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Show 294 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT of the state be extended to these two rivers. Delegates to the convention had another cause of complaint. A clause in the Mississippi Enabling Act declared that the usual three-fifths of the net proceeds from public land sales would not be available for canals and roads until the Federal government had been reimbursed for the $1,250,000 it had paid to Georgia for the relinquishment of its western lands (Mississippi was part of the territory ceded by Georgia) and for the $5 million of scrip (acceptable for public lands) it had issued to investors in the Yazoo land companies as reimbursement for losses they claimed to have sustained. Although piqued by the boundary, and by the requirement that the expenditures mentioned should come out of funds they would otherwise have been entitled to for internal improvements, Missis-sippians prepared for statehood. The convention accepted the usual propositions advanced by the Federal government, qualified as noted and entered into the usual "ordinance, irrevocable."25 Alabama One naturally asks how Alabama fared in view of the fact that it, like Mississippi, was part of the territory ceded by Georgia and was set off as a separate territory only in 1817. By the Act of March 2, 1819, authorizing the people of Alabama to hold a convention, the new state was promised the standard gifts of land and revenue. In return Alabama made the usual disclaimer concerning Federal ownership of lands, and enacted the usual "ordinance, irrevocable."26 25 On March 14, 1826, Congress seems to have relented to the extent of authorizing Mississippi to use 3 percent of the net proceeds from public land sales for roads and canals. 4 Stat. 149. Actually, Mississippi ranked sixth among the states in the amount it had received from the net receipts from public land sales by 1965. Public Land Statistics, 1965, p. 185. 26 3 Stat. 49; Thomas Perkins Abernethy, The Formative Period in Alabama, 1815-1828 (Montgomery, Ala., 1922), p. 42. Nothing was said at the time about deductions from the three-fifths to meet the payment to Georgia and to provide for that portion of the Georgia scrip for which Alabama was held responsible. The people of Alabama may have thought they had done well and had avoided this burden. If so, they were mistaken. On May 3, 1822, Congress required the withholding of the 3 percent until both obligations had been met.27 Missouri The admission of Missouri was delayed by the clash over slavery and the adoption of the Missouri Compromise. It was finally admitted on March 2, 1821, months after the land law of 1820 had abolished credit sales, which had been the reason given for the 5-year tax exemption on all lands after they were sold. The enabling act for Missouri had, however, been passed beforehand; consequently the state was saddled with this incubus, as all previously admitted public land states had been, and like Illinois it was required to exempt the military bounty lands from taxation for 3 years if held by the patentees or their heirs.28 To many people it seemed quite unnecessary to retain the tax exemption feature for public land sold after the termination of the credit system. The exemption made lands more salable and assured a higher market value for the 5-year period. New buyers who were profiting from it naturally advocated its continuation; on the other hand the older landowners in new communities, unable to share their burdens with the new settlers, were hard hit by the discrimination. The 5-year tax exemption feature for lands sold in the first seven public land states admitted into the Union was a great hardship to them and an equally great grievance. Discontent with the discriminatory provision of the compacts the states were induced 27 3 Stat. 674. 28 Act of March 6, 1820, 3 Stat. 544. |