Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 129]

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Illinois Plan Before Congress

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support of a bill to grant federal lands in maintenance of an agricultural and mechanical college in each state it was only natural for them to comply to the appeal which was so much in their own interest. In introducing house bill Number 2, known very widely as the Morrill bill, on December 14,1857, Mr. Morrill recommended that it be referred to the committee on agriculture. Instead it was referred to the committee on public lands. It is quite probable that Mr. Morrill knew that the bill would meet with some serious opposition in this committee, therefore his attempt to have it sent to the committee on agriculture. Nothing more was heard of the bill on the floor of the house until April 15, 1858, when it was reported by Chairman Cobb of the committee on public lands with the recommendation that it should not pass. After several unsuccessful attempts Morrill gained the floor on April 20 and by moving a substitute for the entire bill, which differed from the original only in the exclusion of the territories from the benefits of the land grants, brought the measure before the house and spoke at length in its favor.21 In beginning his speech he said: " There has been no measure for years which has received so much attention in the various parts of the country— so far as the fact can be proved by petitions which have been received here from the various states, north and south, from state societies, from county societies, and from individuals. They have come in so as to cover almost every day from the commencement of the session." He told how immense sums had been expended to promote commerce through light-houses, coast surveys, improvements of harbors, and through the navy and naval academy; that West Point academy was maintained at government expense; that immense grants had been made to railroads, and munificent ones to promote general education, and other things requiring liberal expenditures of money; but that all direct encouragement to agriculture had been rigidly withheld. With us, he said,'' Ceres does not appear among the gods of Olympus—only appears in a picture on one of our Treasury notes!" He then showed at length, supported by an array of fig*For the text of the bill see appendix p. 599; for Morrill's speech see Congressional Olobe, 35 congress, 1 session, 1697.