The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-01-11

system of public charities, asylums, hospi.
tails, and prisons, for all the objects of civil
guardianship or commiseration. It should
pay OH our public debt, encourage public
works, erect public buildings, amply endow
our University and Normal Schools, and so
perfect the social apparatus of Government,
without the burdens and sacrifices which it
has cost other States to found similar in
stituti0ns.
All these useful and benefcent objects are
within the resources of the public lands
granted to the State of Minnesota. These
resources, wisely used, the public credit
will remain firmly established, while emil
grafton will pour, with new impulse, into
land which promises the material prospe-
rlty OF new State, without its privations.
and the blessings of mature civilization.
without its burdens.
1t is of the first Importance to settle at
the outstart of legislation upon this subject,
the general policy which is to govern the
disposition OF the public lands.
The School Lands, as they are first in
Importance, demand your first considera.
ton, especially as the principles upon which
they are admins cred may be substantially
applied to all the rest.
Minnesota is the first State which has
received double grant of school lands, the
States admitted before 1849 having been
granted the sixteenth section only. 1t thus
happens that we have nearly three million
acres of school lands, while Ohio received
but one-fourth, and Michigan, Illinois,
Iowa, and Wisconsin each had about one.
third of this aggregate.
The Constitution provides that the bro.
ceeds of the school lands shall constitute O
perpetual school fund for the State, and that
the principal arising from the sales of such
lands shall forever be preserved inviolate
and undiminished.
This provision, the substance of which is
found IN the organic laws OF all the North
western States, is an explicit declaration
that the grant of school lands is to be re-
garded as perpetual provision for Educa.
ton; thus indelibly registering in the text
OF the constitution the primary intention of
the grant, as interpreted by the ordinance
OF 1857, 10 that MODEST maxim of political
science" That Religion, Morality, and
knowledge being necessary to good gov
eminent, Schools, and the Means of Educa.
ton shall forever be encouraged"
1t is the necessary logical implication of
the constitutional provision, that the school
lands should be administered with a view
10 the permanent interests of the school fund.
Ii is only by adhering to this as a tunda.-
mental principle of legislation, b rega rd-
ing the school lands not as a temporary
source OF relief from present burdens, but
as provision for the permanent interests
OF Education that We can rightly discharge
the sacred obligations to posterity which
this trust imposes upon US, or fitly respond
to the elevated and paternal policy of the
general Government.
There has always been disposition in
the new states to hurry the school lands
prematurely into market, partly originating
IN the desire of interested parties to obtain
possession OF these lands at low prices, and
partly from the impatient eagerness of the
pioneer to realize an immediate income
therefrom, tor the support of schools. There
are indeed some plausible reasons WHY the
pioneer should ask that the school lands
should be used for his benefit. His are all
the struggles and privations incident to the
early colonization OF the wilderness. By
the sweat of his brow, are laid the founda.
lions of that wealth; which is to yield the
future revenues of the State. The expense
and difficulty of maintaining schools in our
present sparse and poor settlements, it is
speciously alleged, blenders local taxation
more burdensome and legislative aid more
welcome now than at any subsequent pc.
riod.
1t will at once be perceived that if such
views were to govern the disposition of the
school lands, the object of the grant would
be almost wholly defeated, and its prospec
tive benefits lost, that in fact the argu.
ment derives its whole force from the ne.
cessary condition of things in stage of
frontier life, when these lands are almost
wholly valueless; and that if all their re.
sources were exhausted to meet the present
transient emergency the income would be
wasted in the vain attempt to anticipate the
laws of progress, and remedy Inconvenience
which can only be outgrown.
1t would perhaps be difficult to prove
that the hardships and poverty of the first
settlers In new state are of such a peculiar
character as to constitute a special claim
to enjoy the benefit of the school grant to
the prejudice of posterity. And it will not
be overlooked, as against a pretension so
greedy in its motive and so subversiye in its
consequences of the welfare of the State:
that If the first settler endures some priv,.
tions, he also enjoys great advantages
which are denied to his successors. If he
turns the first furrow, he also reaps the
richest harvest He does not accept the
rugged lot of the pioneer as personal
sacrifice for the good of the state from
which be therefore claims special bounty,
but from shrewd calculation of prospec.
tive benefits to himself The rapid rise in
the value of lands which attends the first
stages of the growth of new settlements,
turns principally to the advantage of the
first settler, who has had the choice of the
best locations; and that which be is SO apt
to claim as the tardy fruit of his own toll,
more often results, without his agency, from
the increase in population and capital
around him. With what justice then. can
the incoming thousands of men who shall
complete the social superstructure about
him, and swell the sources of his nroenoritv