LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Gl FT OF Class I S T O R Y OF THE EDERAL LAND GRANT OF JULY 2, 1862 PROVIDING FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF COLLEGES FOR THE BENEFIT OF AGRICULTURE AND THE MECHANIC ARTS AS RELATING TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY SAMUEL D. HALLIDAY History of the Agricul- tural College Land! Grant Act of July 2, 1862. DEVOTED LARGELY TO THE HISTORY OF THE "LAND SCRIP" WHICH UNDER THAT GRANT WAS ALLOTTED TO THE STATE OF NEW YORK AND AFTERWARDS GIVEN TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 1905: ITHACA DEMOCRAT PRESS Ithaca. N. Y. REPORT. To THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY : At a meeting of this Board held October 24, 1903, the Chairman of the Land Committee was requested "to prepare and present to this Board" a History of the College Land Grant of 1862. It was soon discovered that to make a com- plete history as requested would involve a great deal of in- vestigation and research. In pursuance of authority after- wards given, Mr. A. B. Zerns, a recent graduate of Cornell, was employed to make that research. Every letter, telegram, contract, memorandum or other document in the office of the Comptroller of the State of New York relating to the "Land Scrip" was read and ex- amined by him and the results of his researches were very carefully and very accurately collated. A similar research was made in the Treasurer's office and' in the Library. All available literature of every nature was also examined and interesting information compiled. Largely from the mass of material thus collected, this History has been prepared. E. L. Williams, originally as clerk in the Business Office, afterwards as Secretary of the Land Committee and Treasurer of the University, became very familiar with the management of the socalled Western Lands. In fact, it may be justly said that much of the success of the Land Committee, particularly since the death of Henry W. Sage, is due to the thorough knowledge of the lands, the executive ability and the sound judgment possessed by E. L. Williams, its Secretary. The 1G0622 parts of this history relating to that management were special- ly prepared and written by him. From memory he was also able to furnish interesting events and incidents which naturally would not go into the records, but, if not now re- corded, would soon be lost forever. An effort has been made to briefly trace the events lead- ing up to the enactment of the act of 1862. Then follows, a'mong other things, a narration of the efforts of Ezra Cornell to secure this fund for Cornell University. A more particu- lar history of the management of the scrip by the State and afterwards of the lands, first by Ezra Cornell and subsequent- ly by the University itself, is finally given. Hoping that this History will be found to be accurate, it is now "presented to this Board" as requested. Dated, Cornell University, Ithaca, 1ST. Y., Oct. 28th, 1905. S. D. HALLIDAY, Chairman of the Land Committee. History of the Agricultural College Land Grant Act of July 2, 1862, Devoted largely to the history of the "Land Scrip," which under that grant was allotted to the State of New York and afterwards given to Cornell University. PASSAGE OF LAND GRANT ACT OF 1862. On Dec. 14, 1857, Mr. Morrill of Vermont introduced a bill into the House of Representatives, "Donating public lands to the several states which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts/ 5 The bill granted to each state, for the maintenance of such schools, 20,000 acres of public land for each Senator and Representa-. tive in Congress to which the state was entitled. If these lands could be located within the state itself, then actual grants were to be made. If, however, the state contained no such lands within its borders, it was to receive an equivalent amount of land scrip or land certificates, which could then be sold and the specified amount of land located by the pur- chaser upon unoccupied government land within other states. As in the later bill, no state could itself locate land 'scrip within the borders of another state. The whole measure was practically identical with the Land Grant Act which was passed in 1862. The bill encountered considerable opposition in both houses, particularly from the Southern members but, after several uns uccessf ul attempts, was finally passed and sent to President Buchanan for his signature. The President, however, re- turned the bill on Feb. 24, 1859 with his veto and a message giving at length his reasons for so doing. His opposition seemed to be based chiefly upon the ground that the bill was unconstitutional and that it "intermingled national and state affairs in a pernicious manner/ 7 An attempt was made in the House to pass the bill over his veto but failed. A change of administration soon afterward took place, and on Dec. 16, 1861, Mr. Morrill introduced into the House a bill drawn upon the same lines as the earlier measure. Some of the arguments which Mr. Morrill used in support of these bills may be of interest. First he laid great emphasis upon the extraordinary interest manifested in all parts of the country, as was indicated by a large number of petitions for such a measure, which had been received from states, societies, and individuals. He next showed how little had been done by the government in aid of agriculture, as com- pared with the important measures which had been taken in behalf of other forms of industry. Finally, he demonstrated that agriculture is the fundamental basis of a country's pros- perity and that, if agriculture is not intelligently carried on, the welfare of the whole country is endangered. This second bill was referred to the Committee on Public Lands. "While it was held in this Committee, the majority of which were hostile to the measure, Senator Wade of Ohio was asked by Mr. Morrill to introduce the bill into the Senate and on May 5, 1862, a bill identical with the House bill was introduced by him and referred to the Senate Committee on Public Lands, who reported it back with an amendment May 