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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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160 History University of Illinois located in separate tracts. This request was granted and commissioners were appointed for the purpose and the lands were selected. By 1829 Illinois finances were in such a condition that the legislators.felt the necessity of resorting to any expediency to avoid an unpopular rise in tax rates to meet the ever increasing debts and the current expenses of the government 10 One such expedient was to sell the seminary lands and borrow the money for the state. A series of acts during the seventh and eighth general assemblies made possible the diverting of this fund from its original purpose to a cause which in no way could be sanctioned by the donors. January 12, 1829, the auditor received instructions from the assembly to advertise the lands already located and to sell them to the highest bidder, the minimum price being fixed at one dollar and a quarter an acre; the same act provided a board composed of the governor, auditor, attorney general and secretary of state to invest the fund accruing from the sale. On January 17, 1829, another act was passed by which the governor was authorized to borrow this fund for the state at six percent interest, the latter to be annually added to the principal until the entire amount was repaid. In this way the state was under no obligation to meet even the interest. 11 Late in December, 1829, a memorial was presented to congress asking that Illinois be allowed to exchange her valueless township in Fayette county, for an equal quantity of land to be located in different parts of the state, since, "This township now is, and ever will continue to be, totally valueless for a seminary of learning." This petition was granted March 2, 1831, and Illinois selected new lands, but so unseemly was the haste to realize on these grants that even before congress had acted in the matter the general assembly passed a law providing for the sale of the new land on the same terms as the other thirty-six sections.12 Thus the Illinois state legislature responded to the trust imposed on her by the national government. Seventy-two sec"Ford, History of Illinois, 79 ff. u Lawa of 1829, p. 158, 161. ^American State Papers, Public Lands, 6: 14. U. S. Acts and Resolutions, 1831, p. 75. Laws of 1831, p. 171. M
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