Note 1 — OUR PUBLIC LAND SYSTEM and ITS RELATION To EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

The lands not held as private estates in Great Britain were known as the "Crown lands," the revenue from which was the income of the sovereign. This continued down to the accession of George III. This custom continued down to Victoria, who, renouncing the crown lands, accepted for herself and her children a fixed sum annually, but this annuity does not descend to her grandchildren.

2 The history of the early voyages, and of the immigration to America of different nationalities, including the Dutch, is too familiar to be repeated here, and a period of nearly three hundred years, from 1497 to 1783, is passed over. With independence, the American states received an inheritance of which they hardly understood the value at the time, except for its political importance.

3 It would seem from this demand of Virginia that this state assumed to lay claim to all the Northwest Territory. However, it could make no difference, since the other states had ceded whatever rights they had, except to strengthen the title of the general government.

4 There is much that is confusing and contradictory in the act of North Carolina, as in the reference to the ordinance of 1787, and the clause forbidding the passage by congress of an act tending to emancipate slaves.

5 The Constitution of the Provisional Government of Oregon was formed on the ordinance of 1787, and the above extract is taken, somewhat abbreviated, from Articles I, II, III and IV of that document. When the organic act of Oregon Territory was framed by congress, it was agreed that the laws already in operation in Oregon should be recognized as the laws of the territory. The adoption of the ordinance of 1787 as their Constitution by the pioneers of the state, was due to the statesmanship of Jesse Applegate, one of the "men of 1843." Its author was Nathan Dane, LL. D., of Massachusetts, member of congress in 1787.

6 Subsequently the reservation of gold, silver, and copper mines was discontinued, and lead mines and salt springs substituted. The income from these sources at that period would have been greater than from other mines. But no change was ever made from 1785 to the present date in the grant of the sixteenth section for school purposes.

7 A great deal of unwise criticism has been declaimed and written upon the government's dealings with the Indians in the matter of their reservations. But human wisdom has seldom been able, however sincere the endeavor, to bridge over with peace the gulf between savagery and civilization. The United States began by binding the government in the ordinance of 1787 to "observe the utmost good faith towards the Indians." During the first ten years of its existence, treaties were made with half a hundred tribes. It was declared a misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment, for any persons, not acting for the government, to treat with, or purchase lands from an Indian nation—an inhibition meant to prevent trouble with the natives, as well as frauds against the government. But Indian wars were not prevented, and continue to this day. The United States has supported an army to defend its citizens against savage outbreaks. Every congress appropriates large sums for the support of its Indian wards, and for their education. According to recent reports, the Indians of New Mexico cost the government, in 1897, for each pupil in the Indian schools, $167, or a lump sum of $41,750, over and above the pay of the superintendent, and other expenses. The Indian school at Salem, Oregon, for the same year, cost the treasury $50,100, and the support of the establishment, $71,700. The Indian reservations, including Indian Territory, comprise four and forty-three hundredths per cent. of our public lands, exclusive of Alaska. The whole Indian population of the United States is officially stated at two hundred and ninety-seven thousand. Of these forty-two thousand five hundred and ninety-seven can read; over fifty-three thousand can converse in English. The government has built for them twenty-six thousand three hundred and eighty-nine dwelling houses, besides schoolhouses, and there are three hundred and forty-eight churches on the reservations. Religious and other societies have contributed large amounts for school and church purposes. The money collected in 1899 for the instruction and advancement of "the nation's wards" was $261,515; for general church work, $119,407. New York this year contributed for an Indian school in that state $16,016. The senate bill this present year for an Indian school at Riverside, California, proposed to appropriate $75,000. Another Indian school at Perris, California, gets $167 per pupil for one hundred and fifty pupils. The whole appropriation for the support and education of Indians in 1900 is $8,414,000. At this rate is the nation still paying for its public lands.

