Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

1
Resolved, by the House of Representatives, that the Governor be requested to communicate to this House, the amount of the three per cent fund, now due this state, and also the amount of interest, which will be due, and subject to distribution upon the school, college and seminary funds, on the first Monday of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six.2

1On December 14, 1835, Charles Gregory introduced the resolution in the House of Representatives. The House received a response from Governor Joseph Duncan on December 18.
Illinois House Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 2nd sess., 54, 88-95.

2When Ohio and Indiana became states, Congress earmarked five percent of the net proceeds of all future sales of government lands within those states for the construction of roads and canals. In 1818, when Congress passed the act enabling the Illinois Territory to become a state, Nathaniel Pope successfully argued that the proceeds from sales of government lands in Illinois should be earmarked for education rather than infrastructure. Upon statehood, Congress granted to Illinois three percent of the net proceeds of all federal land sales in the state to be used exclusively for education; this became known as the “three percent fund”. Congress additionally granted to every township in the state the proceeds of the sale of land in each township’s Section 16. This money became known as the common school fund. Congress specified that one-sixth of the three percent fund was to be used for the establishment of a college or university; this became known as the “college fund.” Congress furthermore specified that the proceeds from the sales of land in two entire townships would be reserved for a seminary of learning; this became known as the “seminary fund.” Since 1829, the state had been borrowing from the school and seminary funds to pay regular government expenses.
“An Act to Enable the People of the Illinois Territory to Form a Constitution and State Government, and for the Admission of Such State into the Union on an Equal Footing with the Original States,” 18 April 1818, Statutes at Large of the United States, 3:428-31; “An Act Authorizing the Commissioners of the School and Seminary Fund to Loan the Same to the State,” 17 January 1829, Revised Code of Laws, of Illinois (1829), 118-19; W. L. Pillsbury, “Early Education in Illinois,” in Sixteenth Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Illinois (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1886), 106-07.