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Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois, That our Senators and Representatives in Congress, be requested to use their influence, to procure the passage of a law by Congress, granting to this State, the reserved alternate sections of land on the Canal route from Lake Michigan to the Illinois river, for the purpose of further aiding this State in constructing a canal or rail-way, between said Lake and the Illinois river.
Resolved, That they be requested to use their influence, should such a law pass, so to guard
it with provisions, that the State may use the lands herself in making the work, or dispose of them to a Company, upon
such terms as the Legislature may provide, in order to insure the accomplishment of the work as speedily as possible.
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Resolved, That should they not be able to procure an unconditional grant of said lands to
the State, then they are hereby requested, to use their exertions to procure the passage of
a law containing a pledge, that if the State will cause the work to be completed by the State or a Company, within ten years next after the passage of such an act, the title of
the said alternate sections shall rest in the State or her guarantees.
Resolved, That if they cannot procure the grant to be made, upon either of the above terms,
that they use their influence to obtain for the State a preference in the purchase of those lands, at a reasonable price for the whole,
allowing to the State a reasonable credit for the same, and that they include in any law which they may
procure the passage of, relating to the Canal, the military reservation or fractional section of land on which Fort Dearborn at Chicago stands.
1On December 9, 1834, Edmund D. Taylor introduced a resolution in the Senate instructing the Committee on Internal Improvements to draft a memorial to Congress, asking a donation of lands to enable completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. On December 22, George Forquer of the Committee on Internal Improvements introduced the resolution in the Senate,
and the Senate adopted the resolution. On December 24, the House of Representatives referred the resolution to the Committee of the Whole. On January 7, 1835, the Committee
of the Whole reported back the resolution without amendment and recommended its adoption.
The House then adopted the resolution. On January 16, the Committee on Enrolled Bills
reported that the resolution had been laid before Governor Joseph Duncan.
Illinois House Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 147-48,157, 219, 247, 282, 302; Illinois Senate Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 74, 120-21.
2In 1822, Congress passed a law authorizing the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal through public lands. However, Congress granted only a 90-foot strip of land on either
side of the canal route to the state, rather than the mile-wide strip on each side that the General Assembly had requested. After repeated petitions by the General Assembly on the subject, in
1827 Congress increased the grant to one-half of the land five miles deep on either
side of the canal route. Congress granted alternating one-mile-square sections to
the state, with the others reserved for the federal government. Despite repeated
attempts by Illinois congressmen in the 1840s, Congress did not grant any additional
land in support of the Illinois and Michigan Canal until 1854, six years after the
canal opened.
John H. Krenkel, Illinois Internal Improvements, 1818-1848 (Cedar Rapids, IA: Torch Press, 1958), 28, 193-94.
Printed Transcription, 2 page(s), Journal of the House of Representatives of the Ninth General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at Their First Session (Vandalia, IL: J. Y. Sawyer, 1835), 147-48