Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force March 1st. 1837

AN ACT to incorporate Saint Mary’s College.
1

Body created

Name

Where located

No. of trustees

To fill vacancies

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That David Greenleaf, Reuben Graves, John R. Nichols, James King, Ethan

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Kimball, William Lafou and Wesley Williams, and their successors, be, and they are hereby created a body politic and corporate, to be styled and known by the name of the “Trustees of the Saint Mary’s College,” and by that style and name to remain and have perpetual succession. The said College shall be and remain at or near Saint Mary’s, in the county of Hancock and State of Illinois. The number of trustees shall not exceed twelve, one of whom shall be president of the board, to be chosen by the trustees. For the present the above named individuals shall constitute the board of trustees, who shall fill the remaining vacancies at their discretion.

Object

Sec. 2. The object of said corporation shall be the promotion of the general interests of education.

Corporate powers

To have succession, and make contracts

To hold & sell property

To have a seal

To make by-laws

Confer degrees

Sec. 3. The corporate powers hereby bestowed shall be such only as are essential or useful in the attainment of said object, and such as are usually conferred on similar bodies corporate, to wit: To have perpetual succession; to make contracts; to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded; to grant and receive by its corporate name, and to do all other acts as natural persons may; to accept[,] acquire, purchase or sell property, real, personal or mixed, in all lawful ways; to use, employ, manage, and dispose of all such property, and all money belonging to said corporation, in such manner as shall seem to said trustees best adapted to promote the object before mentioned; to have a common seal, and to change or alter the same; to make such by-laws for its regulation as are not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the United States, or of this state; and to confer on such persons as may be considered worthy, such academical or honorary degrees as are usually conferred by similar institutions.

Prescribe studies

Appoint officers

Define duties

Apparatus.

Sec. 4. The trustees of said corporation shall have authority, from time to time, to prescribe and regulate the course of studies to be pursued in said college; to fix the rate of tuition and other expenses; to appoint instructors and such other officers and agents as may be necessary in managing the concerns of said institution; to define their duties; to fix their compensation and displace or remove them; to erect necessary buildings; to purchase books, chemical and philosophical apparatus, and other suitable means of instruction; to make rules for the general management of the affairs of the institution, and for the regulation of the conduct of the students.

To fill vacancies

Quorum

Sec. 5. The trustees for the time being, in order to have perpetual succession, shall have power to fill any vacancy which may occur in the board from death, removal, resignation, or any other cause. A majority of the trustees for the time being shall be a quorum to do business.

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Treasurer to give bond an security

Sec. 6. It shall be the duty of the said trustees to appoint one of their number treasurer to the board, who shall be required to give bond with sufficient security, in such penal sum as the board may prescribe, conditioned for the performance of such duties as the by-laws may require of him.

Open to all denominations

Persons may be suspended

Sec. 7. Said institution shall be open to all denominations of christians; and the profession of any particular religious faith shall not be required of those who become students; all persons however may be suspended or expelled from said institution by the trustees thereof, whose habits are idle or vicious, or whose moral character is bad.

Proviso.

May hold land 5 years

Lands not sold to revert

Sec. 8. The lands, tenements and hereditaments, to be held in perpetuity by virtue of this act, by said corporation, shall not exceed six hundred and forty acres; Provided, however, That if any donations, grants or demises in land, shall from time to time be made to said corporation, over and above the said six hundred and forty acres which may be held in perpetuity as aforesaid, the same may be received and held by the said corporation, for the period of five years from the date of any such donation, grant or demise; at the end of which time, if the said lands shall not have been sold by the said corporation, then, and in that case, the said land so donated, granted or demised, shall revert to the donor, grantor, or the heirs of the devisor of the same.2

Manual labor system

Sec. 9. That the trustees of said institution shall be authorized, at any time when they may deem the public good requires it, to establish and adopt the manual labor system, and conduct the same in such manner as may be to the interest of the institution and the benefit of the students.

No religion to be inculcated

To be on liberal principles

Sec. 10. That no religious doctrine peculiar to any one sect or denomination of christians, shall be inculcated by any professor in said college, but said institution shall at all times be conducted upon free, liberal and enlightened principles; and that nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to authorize the trustees at any time to establish a theological department in said College.3

Approved 1st March, 1837.

1Thomas H. Owen introduced SB 162 in the Senate on February 6, 1837. The Senate passed the bill on February 10. The House of Representatives passed it on February 25. On March 1, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 545, 717, 767; Illinois Senate Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 356, 369, 386, 536, 572, 590.

2In 1841, the General Assembly passed an act that repealed the 640-acre limitation for Saint Mary’s College and other colleges with similar restrictions.

3In 1841, the General Assembly adopted an act repealing the restriction on theological departments at Saint Mary’s Colleges and other colleges. Prior to 1849, Illinois had no general incorporation law governing colleges and universities. Incorporators of prospective colleges were required to petition the General Assembly for individual charters. Early Illinois general assemblies were less than enthusiastic about colleges and universities, as many legislators were unconvinced about the value of higher education and suspicious of the movement to establish institutions of higher learning. The fact that the impetus for schools came from Baptists, Presbyterians, and other Protestant denominations added to the legislators’s discomfort. Prohibitions on theological departments, restrictions on land ownership, and strictures against religious tests for admission reflected fears about undue religious influence in education and divisive sectarianism. By 1840, however, views on education had changed, prompting repeal of restrictions on theological departments and land ownership. In January 1849, the General Assembly ended the practice of individual charters by enacting a statute for the general incorporation of institutions of higher learning. This statute placed no restrictions on theological departments, but it did limit land holdings to one thousand acres at any one time.
Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois: Cook County Edition (Chicago: Munsell, 1905), 1:111-12, 291; Charles E. Frank, Pioneers’s Progress: Illinois College, 1829-1979 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), 29-30; “An Act for the Incorporation of Institutions of Learning,” January 26, 1849, Laws of the State of Illinois (1849), 86-87.