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Show GRANTS TO STATES ON ADMISSION TO UNION 295 to enter into as part of the process of gaining statehood was expressed in frequent memorials of the legislatures calling for modification, including the right to tax the lands as soon as they were sold or otherwise conveyed, and cession of the unsold lands to the states.29 Michigan Michigan went through a stormy period marked by the "Toledo War" with Ohio over the boundary separating the two states, and a constitutional clash with the United States over its right to enter the Union without an enabling act. We need not detail the story of the "War" over the boundary except to say that Michigan took a position that jeopardized the support of members of Congress from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, brought it into conflict with the Jackson administration, and helped delay its admission. Because Congress would not authorize a convention, the Michigan territorial legislature provided for the taking of a census in 1834 which showed a population of 85.856, much more than the minimum established in the Northwest Ordinance for statehood. The people obviously wanted and felt they were entitled to statehood. Although Congress had refused to pass an enabling act, the legislature of the territory in 1835 authorized the election of delegates to a convention, an act which one constitutional authority called revolutionary.30 Young radical Democrats were in control of the convention when it met in May 1835, but the constitution they drafted, though democratic, was a conservative one. It was submitted to the people and adopted by a clear majority; at the same time a Repre- 29 See petitions of Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois of 1828, 1831, and 1835 asking Congress for the right to tax lands when the title was passed by the Federal government. American State Papers, Public Lands, V, 622; VI, 298; and VII, 674. 30 Harold M. Dorr, The Michigan Constitutional Conventions of 1835-36. Debates and Proceedings (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1940), p. 15, quoting A. N. Holcombe. sentative was elected to the Congress, and Stevens T. Mason, the territorial Governor, was chosen to be Governor of the new State of Michigan. Unfortunately the convention's decision on the boundary was still unsatisfactory to Ohio, as well as to Indiana and Illinois, and led Congress to enact that Michigan could be admitted when it accepted the established boundary in another convention called for that specific purpose. Michigan's new "state" legislature adopted a memorial asking Congress for admission and the sanctioning of its "revolutionary" action. To justify its action, it went back to the Northwest Ordinance which called for the creation of three to five states, and stated that "whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein; such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing ..." and boldly concluded that no enabling act of Congress was necessary to constitute Michigan a state. It cited the case of Tennessee which was admitted without being previously authorized by Congress to hold a convention and frame a constitution, calling it a practical construction of the Ordinance of 1787. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had each needed an enabling act to gain admission, the memorial stated, because they did not have the requisite 60,000 inhabitants at the time they were seeking entrance into the Union. But for Tennessee in 1796 and Michigan in 1835 the "right to form a Constitution and State government was perfect." The memorial concluded by upholding Michigan's right to the disputed territory claimed by Ohio.31 The Michigan convention submitted several propositions to Congress for its approval or rejection. One expressed the wish that section 16 be granted to the state for the use of schools, not to the townships; another called for unconditional grants of the saline lands, without restrictions as to their lease or sale; and a third asked for the usual 5 31 Territorial Papers, XII, 1000-1010. |