1
That, in forming their estimates in accordance with said resolution, they were compelled
to adopt as a partial guide, the current expenditures of the preceding year, where
the same are not known to your committee to be changed or increased.
They have directed me to report, as the aggregate probable amount, necessary to discharge
the current expenditures of the government for the years 1837 and 1838 at $110,303[.]94—as follows:
| To the General Assembly | $39,000 | 00 |
| t" themJudiciary | 17,500 | 00 |
| t" themGovernor | 2,000 | 00 |
| t" themAuditor of Public Accounts $3,200; Treasurer $3,200 | 6,400 | 00 |
| t" themAttorney General and State’s Attorneys | 3,700 | 00 |
| t" themWarden of the Penitentiary and incidental expenses | 3,700 | 00 |
| t" themContingent Fund | 8,000 | 00 |
| Amount due Military Tract | 8,800 | 00 |
| Postage | 800 | 00 |
| Militia | 1,200 | 00 |
| Interest on School and Seminary Fund2 | 19,203 | 94 |
1On December 17, 1836, the House of Representatives passed a resolution ordering the Committee on Public Accounts and Expenditures to
report the probable amount that would be necessary to meet the expenses of the State for 1837 and 1838. On January 5, Milton Carpenter of the committee reported back to the House. The House referred the report to the
Committee on Finance, of which Abraham Lincoln was a member.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 67, 176-77.
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.
Printed Transcription, 1 page(s), Journal of the House of Representatives of the Tenth General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at Their First Session (Vandalia, IL: William Walters, 1836), 177