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." 18 In conformity

to regulate the deposit of the public moneys.' with the intent of the various petitions, memorials, and resolutions of previous years, most of the twenty-seven States with which the moneys were deposited awarded the whole or a part of their share of the distribution to their respective State school funds. During the following four years attempts were made to secure a distribution of the proceeds of the public land sales, either among all the States, or among the sixteen landless States, for educational and other purposes. Senator Clay's land bill reappears at various times. Again the debates gravitate about questions of expediency, of justice to the old States, of constitutionality, of centralizing tendencies in the General Government, of violation of compacts with the new States. But finally a fortunate composition of both branches of Congress favors the passage of the Distribution Act of 1841,1 by a vote of 28 to 23 in the Senate, and a vote of 116 to 108 in the House. The educational clause of the early drafts of this act had been eliminated in the course of debate. But while this act made no specific reference to education, yet many of the States benefited by it appropriated varying portions of their shares to educational purposes.

During these years and the years following, the agricultural movement appears on the scene and gains strength. As early as 1840 Congress received a petition from the Kentucky State Agricultural Society praying that the funds of the Smithsonian legacy be used in the endowment of an agricultural college.20 In 1848 Senator Johnson (Md.) presented a petition from a citizen of New York praying that Congress appropriate certain moneys to be applied by the State Governments to the establishment of institutions of science and agriculture." In December of the same year notice was given in the House of a bill to grant public lands to the various States for the en

18 5 S., c. 115, p. 52.

20 Globe, 26 C., I S., 187.

19 5 S., c. 16, p. 453.

21 Ibid., 30 C., I S., 617.

couragement and improvement of agriculture in such States." Thereafter petitions from corporate bodies and States were presented in Congress requesting national aid for agricultural institutions in the various States. On February 28, 1856, Mr. Justin Morrill (Ver.) offered a resolution to the effect "that the Committee on Agriculture be requested to inquire into the expediency of establishing one or more national agricultural schools upon the basis of the naval and military schools." " On December 14, 1857, Mr. Morrill introduced a bill donating public lands to the several States which might provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts, on the basis of 20,000 acres for each senator and representative to which each State was entitled." Passing the House by a vote of 105 to 100, it was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 29 to 26. It is of passing interest, perhaps, to note that Senator Clay (Alabama) in the course of debate declared, "It is a bill which the Democratic party of this country has been committed against for thirty years past."

This bill was again taken up during the following session, and furnished the occasion for vigorous debate. Senator Pugh (Ohio) considered the measure wholly unconstitutional. He held that Congress possessed no power over the mental and moral culture of a people; that none of these objects of local concern were by the Constitution expressly or impliedly prohibited to the States; that none of these were, by any express language of the Constitution, transferred to the United States; and that, therefore, none of these functions of local administration and legislation were vested in the Federal Government even by implication.25 Senator Mason (Vir.) feared that the bill intended to use the public lands as a means of controlling the policy of the State legislatures; that if agricultural colleges could be established, then might State school systems also be established by the Federal Government, thus 22 Globe, 30 C., 2 S., 56. 23 Ibid., 34 C., I S., 530.

24 Ibid.,, 35 C., 1 S., 32, 36, 1609, 1692 ff.

25 Ibid., 35 C., 2 S., 713.

26

fastening upon the Southern States the peculiar free school systems of New England. The advocates of the measure, of course, denied the validity of all opposing arguments based on unconstitutionality, inexpediency, injustice to the new States, and undue centralization of Federal power. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 25 to 22, and several slight Senate amendments were agreed to by the House. President Buchanan, however, vetoed the measure." His objections were practically those advanced by the opposition during the debate. An attempt to pass the bill over the President's veto failed.

The legislative changes incident to the Civil War removed a large portion of the opponents of the agricultural college measure from the halls of Congress. Hence, when the bill was again introduced in 1862,28 practically no opposition was encountered. Both the administration and Congress were favorable to the measure. The most important change introduced into the original measure was an increase in the endowment from 20,000 acres to 30,000 acres for each senator and representative. This measure, entitled, "An act donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts," approved by President Lincoln, July 2, 1862, represents the first grant of public lands to the old States for educational purposes.29

With the changed economic and social conditions of the South after the close of the Civil War, there accompanied a shifting of the point of view relative to the power of Congress to grant aid to the various States for educational purposes. The list of bills, memorials, petitions and resolutions presented to Congress for the furtherance of these objects is a long one. 26 Globe, 35 C., 2 S., 718.

27 Ibid., 35 C., 2 S., 1412.

28 Ibid., 37 C., 2 S., 1935, 2769.

29 The grants of a township each to the Connecticut and the Kentucky Deaf and Dumb Asylums were for the benefit of private, not State, institutions.

Nor has the endeavor on the part of the old States to be the recipients of an equitable distribution of the public lands for educational purposes been lessened. Such measures have been the source of warm debate. The arguments employed do not differ essentially from those used in the early debates. But to the present time the old States have not received any grants for elementary and higher education commensurate with the aid rendered the public land States. Twice, however, since the passage of tne Agricultural College Act of 1862 have the old States participated equitably in the patronage of the General Government, viz.: in the Agricultural Experiment Station Act of 1887, and in the Morrill Act of 1890 for the further endowment of the various State agricultural colleges.

CHAPTER IV

NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION

Reservation of the Sixteenth Section for School Purposes

In a preceding chapter the genesis of the reservation of the sixteenth sections, or lands equivalent thereto, in the various townships, for school purposes, has been traced. The policy foreshadowed in the early acts of Congress was definitely established in the Ohio enabling act, and, with variations and additions, it has become a recognized function of the General Government to make grants of the public lands for common school purposes to all new public land states on their admission into the Union. For many years the usual form of the enabling act provided, "That section numbered sixteen, in every township, and, when such section has been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto, and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to the State, for the use of the inhabitants of such township, for the use of schools." With the exception of Tennessee, the enabling acts and acts supplementary thereto relating to the States admitted between 1803 and 1837, specifically provided that the lands granted to any township for the use of schools were to constitute a source of revenue exclusively for such township. For reasons discussed in a later chapter, the grant of school lands to Tennessee was couched in more general terms, to the effect that "the State of Tennessee shall, moreover, in issuing grants and perfecting titles, locate 640 acres to every 6 miles square, in the territory hereby ceded, where existing claims will allow the same, which

1 Illinois Enabling Act.

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