8 Mr. J. Quinn Thornton, who came to Oregon late in 1846, was appointed a judge under the provisional government by Governor Abernethy, and was sent as a delegate to Washington late in 1847, arriving there May 11, 1848, several times during his lifetime publicly asserted, in written articles and in addresses delivered before the Pioneer Association, that he was the author of the Douglas Bill. By comparing dates it will be seen that he could have had nothing to do with the bill, which was introduced in the house December 23, 1846, soon after the boundary treaty. It passed the house January 16, 1847, was sent to the senate, amended, and laid upon the table March 8, 1847. In 1848 Douglas was a senator, and Chairman of the Committee on Territories. On the tenth of January the Oregon bill came up, was referred to Douglas' committee, and reported, without amendments, February 7. This was the identical bill over which senators wrangled in so dramatic a fashion until the last hour of the session, in August, 1848. A compromise bill was devised by the southern members, by which Oregon could come in in company with New Mexico and California, but congress would have none of it. There was no opportunity during Thornton's stay in Washington to alter or amend the Oregon bill, which, when it passed the senate, was in all essential features, including school lands, the same bill which was published in the Oregon Spectator of September 16, 1847, more than a month before Thornton set sail for his destination. As the Spectator was the only newspaper in Oregon at that time, and owned and controlled by the Governor, it is fair to presume that it was read by the Governor's appointee. Notwithstanding these adverse circumstances and conclusions, Mr. Thornton never ceased to claim the authorship of the organic act of Oregon, nor to congratulate himself upon having bestowed upon this and other new states the priceless benefit of school lands. "I will frankly admit," he says in his autobiography, "that when to this section (the sixteenth) of the public lands, the thirty-sixth was added by the passage of this bill, the thought that Providence had made me the instrument by which so great a boon was bestowed upon posterity filled my heart with emotions as pure and deep as can be experienced by man;" and goes on to anticipate being recognized as a benefactor of his race when his toils and responsibilities should be over. See Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association for 1874, and some later numbers, for these false claims. Also the Portland Oregonian of May 15, 1885, in which he distinctly denies the facts of history, and relates incredible occurrences with such minuteness of detail and loftiness of expression as to deceive any but the well informed in public affairs. The ordinary reader could not conceive such mendacity and dissembling.

9 The older states made such provision as they could for education. Connecticut reserved some of her lands for popular education, and any state had the same right, but the "land states," as they were called, offered lands for seminaries of learning, and universities, two entire townships being the usual amount granted for this purpose, besides the thirty-sixth part set aside by compact.

10 Rockwell had given notice of this amendment on the tenth of May, one day before the arrival of Thornton in Washington. See his "Oregon and California," vol. 2, p. 248. Therefore Mr. Rockwell's idea did not originate with Mr. Thornton. In his article in the "Transactions," for 1883, he makes Mr. Rockwell prophesy that he "will not get the Oregon bill so amended as to set apart two sections in each township, instead of one, as already provided for in the Oregon bill"—forgetting in this instance to claim paternity to both.

11 Says the commissioner: "The expediency of making further provision for the support of common schools in the land states has attracted much attention, and certainly is worthy of the most favorable consideration. Those states are sparsely settled by an active, industrious and enterprising people, who, however, may not have sufficient means independent of their support, to endow or maintain public schools. To aid in this important matter, congress at the commencement of our land system, and when the reins of government were held by the sages of the revolution, set apart one section out of every township of thirty-six square miles. At that early day this provision doubtless appeared munificent, but experience has proved it to be inadequate. It is obviously necessary that at least one school should be established in each of those townships, and to do this they have only the section of land above mentioned, worth about $800. To invest this sum safely it cannot be made to yield more than $48 per annum, which will not pay the salary of a teacher for a single month; and the whole of the principal would not enable a township to erect a suitable common school edifice, and employ a teacher for one year. It is evident therefore, that this provision does not go far to accomplish the original design, and that without the aid of other means the citizens of those growing states cannot obtain the advantages of a general system of education. I would therefore recommend that further grants of land be made for that object, and wherever the lands reserved for the use of schools are found to be valueless, that the proper officer of the state be authorized to select others in lieu of them. * * *

"With great respect, your obedient servant, "JAMES H. PIPER, "Acting Commissioner.

