In force, Jan. [January]28, 1840.
AN ACT to authorize and require the school commissioner of Sangamon county to pay over certain school funds to the school commissioners of Menard, Logan, and Dane counties.
1
Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly , That as soon as the school commissioners of Menard, Logan, and Dane counties, shall enter into bond with the county courts of their respective counties, for the proper discharge of their duties, and present
a certificate of the county clerks of their respective counties, certifying to the
facts of their having been thus authorized to receive said funds, the school commissioner
of Sangamon county, be, and he is hereby, required to pay over the township funds belonging to the several
townships within the limits of the counties of Menard, Logan, and Dane.2
Duty of auditor
Proportions to counties
Sec. 2. The Auditor of Public Accounts shall apportion the funds to be distributed on the first Monday in January next for
the use of schools in Sangamon county, in the following proportions, to wit: to Menard county, five hundred dollars; to Logan county, two hundred and fifty dollars; to Dane county, two hundred and fifty dollars.3
Schedules, maps, reports, &c
Sec. 3. All abstracts and schedules, and other useful papers, comprising maps, reports of
trustees, and all other useful papers that have been, or may hereafter be, presented
to the school commissioner of Sangamon county, that properly belong to any and all of the several townships within the limits of
the counties mentioned in the first section of this act, shall be furnished to the
proper commissioners, on or before the thirtieth day of December, 1839, if application
be made for the same.
New counties to appoint school commissioners
Sec. 4. It shall be lawful, hereafter, for the county courts of all new counties, formed, or to be formed, in this State, after the organization required by law, to appoint a school commissioner; and said commissioner, on producing evidence of
his appointment, as required by the first section of this act, is hereby authorized
to demand, sue for, and receive from, the county or counties from which the same shall
have been taken, or out of which such new county, was, or may be, formed, all moneys,
papers, or other valuable things, that of right belong to the inhabitants of said
new county.
Schedules, &c of Menard, &c
Sec. 5. The school commissioners of Menard, Logan, and Dane counties, shall be allowed to receive schedules and abstracts of schools, up to the second
Monday of January next; and they shall also be allowed the further time of one week
to prepare for paying claims, but nothing herein contained shall be
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so construed as to delay paymenters long than the third Monday of January, A.D. 1840.
Proviso
Sec. 6. That the school commissioner of Schuyler county, shall be required to withhold payment of any part of that portion of the interest
on the school, college, and seminary fund, drawn by said commissioner for the use
of schools of said county, for the year eighteen hundred and thirty-nine, until the school commissioner of
the county of Brown, shall present the schedules of teachers of schools in the said county of Brown, which may be made out according to law, and the said commissioner of Schuyler shall then apportion the said fund amongst the several teachers of both (of ) said
counties, as the law required previous to the creation of the county of Brown: Provided, The school commissioner of Brown county shall present said schedules to the commissioner of Schuyler county, on or before the first day of June next.
County school fund of Brown
Sec. 7. That the school commissioner of Schuyler county shall be required to settle with, and pay over to, the school commissioner of Brown county, such portion of any county school fund, which may be in his hands, to which the county
of Brown may be equitably entitled, in consequence of the division of said county of Schuyler: and that the data by which the apportionment and division of any such fund shall
be made, shall be fixed upon by the two commissioners of said counties, and in case
of their disagreement, it shall be apportioned according to the number of votes polled
for the candidates for Congress, within the limits of said counties, in the year 1837.
Am’t[Amount] to Bureau
Sec. 8. The school commissioner of the county of Putnam is hereby required to pay over to the school commissioners of the counties of Marshall and Stark, the one half of the annual interest received by him, from the State treasury, on
the college, school, and seminary funds (after first deducting the amount required by law to be paid to the county of Bureau) in the following proportion, to wit: to the county of Marshall, one-third part; and to the county of Stark, one-sixth part of the whole remaining fund, as aforesaid. The distributions and
divisions authorized by this act, to continue to be made as aforesaid, until a distribution
is made under the next census.
Approved, January 27th, 1840.
1On December 27, 1839, Representative Thomas J. Nance introduced HB 56 in the House of Representatives. Representative Abraham Lincoln then moved that the rule of the House be dispensed with, and the bill read a second
time by its title, and ordered to be engrossed for a third reading. The House approved
Lincoln’s motion. On January 2, 1840, the House passed the bill. On January 7, the
Senate referred the bill to the Committee on Elections. On January 9, the Committee of Elections
reported the bill with an amendment, and the Senate concurred in the amendment. On
January 18, the Senate passed the bill as amended and approved an amendment of the
bill’s title. On January 22, Lincoln moved that the House take up the Senate’s amendment
of the bill, and the House concurred in the amended version of the bill. On January
28, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Journal of the House of Representatives of the Eleventh General Assembly of the State
of Illinois, at Their Called Session, Begun and Held at Springfield, December 9, 1839 (Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1839), 90-91, 107, 118, 202, 227, 249, 263, 328,
338; Journal of the Senate of the Eleventh General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at
Their Called Session, Begun and Held in Springfield, December 9, 1839 (Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1839), 84, 89, 93, 95, 127, 163, 239.
2The Illinois General Assembly created all three of these counties out of Sangamon County in 1839, hence created the need for the Sangamon school commissioners to apportion
school fund money to those counties for that year, as they could not collect it themselves.
The duties of the school commissioners are described in legislation following from
the Illinois Free School Act of 1825.
Printed Document, 2 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Eleventh General Assembly, at their Special Session (Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1840), 91-92, GA Session: 11-S,