OCR Text |
Show HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT The Rush for the Promised Land Bureau of Land Management U.S. Department of the Interior rough pioneer settlers developing small farms; squatters, tenants, and slaves. Congress, borrowing from New England's practice, granted Ohio the 16th section in each township for common schools, two townships of land for a seminary of learning, certain salt springs and surrounding areas, and in addition, 3 percent of the net land sale proceeds were to be expended by the Federal government for building roads to the state. A condition of these gratuities was that Ohio agree not to tax the public lands for 5 years from the date of sale without consent of the Federal government.5 As Governor Arthur St. Clair said, Congress 5 2 Stat. 175, 226. agreed to admit the new State of Ohio on a basis of absolute equality with the old states and in the same measure offered a contract to it that, if accepted, bound it to a position of inferiority that was most trying in the early days.6 Previous acts of Congress had pledged the net income from the public lands for the retirement of the public debt. Albert Gallatin justified the apparent breach of faith by arguing that grants for education and internal improvements would increase the value 6 William H. Smith, The St. Clair Papers (Vol. II of "The Life and Public Service of Arthur St. Clair" [Cincinnati, 1884]), p. 596. |