Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

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Resolved that our Sen By the Senate the House of Representatives concurring herein that our Senators and Representatives in congress be requested to use their influence to procure the consent of the congress of the U. States to recind so much of the compact between this state and the United States, as prohibits this state from taxing lands sold in it by the U.S. for five years from and after the time of such sale2

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Forquer[’]s Resolution

1George Forquer introduced the resolution in the Senate on January 26, 1835. The Senate adopted the resolution on January 29. On January 30, the House of Representatives adopted the resolution on a vote of 41 to 6, Abraham Lincoln voting in the negative.
Journal of the House of Representatives of the Ninth General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at their First Session, Begun and Held in the Town of Vandalia, December 1, 1834 (Vandalia, IL: J. Y. Sawyer, 1835), 440-41, 449-50; Journal of the Senate, of the Ninth General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at their First Session, Begun and Held in the Town of Vandalia, December 1, 1834 (Vandalia, IL: J. W. Sawyer, 1835), 334, 367-68, 385.

2 On April 18, 1818, Congress passed an act permitting the people of the Territory of Illinois to write a constitution and form a state government. In section six of the enabling act, Congress offered four propositions to the state constitutional convention which, if accepted, “shall be obligatory upon the United States and said state.” These propositions involved acceptance of key provisions in the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance, and federal government leasing of the Saline Reserve Lands to the state for its use. These propositions were contingent on the convention providing, “by an ordinance irrevocable,” that every tract of land sold by the United States should remain exempt from state taxation for a period of five years from and after the date of sale. On August 26, the constitutional convention accepted the propositions and tax exemption condition. The enabling act did not preclude the state from petitioning for exceptions to the tax exemption compact, which the General Assembly did in this and other instances. On February 25, 1835, Elias Kane introduced this resolution in the U.S. Senate. The Senate tabled it and ordered it printed.
“An Act to enable the people of the Illinois Territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states,” Act of April 18, 1818, Statutes at Large of the United States, 3:428-31; John Moses, Illinois Historical and Statistical (Chicago, IL: Fergus, 1895), I:545; Senate Journal 23rd Cong., 2nd Sess., 25 February 1835, 190.