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Show 304 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Congress was to make up for some of this ungenerous conduct more than a half century later-in 1906-when it provided that 5 percent of the net proceeds of all sales should be given to California for the support of schools, and the ruling was made retroactive to 1850. By 1965 the state had received $1,865,666- much more than any other state had received from the 5 percent fund.59 New Mexico Refused Dissatisfaction over congressional slowness in adopting an organic act for the territory of New Mexico led to a movement for statehood in 1850. A convention was called, a constitution was prepared banning slavery, and provision was made for the election of state officers and a legislature. Then followed in July the election of two "senators" and a "representative." Richard H. Weightman, one of the two "senators," journeyed to Washington where -he presented his claim for a seat in the Upper House and for the admission of New Mexico. With its anti-slavery provision it was certain to gain short shrift at the Capital. Revolutionary New Mexico was no more welcome than revolutionary California. Instead of admission Congress adopted an organic act on September 4 for the creation of the Territory of New Mexico. Sixty years were to pass before statehood was to be attained. «n •"""The Act of June 27, 1906, granted the state 5 percent of the net proceeds of all past and future sales in support of public schools. 60 34 Stat. 518. In later years Congress more than made up for this ungenerous conduct by granting California valuable privileges in the selection of the grants to it. Unlike the other states it was permitted to locate its agricultural college rights on unoffered land, enabling it to net $5 an acre instead of less than a dollar an acre that most states received. It also received its scrip in 40-acre pieces and was not, therefore, compelled as were other states to use a 160-acre piece for a 40-acre tract. The same measure gave the state 30 days after completion of the surveys in which the use of the scrip was the sole way in which entries could be made. Another measure that might have brought great returns to the state had it Kansas Kansas was the next territory to run up against the pro-slavery forces of the South. Its efforts to gain admission into the Union precipitated the Kansas Conflict which some regard as a forerunner of the Civil War. Anti-slavery leaders in Kansas called for a convention which met at Topeka in 1855 and drafted a free-state constitution. Under the constitution the Topeka free-state government was established. It had no sanction from the Federal government for its existence and was dubbed revolutionary and insurrectionary, though it soon appeared to represent majority sentiment. The territorial government supported by the border ruffians and the official claque of Democrats sent in from Washington then authorized the holding of a convention at Lecompton to form a constitution and state government. The election being carefully rigged, the members were pro-slavery and the constitution they drafted was a pro-slavery document. Submitted to the people in 1858, it was rejected, but Buchanan was not willing to abandon his efforts to make Kansas a pro-slavery state and sent the rejected constitution to the Congress with the recommendation that it be submitted again to the people. The pro-slavery convention also adopted a somewhat unusual ordinance bearing on the public lands, as follows:"1 Whereas, the government of the United States is the proprietor, or will become so, of all or most of the lands lying within the limits of Kansas, as determined under the constitution; and whereas the State of Kansas will possess the undoubted right to tax such lands for the support of her State government, or for other proper and legitimate purposes connected with her existence as a State: Now, therefore, be it ordained by this convention, on behalf not been misused by speculators conniving with officials, conceded the state half a million acres of indemnity land for the loss of sections 16 and 36 in confirmed private land claims. 61 For the Lecompton constitution and the ordinance see House Reports, 35th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. Ill, No. 377 (Serial No. 966), pp. 73-92. |