The territory or future state was authorized to sell one hundred and twenty sections of this land whenever twenty continuous miles of any of the roads or branches was completed,--the land so sold to be contiguous to the completed road. The right of way or road bed of any of the subsidized roads was also granted through any of the government lands. The roads were all to be completed within ten years, and if any of them were not finished by that time the lands applicable to the unfinished portions were to revert to the government. The lands granted by this act amounted to about 4,500,000 acres. An act was subsequently passed on March 2, 1865, increasing the grant to ten sections to the mile. Various other grants were made at different times, but they do not bear upon the subject I am about to present. This grant came at a time of great financial depression, and when the territory was about to change its dependent condition for that of a sovereign state in the Union. It was greeted as a means of relief that might lift the territory out of its financial troubles, and insure its immediate prosperity. The people did not take into consideration the fact that the lands embraced in the grant, although as good as any in the world, were remote from the habitation of man, lying in a country absolutely bankrupt, and possessing no present value whatever. Nor did they consider that the whole country was laboring under such financial depression that all public enterprises were paralyzed; but such was, unfortunately, the monetary and business condition. On the twenty-third of February, 1857, an act had passed the congress of the United States authorizing the people of Minnesota to form a constitution preparatory to becoming a state in the Union. Gen. Willis A. Gorman, who was then governor of the territory, called a special session of the legislature to take into consideration measures to carry out the land grant and enabling acts. The extra session convened on April 27th. In the meantime Governor Gorman's term of office had expired, and Samuel Medary of Ohio had been appointed as his successor, and had assumed the duties of his office. He opened the extra session with an appropriate message. The extra session adjourned on the 23d of May, and in accordance with the provisions of the enabling act of congress, an election was held on the first Monday in June for delegates to a constitutional convention, which was to assemble at the capitol on the second Monday in July. The constitutional convention is an event in the history of Minnesota sufficiently important and unique to entitle it to special treatment, which will be given hereafter. An act was passed at the extra session, on the 19th day of May, 1857, by which the grant of lands made to the territory was formally accepted, "upon the terms, conditions and restrictions" contained in the granting act.