16, 1862. The bill was considered from time to time, and finally passed the Senate June 10, 1862, and the House of Eepresentatives, without reference to committee, June 17, 1862." It is important to note, in this connection, that the Southern representatives, from whom had come most of the opposition to the previous bill, were no longer in Congress, President Lincoln had already promised, before his election, that he would sign the bill if it came before him ; accordingly the measure received his signature on July 2, 1862, and be- came a law. The full title of the act is "An Act donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide col- leges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts/' To each state was granted 30,000 acres of public land for each Senator and Eepresentative in Congress to which the state was entitled under the census of 1860. States having a sufficient amount of public lands within their borders, "subject to sale at private entry" at $1.25 an acre, could locate their share of the grant upon these lands. Other states could not locate their lands at all, but received, instead of the lands themselves, a corresponding amount of land scrip. This scrip could ten be sold and the proceeds de- voted to the purposes of the act. The purchasers of the scrip could locate on any of the unappropriated lands of the United States "subject to sale at private entry at $1.25 an acre or less/' with the restriction that not more than 1,000,000 acres of land should be located in any one state, and that no mineral lands could be selected in any state. All money derived from the sale of land or scrip was to be invested in stocks of the United States, stocks of the states, or in some other safe stocks, paying not less than 5 per cent upon their par value. The capital of. this fund could not be spent, it must "remain forever undiminished ;" all of the interest upon the fund is appropriated "to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the loading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal 8 and practical education of the industrial classes, in the several pursuits and professions of life." None of the interest upon this fund could be used for the purchase or erection of buildings, but "a sum, not exceeding ten per centum upon the amount received by any state under the provisions of' this act, may be expended for the purchase of lands for sites or experimental farms when- ever authorized by the respective legislatures of said States." A number of details are provided for in this act, which do not concern us here, but it should be noted that all the ex- penses of the management of the scrip must be borne by the S'tate, and that if any portion of the fund or the interest should be lost the State must itself make up the deficiency. In order to receive the benefits of the act, a State must ac- cept the conditions through its legislature, within two years, and must provide within five years ia college answering the requirements laid down in the act. If the State does not provide a college complying with these requirements, it must pay back to the United States the amount of the scrip pre- viously received. APPROPRIATION OP NEW YORK STATE'S SHARE OF PROCEEDS. By an act passed May 5, 1863, New York State formally accepted the conditions of the Land Grant Act and author- ized the Comptroller to 'receive the scrip and dispose of it as provided in the act. The question then arose as to what institution or institutions should receive the benefit of the proceeds. Although there were such a change were still powerful enough to control -a large part of the legislature, and were particularly strong in the Assembly.. Although not strong enough to defeat the bill, they succeededP in inserting a clause giving the People's College 'another chance to retain possession of the fund. It had been esti- mated by the Eegents that $186,500 would be the sum which would be sufficient to insure compliance with the requirements- of the law making the appropriation to the college. Accord- ingly a clause was inserted in the charter of the new univer- sity, providing that if the trustees of the People's College should deposit the sum of $185,000 within three months, then that college should retain the whole of the grant. From one point of view this action cannot be regarded as giving more than a fair chance to the old institution. Far more unjust was the demand of Genesee College of Lima, a small denominational college which was afterward transferred to Syracuse and absorbed by Syracuse University. This institution insisted that it was entitled to a share in the land grant fund and demanded that $25,000 of that fund should be paid to it. Advocates of the new university opposed this on the ground that if Genesee College were given a part, a precedent would be established, the other denominational col- leges would demand and secure parts of the fund, the whole fund would be broken up into a number of small portions, and the entire purpose of the act, which was to keep the fund intact, would be defeated. The friends of the Genesee Col- lege then demanded, as the alternative, that Mr. Cornell should agree to pay that institution $25,000 out of his own money. Mr. Cornell absolutely refused to resort to any such ex- pedient of buying off his opponents, and insisted that he would agree to no conditions which were not in the bill itself. The representatives of the People's College were undaunted and were strong enough to succeed in inserting into the bill 18 a clause that Mr. Cornell must pay to their college the sum of $25,000, to establish a professorship of agricultural chemistry, before being allowed to give $500,000 to the new university, and thus securing to it the proceeds of the grant. Mr. Cornell was compelled to submit to this extortion. To the credit of the legislature, it should be said, that they later offered to repay the money to Mr. Cornell, and upon his re- fusal to accept it, voted the sum to Cornell University on Mar. 28, 1867. Opposition in the Assembly was much stronger than in the Senate. The opponents of the measure