Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force, Feb.[February] 27, 1839.

AN ACT for the relief of Calhoun county.
1

$1,000 may be appropriated for payment of debts.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That the county commissioners’ court of Calhoun county are hereby authorized, if they shall deem it expedient, to appropriate one thousand dollars of the money that they have or may receive from the Fund Commissioners,2 according to the fifteenth provision of the eighteenth section of “An act to establish and maintain a general system of internal improvements,”3 for the payment of any debt or debts due and unpaid by said county. This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

Approved, February 27, 1839.

1On January 3, 1839, Franklin Witt in the Senate presented a petition from the commissioners of Calhoun County, and the Senate referred the petition to the Committee on Public Accounts and Expenditures. On January 9, the Senate discharged the Committee on Public Accounts and Expenditures from further consideration and referred the petition to a select committee. On January 15, Witt of the select committee introduced SB 78 in the Senate. On February 5, the Senate passed the bill. On February 14, the House of Representatives referred the bill to a select committee. The select committee reported back the bill on February 15 with an amendment, in which the House concurred. On February 22, the House passed the bill as amended. On February 25, the Senate concurred with the House’s amended version of the bill. On February 27, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1838. 11th G. A., 1st sess., 353, 404-405, 412, 483, 537; Illinois Senate Journal. 1838. 11th G. A., 1st sess., 130, 146, 170, 199, 263, 268, 277, 387, 409, 436, 452.

2Section one of the internal improvement act created a three-person board of fund commissioners to negotiate loans, buy and sell bonds, deposit and withdraw money, and administer the various fiscal aspects of the internal improvement program.

3Section eighteen, sub-section fifteen, of the act appropriated $200,000 to counties through which no railroad or canal was provided at the expense of the State. This money was to be distributed proportionally based on the most recent census. The money was to be used to improve roads, build bridges, and construct other necessary public works. By December 1838, the fund commissioners had distributed $145,510 to sixteen counties. There appears to be some discrepancy on the amount distributed. Krenkel and the Sangamo Journal cite the total as $144,700, but a tabulation of the figures printed in the Sangamo Journal results in $145,510. Calhoun County had received $2,727.50.
John H. Krenkel, Illinois Internal Improvements 1818-1848 (Cedar Rapids, IA: Torch, 1958), 83-84; Sangamo Journal 12 January 1839, 2:1.