Minnesota, the North Star StateFolwell, William Watts
History
Minnesota, the North Star State
Folwell, William Watts
Minnesota -- History
Account has already been taken of the first congressional land grant,
that of February 19, 1851, “reserving” for the support of a territorial
university seventy-two sections of public lands. When the enabling act
of 1857 was before the House of Representatives, Delegate Henry M. Rice
secured a modification of the traditional tender of lands for
university purposes. The enabling acts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa
had provided that the lands for university support previously reserved
from sale should be granted and conveyed to the respective states.
Delegate Rice quickly saw to it that the corresponding section of the
Minnesota act should read, “that seventy-two sections of land shall be
set apart and reserved for the use and support of a STATE university
_to be_ selected by the governor of the state....” Why no claim was
presented for the additional university reservation, apparently
authorized by the enabling act of 1857, till 1860 is not known, but
when then made, it met with no hospitality. No secretary of the
interior or commissioner of the general land office would construe the
paragraph as having any other intent than to guarantee to the state the
reservation of 1851 made to the territory. The correspondence revealed
the fact that the original reservation had not been “granted and
conveyed” to the state. The mortgages placed on the lands and the
devastations permitted had therefore been illegal. It took an act of
Congress, that of March 2, 1861, donating the lands reserved in 1851,
to remedy this omission.
Ten years ran by after the passage of the enabling act, and Minnesota’s
claim for a double portion of university lands had not been allowed. On
February 8, 1867, the legislature authorized the special board of
regents to employ counsel to prosecute the claim on “a contingent
compensation in land or money.” The person employed rendered such
effective aid to the member from the university district that Congress
was moved to direct the commissioner of the general land office, by an
act approved July 8, 1870, to ignore the reservation of 1851 and allow
Minnesota to take the seventy-two sections mentioned in the enabling
act of 1857. The successful counsel was voted by the regents a
compensation of 1950 acres of land. As these acres were promptly
located in the pine region of Itasca County it may be assumed that the
remuneration was satisfactory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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