RESOLUTION relative to the relinquishment of the 16th section.
1To procure other lands in lieu of 16th sections.
Resolved by the House of Representatives, (the Senate concurring herein,) That our Senators in Congress, be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use their influence in procuring
the passage of a law, authorizing the selection of other lands in this state, by quarter sections or sections, in lieu of such sixteenth or school sections as
may be unavailable, for the purposes for which they were granted.2
Transmitted January 18, 1837.
1On December 16, 1836, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution authorizing the Committee on Education to investigate the wisdom
of drafting a resolution to Congress regarding sixteenth (school) sections. On December 23, Ninian W. Edwards from the Committee on Education introduced a resolution to that effect, which the
House adopted. On December 26, the Senate referred the resolution to the Committee on Seminary, School Lands, and Education.
Cyrus Edwards of the Committee on Seminary, School Lands, and Education reported back the resolution
on December 29 with an amendment, in which the Senate concurred. The Senate adopted
the resolution as amended, and the House concurred. On January 18, the Senate delivered
the resolution to Governor Joseph Duncan for his signature.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 64, 93-94, 134-35, 168, 263; Illinois Senate Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 107-108, 114, 129, 216, 223.
2The U.S. Congress reserved the sixteenth section of townships for public schools in the Land Ordinance of 1785. On December 29, 1836, the Senate amended the original resolution by striking out all the words after “Resolved” and
inserting new language. The version coming out of the House of Representatives called for the Illinois congressional delegation to get a law authorizing the relinquishment
of sixteenth sections in townships where the same were unfit for cultivation and their
replacement with other unappropriated sections in the same townships. The Senate
version became the resolution delivered to Governor Duncan.
Illinois Senate Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 114.
Printed Document, 1 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Tenth General Assembly (Vandalia, IL: William Walters, 1837), 338, GA Session: 10-1