did not confine their attention to merely asserting their own claims, but loudly at- tacked the motives and character of Mr. Cornell. Especially was this true in a hearing before the Assembly committee to which the bill had been referred, in which a lawyer, who had been hired by Mr. Cook, denounced Mr. Cornell as "seeking to erect a monument to himself" and "planning to rob the state." The committee itself refused to report the bill and a two-thirds vote of the House was required to take it from the committee. Hard work on the part of the friends of the measure in the legislature, together with the support of the most influential of the New York editors, such as Horace Oreeley of the Tribune, Erastus Brooks of the Express, and Manton Marble of the World, finally forced the bill through the Assembly. The fight in the Senate, although determined, was not as severe, and the act passed both houses and was signed by the governor, becoming a law on April 27, 1865. This act was known as "An Act to establish the Cornell University, and to appropriate to it the income of the sale of public lands granted to this State by Congress, on the second day of July, 1862; also to restrain the operation of chapter 511 of laws of 1863." The object of the university is -stated in practically the same terms as in the Land Grant Act of 1862, namely, to provide instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts, not excluding classical studies, and including jnilitary tactics, "in order to promote the liberal and prac- 19 tical education of the industrial classes in the several pur- suits and professions in life." Such other branches of knowl- edge were to be taught as were determined by the trustees. Many details of the organization of the University were also laid down. The entire income from the investment of the proceeds of the sale of land scrip was appropriated to the trustees of Cor- nell University, to be used by them as provided in the act of Congress. Before any payment was to be made, however, the trustees must satisfy the Comptroller that $500,000 had been given to the University by Ezra Cornell. There were also the provisions, already referred to, that Mr. Cornell must pay $25,000 to Gienesee College within six months; and that the People's College was to have three months within which to deposit the required sum and so reserve the grant for them- selves. To become finally and absolutely entitled to the money Cornell University must meet tne requirements of the act within two years. Even after the bill had been passed, there still remained the danger that the People's College would deposit the re- quired $185,000 within the specified three months and thus retain possession of the fund. That institution, however, was apparently unable to raise the money, and on Aug. 28, 1865 the Secretary of the University of the State of New York certified that no such deposit had been made. The conditions of the appropriation of the land grant had already been accepted by the Trustees of Cornell University, at their first meeting, held in Albany on April 28, 1865. A certificate by the Treasurer of Cornell University of the receipt of $500,000 from Ezra Cornell on Oct. 21, 1865, and a similar certificate that the $25,000 had been paid to Genesee College, showed that the requirements laid down in the charter had been complied with, and that Cornell University had become entitled to the proceeds from the land grant fund. 20 STATE MANAGEMENT OF SCEIP UP TO PUECHASE BY ME. COENELL. Eeckoning upon the basis of 30,000 acres of land for each Senator and Eepresentative in Congress to which the state was entitled under .the census of 1860, New York should have received 990,000 acres as her share of the Land Grant Act of 1862. As a matter of fact, the amount which New York State actually received was 989,920 acres, in 6,187 pieces of 160 acres each, the loss of 80 acres being due to the fact that no piece was issued by the government for less than 160 acres. The total number of acres given to all the states by this grant was 9,597,840, so it will be seen that New York State received over one-tenth of the whole. New York State, not having public lands within her own boundaries which could be granted to her, received, in- their place, land scrip to an equal amount. Each certificate of scrip authorized the selection of 160 acres of land from unappropriated public lands of the United States. By the terms of the Land Grant Act, no state was allowed to locate lands within the limits of any other state, although a private person might do so. Hence states which had no public lands within their boundaries could locate no lands at all; their only means of realizing upon the grant was to sell the scrip. Nearly all of the eastern states were thus situated, and as most of them desired to realize upon the land grant immediately, the consequence was that the scrip was sold in large quantities to speculators, the market became flooded, and its value rapidly declined. The nominal price of the scrip, at the time of the passage of the act, was $1.25 an acre, but under such conditions its value decreased until its market price was soon only 60 cents an acre and in many cases sales were made for even less than that amount. . or THF New York State received its scrip some time during the year 1863. The next year the Comptroller, under directions from the legislature, advertised the scrip for sale at 85 cents per acre. In a few months 475 pieces, 'amounting to 76,000 acres, had been sold -at this price, "except that upon the first parcel of fifty pieces sold -a rebate of two cents was allowed, in consideration of certain advantages offered in the matter of advertising in the Northwestern States/' Thus 8,000 acres were sold at 83 cents and 68,000 acres at 85 cents, the whole sum amounting to $64,440, which was immediately put on deposit at 3 per cent, interest. But these sales soon entirely ceased, in consequence of other states having reduced their price to a much lower rate. As the Comptroller says in his report for 1865, "It therefore, becomes an important question whether the