted, &c., That the Secretary of the Treasury shall, from time to time, and whenever the quarterly accounts of public moneys of the several land offices shall be settled, pay three per cent. of the net proceeds of the lands of the United States lying within the State of Illinois which since the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, have been or hereafter may be sold by the United States, after deducting all expenses incidental to the same, to such person or persons as may be anthorized by the legislature of the said State to receive the same; which sums, thus paid, shall be applied to the encouragement of learning within said State, in conformity to the provisions on this subject contained in the act entitled "An act to enable the people of the Illinois Territory to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States," approved April eighteenth, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen, and to no other purpose; and an annual account of the application of the same shall be transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury by such officer of the State as the legislature thereof shall direct; and, in default of such return being made, the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby required to withhold the payment of any sums that may then be due, or which may thereafter become due, until a return shall be made as herein required.

Approved, December 12, 1820.

By the act of April 18, 1818, it was provided that one-sixth of the sums derived from the 3 per cent. of net proceeds of public land sales should "be exclusively bestowed on a college or university." From 1821 to 1869, Illinois received under this law $713,495.45.

The whole amount paid to the several States as percentages on the net proceeds of sales of public lands was $6,508,819.11. How much of this sum has been devoted to educational purposes has not yet been ascertained, but the States named below have received the amounts named, respectively, which (either by the terms of the grant by Congress or by State constitutional enactment) are to be applied for the benefit of public education:

Besides this, the State of Arkansas has received from the same source $224,473.15, which sum, by a provision of the State constitution adopted in 1868, was to be devoted to education, but respecting which the later constitution of 1875 is silent. Missouri has in like manner received under two acts, dated respectively March 6, 1820, and February 28, 1859, the sum of $1,008,321.86. The constitution of Missouri adopted in 1875 establishes a school fund, one of the components of which is, in the words of a clause in section 6:

Also any proceeds of the sales of public lands which may have been or may hereafter be paid over to this State (if Congress will consent to such appropriation).

Several of the States have devoted the net proceeds of the sales of swamp and saline lands to public education, but the amounts derived from these sources have not been generally ascertained.

In Ohio the amount realized from the sale of the saline grants and added to the common school fund was reported in 1850 at $41,024; in Indiana the State school fund realized from the same source $85,000.

The constitutions of the States of Louisiana, Mississippi (with some unimportant reservations), and Indiana contain provisions requiring that the net proceeds of the sales of swamp lands shall be used for the benefit of public education; and in several other States, as, for example, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin, the same disposition has been made under general laws, without a specific constitutional enactment. The constitution of Alabama once contained this provision; the amendment of 1875 abrogated it. It appears from the report of the State superintendent of public instruction for 1875 that up to that date the sum of $27,340.31 had been received into the State treasury on account of sales of swamp land, but it does not appear that this amount or the income thereof had ever been used for the benefit of public education.

The amount of swamp lands granted and patented to each of the States, from the date of the first grant to June 30, 1876, is as follows:1

Official reports of the amounts received from sales of these lands and of the distribution of the proceeds are not easily accessible, and it is impracticable to present at this time any statement on these heads.

1

1 Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 1876.