"HON. ROBERT J. WALKER, "Secretary of the Treasury."

House Ex. Doc. 9, Vol. II, Twenty-ninth Congress, Second Session.

12 Ex. Doc., First Session, Thirtieth Congress, Vol. 1, 1847–48.

13 This statement that congress "granted Oregon two school sections" calls for explanation. It was only in the Northwest Territory, subject to the ordinance of 1787 by compact, that these sixteen sections belonged, as Woodbridge of Michigan contended, to the states formed out of that territory. Where other states received them it was by grant of congress.

14 The Secretary urged other reasons for the additional grants. "Even as a question of revenue," he says, "such grants would more than refund their value to the government, as each quarter township is composed of nine sections, of which the central section would be granted for schools, and each of the remaining eight sections would be adjacent to that granted. Those eight sections thus located and each adjoining a school section, would be of greater value than when separated by many miles from such opportunities, and the thirty-two sections of one entire township, with these benefits, would bring a larger price to the government than thirty-five sections out of thirty-six, where one section only, so remote from the rest, was granted for such a purpose. The public domain would thus be settled at an earlier period, and yielding larger products, thus soon augment our exports and our imports, with a corresponding increase of revenue from duties. The greater diffusion of education would increase the power of mind and knowledge, applied to our industrial pursuits, and augment in this way also the products and wealth of the nation. Each state is deeply interested in the welfare of every other, for the representatives of the whole regulate by their votes the measures of the union, which must be more happy and progressive in proportion as its councils are guided by more enlightened views, resulting from more universal diffusion of light and knowledge and education."—Ex. Doc., Second Session, Thirtieth Congress, Vol. II, 1848–49.

15 Gwin's Autobiography, Mr. Bancroft's Hist. Cal. VI, 298.

16 I must be pardoned if I once more call attention to the willful perversion of truth by the talented but unscrupulous J. Quinn Thornton. In the transactions of the Pioneer Association for 1874, speaking of the Oregon bill and the school-land grants: "Up to the time of the passage of this bill, congress had never appropriated more than the sixteenth section for the support of common schools; and the late Nathan Dane, LL. D., had labored long before he succeeded in inducing the government to appropriate that portion of the public lands." The italics are mine: the word "late," to call attention to the fact that Doctor Dane had been dead for thirty-nine years, having passed to his reward in 1835, after a useful and honorable life; the word "that," because in another place Thornton claims himself to have induced the government to make this appropriation. It is difficult to deal with such constant shuffling with the intention to deceive. A different unintentional error occurred in the course of my investigations, when, in 1882, I wrote to the Department of the Interior for information as to the first act of congress reserving the thirty-sixth section in each township for school purposes, and was informed by the commissioner that "the act was approved March 3, 1849 (U. S. Statutes, Vol I, page 154), entitled an act to establish the Territorial Government of Minnesota." He had overlooked the fact that the organic act of Oregon, which passed on the fourteenth of August, 1848, contained the same appropriation. This was probably because it was in 1849 that the affairs of the land office were turned over to the interior department, and he had not searched the previous records.

17 Act of Congress of September 4, 1841.

18 The canal and locks at Oregon City were built out of the first proceeds of the five hundred thousand acres, when it was converted to the school fund to prevent its appropriation to local schemes of minor importance.

19 By act of July, 1864, congress granted to the State of Oregon, to aid in the construction of a military wagon road from Eugene to the eastern boundary of the state, alternate sections of the public lands designated by odd numbers, for three sections in width on each side of the road, the United States to share in it as a military post road. The land was to be sold in quantities at one time of thirty sections on the completion of ten miles, and within five years, failing which, the land reverted to the United States. The grant amounted to one thousand nine hundred and twenty acres per mile for a distance of four hundred and twenty miles—or more than all given to the state on its admission by one hundred and fifty thousand acres. The company was allowed a primary sale of thirty sections with which to begin surveying. A road was opened from Eugene to and over the mountains in 1867, which was little used or useful. In 1873 the land grant was sold to a San Francisco company, and this immense government gift passed to private ownership in another state.