price should also be reduced here and sacrifices made to insure sales, or the land be held as the best security for the fund until the sales can be made at fair rates." Under one alterna- tive, only a comparatively small sum would be received from the lands ; under the other alternative nothing at all would be realized for some years. A consideration which may have had some weight in determining the proper course to pursue was that an even greater sacrifice would have been involved if New York State had thrown its one-tenth upon the already overcrowded market. Apparently nothing of the sort was done, for no sales at all were made during the year ending September 30, 1865. In the meantime Cornell University had been chartered and Mr. Cornell began to consider the ways in which the largest possible amount might be realized from the grant, devoting considerable time during the summer to the discus- sion of the problem. It soon became apparent to him that the lands would increase greatly in value if they could be held until the scrip then upon the market had been dispose! of; and he came to the conclusion that the best solution of 22 the difficulty would be for him to purchase it himself, locate it, sell the located lands, and devote the entire proceed? to Cornell University. Although the state itself ould not locate lands, there was, of course, no objection to a private individual doing so. In this way the University would re- ceive some immediate returns from the lands without losing the prospect of ultimately realizing a much larger profit. Acting upon this principle, Mr. Cornell purchased on November 24, 1865, 100,000 acres of scrip for $50,000. The market price of the scrip at that time was 60 cents 'an acre, but it was felt that this reduction was no more than fair on account of the obligations which Mr. Cornell was taking upon himself for the benefit of the University. He was required to give a bond, properly secured, that all the profits which should be derived front the transaction would be 'given to Cornell University. . This purchase was merely the beginning of Mr. Cornell's policy. On April 10, 1866, the state legislature passed "An Act to authorize and facilitate the early disposition by the comptroller of the lands or land scrip donated to this state by the United States." The comptroller was authorized to sell scrip at not less than 30 cents an acre to the trustees of Cornell University, or, in case they did not purchase, to any- one who would comply with the required conditions. These conditions were that proper security must be given that the whole net profits from the sale of the lands should be paid to Cornell University, and that annual reports should be made to the comptroller. Since the trustees of the University were not in a position to make the purchase, an agreement was entered into be- tween the Commissioners of the Land Office and Ezra Cornell on August 4, 1866, whereby Mr. Cornell was to take the remaining 5,087 certificates . of 160 acres each at 30 cents an acre and comply with the requirements of the 23 contract. The full amount of the purchase price was to be paid in money, or safe bonds and stocks at not less than 5 per cent. In addition, stocks and bonds to the amount of a second 30 cents per acre must be deposited as securities for carrying out the terms of the contract. The interests of the state were further safeguarded by requiring that complete information regarding the location and sale of the lands must be given by Mr. Cornell to the Board of Commissioners of the Land Office. Within sixty days of the loca'tion of a piece of land the Board of Commissioners was to fix the minimum price at which each quarter sec- tion might be sold; thus no land could be disposed of at a lower price than was fixed by the state. The whole of the net profits, which were to be ascertained by deducting the original cost of 30 cents per acre and the expenses of loca- tion and sale from the gross receipts, were to be paid into the Treasury of the State. All of these profits were to be applied to the use of Cornell University, but the money was to be divided into two funds. A part of the net profits equal to 30 cents per acre was to be added to the fund which had already been started, composed of the proceeds of sales of land already made and known as the "College Land Scrip Fund/' This fund represented the money actually received by the State from its sale of the scrip. The purpose of having an additional 30 cents per acre paid into this fund was in order to make the amount received for the scrip which had been sold to Ezra Cornell for 30 cents an acre, equal the market value of the scrip at the time of sale, which was 60 cents an acre. Thus the "College Land Scrip Fund" represented the amount which would have been realized if the scrip had been sold by the State at its market price. In other words, it represented the proceeds derived from the sale of the scrip, under the management of the state. 24 The remainder of -the receipts from the sale of these lands was to constitute -a separate fund, known as the "Cor- nell Endowment Fund." This fund represented the profits over and above the 60 cents an acre realized by the State, and was understood to be a gift to the University from Ezra Cornell, at being the amount which his management had added to the original selling price of the scrip. The size of this fund would, of course, depend 'altogether upon Mr. Cornell's skill a failure. After his" death there was but little for the Land Committee to do except to watch and care for the remaining lands according to the methods firmly established by Mr. Sage; never asking less -and sometimes increasing the prices fixed by Mr. Sage before his death. Today these lands are all sold except a comparatively few acres of cut over lands, which are now in- creasing in value and will soon be disposed of. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS DUB ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW KAR3G 1916 91(51 8T I' 2Q (VPR 30 1931 NOV 5 1953 HI INTERUBRARY LOAI JUN 2-1983 UNIV. OF CALIF.. BES^K. 30m-l,'15 25m-10,'15