money for the support of the ministry in that Society, and appealed to the General Assembly for permission to so use the money. Upon such an expression of the wish of voters, the General Assembly was empowered to answer in the affirmative. The act also repealed that of 1793. The legislature appointed another commission for the sale of the lands. They were sold in the following October for $1,200,000. By this legislation was laid the foundation of Connecticut's School Fund. The Connecticut Land Company, which had made the purchase, petitioned the legislature in 1797 that Connecticut should surrender her jurisdiction over the lands to the United States. The state complied. In 1798 the organization of the new school societies was perfected, and the control of the schools passed entirely into their hands until the district system of 1856 was adopted. The Western Land bills had resulted in the establishment of a public school fund and in its just distribution, without reference to sectarianism, among the people. All the agitation attending both the certificate acts and Western Land bills had demonstrated the intense opposition of the dissenting minority, and that they were beginning to look to the increase of their numbers and the power of the ballot as the only means of changing the vexatious laws under which they were treated as inferiors. To the Congregationalists, strong both as the Established Church and as members of the Federal party, which counted many adherents among all the dissenting sects, the possibility that any voting strength could be brought against them, adequate to oppose their party measures, seemed improbable. Such a possibility must be very remote. Yet within twenty years, they were to see the downfall of the Federal party, of the Established Church, and of Connecticut's charter government. FOOTNOTES: [a] The vote of the Assembly was: "That the ancient form of civil government, containing the charter from Charles the Second, King of England, and adopted by the people of this State, shall be and remain the Civil Constitution of the State under the sole authority of the people thereof, independent of any King, or ftince whatever. And that this Republic is and shall forever be and remain a free, sovereign, and independent State, by the name of the State of Connecticut."--Revision of Acts and Laws, Ed. 1784, p. 1. [b] "Courts and juries had usually been composed of what was considered the standing church, and they had frequently practiced such quibbles and finesse with respect to the forms of certificates and the nature of dissenting congregations as to defeat the benevolent intentions of the law."--Swift's _System of Laws_, pp. 146, 147. [c] Yale received in all $40,629.80. In 1871, six alumni replaced the six senior councilors. [d] So far the highest bid for the tract of land had been $350,000.