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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Illinois Plan Before Congress 100 Stuart made several attempts to bring it up but the senate adjourned on June 15 and the bill went over to the next session. As soon as the senate convened in December of 1858 Senator Stuart announced that he would call up the bill. On December 15,16, and 23, he made attempts to call it but the senate refused in each instance to consider it, either from hostility or from the press of other business. Soon thereafter another champion of the bill appeared who could good naturedly, again and again, permit the matter to be postponed but who finally declared he would resist everything else and that action for or against must and should be taken. This was Senator Wade of Ohio. Opposed to him with equal tenacity of purpose, if not with equal success in the outcome, was Senator Pugh, also from Ohiov Besides Senator Pugh, those who spoke most warmly against the bill were Senators Clay of Alabama, Green of Missouri, Mason of Virginia, and Davis of Mississippi. These men all urged constitutional objections. Grim of California objected because mineral lands were included, and Rice of Minnesota opposed because he thought the locations of land in his state would be detrimental. Senators Stuart of Michigan, Harlan of Iowa, Simmons of Rhode Island, and Collamer of Vermont, warmly advocated the passage of the bill, while other friends and enemies contributed to the hot discussion. It was February 1 when Senator Wade succeeded in calling up the bill, and at the end of the discussion, which ran into the next day, it was recommitted to the committee on public lands on motion of Senator Pugh. This vote was reconsidered on February 3, and the bill remained on the calendar for consideration until February 7, when it was again taken up, discussed at great length, and finally passed by a vote of twenty-five to twenty-two. A quotation from the impassioned speech of C. *C. Clay of Alabama during this debate gives a fair idea of the alignment of forces as well as an excellent summary of the principles of those opposing the bill: " B y whom is this measure supported? By the unanimous vote of the Republicans and the Americans now classed I believe together, according to the present party nomenclature, under the name of 'the Opposition/ who habitually declaim against the i H K r J I WH K
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