History of public land law development

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296 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT percent of the net proceeds of public land sales of which three-fifths should be for education and two-fifths for road construction. If these and other requests were granted, Michigan would exempt public lands from taxation. Members of Congress thought the calling of the convention without an enabling act, the drafting of a constitution and of propositions to be submitted to Congress, the approval by the people of the constitution, the election of members to a state legislature, and the adoption of a memorial to Congress were all illegal, the more so because the state insisted on its interpretation of the boundary. In an Enabling Act of June 15, 1836, Congress rejected the propositions in the Michigan memorial and drafted its own propositions, including the promise of section 16 for schools in the form the people of the state wanted it, 72 sections for a university, five sections for public buildings, 46,080 acres of saline lands but with the same restrictions accompanying this donation as were imposed on the other states, and 5 percent of the net proceeds from land sales for roads and canals with no mention of any part for education. If accepted, the state was to enter into an irrevocable ordinance, promising there would be no interference by the state with public land management, no taxation of the public lands, no discrimination against nonresident owners of lands, and no taxing of bounty lands when held by the patentees for 3 years after the patents were issued. In addition, Congress required that the boundaries it had established for Michigan should be ratified by the people in convention.32 Two more conventions were called to deal with the enabling act. The first refused its assent but the second and more sober one finally ratified the terms of admission and Congress declared Michigan a member state of the Union on January 26, 1837. By its recalcitrance Michigan had lost at least a quarter of a million dollars for roads that it might have received had it compromised the boundary question earlier, for in 1836 the sale of Federal land in Michigan had amounted to $4,189,823, a record never to be equalled by any state. Congress generously made certain, however, that the state should have its share of deposits under the Deposit Act of June 23, 1836.33 Although the Michigan convention gave way on the boundary question, it insisted in its ratifying act that Congress "had no constitutional right to require the assent aforesaid as a condition preliminary to ... admission . . . into the Union. . . ." It was because the "interest and prosperity of the State will be greatly advanced by an immediate admission into the Union" that Michigan people had swallowed their pride and followed the usual route to admission, without, however, giving up on the principle that the territory was entitled to admission without an enabling act and with the boundaries for which it had fought.34 Michigan and Arkansas were the first public land states whose enabling acts were adopted after the termination of the credit system and they were the first to be free of the customary provision for 5-year exemption of the public lands from taxes after sales. Although Michigan had no military bounty land district and no bounty lands, Congress, seemingly confused at the moment, included the usual provision for the 3-year exemption from taxes of military bounty lands when held by the patentees that Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas had previously accepted. Arkansas Like Michigan, Arkansas was too impatient to wait for an enabling act and was to have its disagreement with Congress over admission, boundaries, and its share in the public lands. "Animated with a desire for the enjoyment of independence and self-government," the 32 5 Stat. 59. 33 5 Stat. 144. 34 Dorr, The Michigan Constitutional Conventions of 1835-36, pp. 577-78. I have borrowed heavily from Dorr, pp. 3-52 and elsewhere.