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Show Chapter XIII General Grants to States Thus far we have been dealing with the grants given to states at the time of their admission. They agreed not to interfere with the remaining public lands in Federal ownership in return for grants for schools, universities and public buildings, 5 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of public lands for the construction of roads to and into the new states, and grants of salt springs. These compacts were not to satisfy the new states for long. They soon urged the Federal government to give them additional lands to help finance the building of specified canals and wagon roads and the improvement of waterways. Later they wanted land grants for railroads and for the endowment of agricultural colleges. They demanded also that the swamplands, that is, all the overflowed, wet, swampy or poorly drained land, be turned over to the states to be reclaimed by them and made into cultivable farmlands. Far more land went to the states under the many general and special laws granting land for various purposes than was transferred to them under the provisions of the various enabling acts. Federal land grants for internal improvements will be treated in the following chapter except for general grants which applied to all public land states entering the Union before a certain time. By an Act of 1841, 500,000-acre grants for internal improvements were given to each state on admission if it had not already received land for canals or roads, until 1889. With the admission of the Omnibus States (the Dakotas, Washington, and Montana) an equivalent acreage was given for other purposes. Similarly, every public land state prior to the admission of Kansas in 1861 was given the "swamp" lands within it under the Acts of 1849, 1850, and 1860. These general grants and the Agricultural College Act of 1862 are the subject of this chapter. State Improvement Grants In a successful effort to strengthen political support for the preemption-distribution measure Henry Clay was trying to push through Congress in 1841, a section was added granting 500,000 acres to each of the public land states and to each state admitted thereafter to aid in building "roads, railways, canals, improvements of water-courses, and draining of swamps." States which had previously received grants for canals, roads, or river improvements were to have these deducted from their allotment.1 The western states were always glad to receive such grants but rarely if ever was their appetite satiated and they soon came back for more. Before the record was complete 14 states had managed without too much trouble or opposition to add to their half-million-acre grant by numerous special measures.2 Three states-Colorado, Nebraska, and Nevada-were given no additional land for railroads or canals but as is seen in the following chapter were generously provided for in direct grants to railroad companies. 1 5 Stat 453. 2 Public Land Statistics, 1966, pp. 7-8. 319 |
