Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force, Jan.[January] 18, 1840.

AN ACT to inccrporate the Rock Island University.
1

Persons composing body corporate.

Name and style.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That Charles Oakley, Charles S. Hempstead, Joshua Harper, Charles C. Wilcox, Philip K. Hanna, Osborn, Samuel L. Lamberson, Rufus J. Hervey, Charles G. Thomas, Jonathan K. Woodruff, Germanicus Kent, James H. Gower, Alonzo P. Clapp, Lucius Wells, and William Hammond, 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 Rock Island University.”

Location of University.

Number of Trustees.

Chancellor

Sec. 2. The said University shall remain located at or near Hampton , in the county of Rock Island. The number of trustees shall not exceed fifteen, exclusive of the chancellor, or presiding officer of said university, who shall, ex officio, be a member of the Board of Trustees. No other instructor shall be a member of the Board.

Object of corporation.

Sec. 3. The object of said corporation shall be to qualify youth to engage in the several employments and professions of society, and to discharge honorably and usefully the various duties of life.

Powers.

Degrees may be conferred.

Sec. 4. The saidcorporation shall have power to purchase, receive and hold, for the sole use and benefit of said University, such personal property as may be proper and useful in promoting the cause of literature therein; and in its corporate name to sue, and be sued, plead, and be impleaded, answer, and be answered, in all courts of law and equity; to have a common seal, and to alter or change the same; to make such by-laws for its regulation as are not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of this State or of the United States; and to confer on such persons as may be considered worthy, such

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academical or honorary degrees as are usually conferred by similar institutions.

Proviso.

Further proviso.

Sec. 5. The trustees of said corporation shall have authority to elect a chancellor, to regulate all financial affairs, and to fill the various offices of instruction: Provided, That no person be appointed to such office, except he be first nominated by the chancellor: Provided, also, That nothing herein contained shall authorize the establishment of a theological department in said University.2

Trustees may be removed.

Proviso.

Vacancies to be filled.

Quorum.

Sec. 6. The trustees for the time being shall have power to remove any trustee from his office of trustee for any dishonorable or criminal conduct: Provided, That no such removal shall take place without giving to such trustee notice of the charges exhibited against him, and an opportunity to defend himself before the board, nor unless that two-thirds of the whole number of trustees, for the time being, shall concur in such removal. The trustees for the time being, in order to have perpetual succession, shall have power as often as a trustee shall be removed from office, die, resign, or remove out of the State, to appoint a resident of the State to fill the vacancy thus made in the board of trustees. A majority of the trustees for the time being, shall be a quorum to do business.

Funds, how applied.

Proviso.

Further proviso.

Still further proviso.

Sec. 7. The trustees shall faithfully apply the funds collected, or hereafter collected, according to their best judgment, in erecting suitable buildings, in supporting the necessary instructors, officers and agents, in procuring books, maps, charts, globes, philosophical, chemical and other apparatus necessary to aid in the promotion of sound learning in the University: Provided, That in case any donation, devise or bequest shall be made for particular purposes, accordant with the objects of the institution, and the trustees shall accept the same; every such donation, devise, or bequest, shall be applied in conformity with the express condition of the devisors or donor: Provided, also, That lands donated or devised as aforesaid shall be disposed of as required by the tenth section of this act: And provided, further, That the said corporation shall have power to purchase, and hold no greater quanty of land than six hundred and forty acres (which power is hereby conferred) except the same is acquired by donation.

Bonds of officers.

Process against corporation, how served.

Sec. 8. The treasurer of said University, always, and all other agents when required by the trustees, before entering upon the duties of their appointments, shall give bond for the security of the corporation, in such penal sum, and with such securities as the Board of Trustees shall approve, and all process against the said corporation shall be by summons, and service of the same shall be by leaving an attested copy with the treasurer of the University, at least thirty days before return day thereof.

University free to all Christians.

Idle and vicious persons may be expelled.

Sec. 9. The said University and its preparatory departments shall be open to all denominations of Chistians, and the profession of any particular religious faith shall not be requir -

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ed of those who become students. All persons, however, may be suspended or expelled from said University, whose habits are idle, or vicious, or whose moral character is bad.

Limit of lands to be held.

Proviso.

Lands by grant may be held nine years.

When lands shall revert.

Sec. 10. The lands, tenements and hereditaments to be held in perpetuity in virtue of this act, shall not exceed six hundred and forty acres, except such as are for University buildings and necessary appurtenances: Provided, however, That if donations, grants, or devises in land shall from time to time be made to said corporation over and above said six hundred and forty acres which may be held in perpetuity as aforesaid, the same may be received and held by said corporation for the period of nine years from the date of such donation, grant or devise; at the end of which time, if said lands over and above the said six hundred and forty acres shall not have been sold by the said corporation, then, and in that case, the said land so donated, granted, or devised, shall revert to the donor, or grantor, or to the heirs of the devisor of the same.3

Approved, January 18th, 1840.

1On December 23, 1839, Senator George W. Harrison introduced SB 30 in the Senate, and the Senate referred the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary. On December 30, the Committee on the Judiciary reported in favor of the bill with several amendments, and the Senate concurred in those amendments. On January 3, 1840, the Senate passed the bill. On January 4, the House of Representatives passed the bill. On January 18, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 126, 147, 153; Illinois Senate Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 49, 68-69, 80, 105, 117, 135.

2In 1841, the General Assembly adopted an act repealing the restriction on theological departments at Rock Island University and other colleges and universities.

3In 1841, the General Assembly passed an act that repealed the 640-acre limitation for Rock Island University and other colleges with similar restrictions. 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.