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Show GRANTS TO STATES ON ADMISSION TO UNION 297 people elected representatives "to meet in Convention at the City of Little Rock, with full and ample powers to make a Constitution and system of State Government for Arkansas." Along with their constitution they adopted a set of propositions to submit to Congress which "if assented to by that body shall be obligatory and binding on the State of Arkansas."35 In effect, Arkansas like Michigan, was reversing the usual procedure of state-making by proposing propositions to the Federal government. If accepted, the state would bind itself never to interfere with the primary disposal of the public lands, nor to levy a tax on any such lands. Furthermore, the Arkansas delegate in Congress was authorized to "make or assent to such other propositions, or such variations of the propositions herein made as the interests of the state may require," subject to the approval of the Arkansas General Assembly. Arkansas asked for more generous treatment than any other state had yet received. In addition to the usual section 16 in each township for schools, the territory asked for two sections in each county for an academy. Such a grant would ultimately have produced 192,000 acres. It wanted all the salt springs and one township with each of them, all the Hot Springs and four townships with each of them, and this land was to be at the disposal of the assembly. It asked for one township for public buildings, and 72 sections for a seminary, heretofore granted in the organic act for the territory. It proposed that four-fifths of the usual 5 percent fund should be spent within the state for roads and canals and should be at the disposal of the assembly and that the other one-fifth should go for education. The territory asked for 800 sections (512,000 acres) for internal improvements and wanted roads already under construction (within the state) for which congressional appropriations had been made to be "com- 35 Memorial of the Arkansas Constitutional Convention, Jan. 29, 1836, and Ordinance by the Constitutional Convention, January 29, 1836, Territorial Papers, XXI, 1188, 1189 ff. pleted and kept in repair at the expense of the United States." Finally it wanted all public lands open to sale for 5 years or more granted to the state for any purpose it might deem proper. If this privilege had been obtained, by 1850 Arkansas might have come into the possession of more than two-thirds of its entire area, or a larger proportion of its lands than any state except Florida was to receive. But this was not all Arkansas wanted. One of its propositions was that the western boundary should be extended into what is now Oklahoma to include from a quarter to a third of that area.36 Arkansas was attempting to include within its boundaries land then belonging to the Creeks and Cherokees, and thus threatening the peaceful relations of the United States with these tribes. Congress promptly struck out the clause and limited the state's boundaries to those of today. Although Congress was seriously miffed at the action of Michigan in setting up a state government without an enabling act, it was not so upset by the action of Arkansas territory because its territorial ambitions did not bring it into conflict with other states and also because Arkansas did not presume to abandon the territorial organization and replace it with a state government before application had been made or permission granted to enter the Union as a state. On June 15, 1836, Congress enacted that the people of Arkansas Territory, having met in a properly called convention and formed a constitution and state government, and having sufficient population were declared to be a state in the Union on an equal footing with the other states. It was never to interfere with the primary disposal of the public lands nor to tax them. A second act 13 days later gave the new state section 16 in each township, 12 salt springs with six sections of land around each, donated five sections for public buildings in addition to the 10 previously granted, repeated the earlier donation of 72 sections for a 36 Territorial Papers, XXI, 1189-91. |