Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York : including a history of Cornell University, Part 38

Author: Hewett, Waterman Thomas, 1846-1921; Selkreg, John H
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1194

USA > New York > Tompkins County > Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York : including a history of Cornell University > Part 38

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the current sales of the government lands and diminished the revenue from this source. If, in addition, thirty-three States should enter the market with their land scrip, the price would be reduced far below even eighty-five cents per acre, and as much to the prejudice of the old soldiers, who had not already parted with their warrants, as to that of the government. With this issue of additional land scrip, there would be a glut in the market, so that the government could sell few lands at the established value, and the price of bounty land-warrants and scrip would be reduced to one-half the sum fixed by law for government sales. [This anticipation was afterwards realized in the sale of the land scrip issued to the various colleges. ] Under these circumstances, the government would lose this source of revenue, as the States would sell their land scrip at any price that it would bring. The effect upon the treasury would be the same as if a tax were imposed to create a loan to endow these State colleges. The injurious effect that would be produced on the relations between the Federal and State governments, by a grant of Congress to the separate States, was argued by a reason- ing almost similar to that presented by the majority of the committee of the House of Representatives in reporting originally against the measure. The third argument, that the bill, if it should become a law, would operate greatly to the injury of the new States, was based upon the fear that wealthy individuals would acquire large tracts of the public lands and hold them for speculative purposes. The low price, to which the land scrip would probably be reduced, would tempt speculators to buy it in large amounts and locate it on the best lands belonging to the government. The consequence would be that the men who de- sired to cultivate the soil would be compelled to purchase these very lands at rates much higher than the price at which they could be ob- tained from the government. Fourthly, he doubts whether this bill will contribute to the advancement of agriculture and the mechanic arts, objects whose dignity and value can not be too highly appreci- ated. The Federal government will have no constitutional power to follow up the donation to the States, and compel the application of the fund to the intended objects. As donors, we shall possess no control over our own gift after it shall have passed from our hands. If the State Legislatures fail to execute faithfully the trust in the manner prescribed by the law, the Federal government will have no power to compel the execution of the trust. Fifthly, the bill will injuriously interfere with the existing colleges in the different States, in many of

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which agriculture is taught as a science, and the effect of the creation of an indefinite number of rival colleges sustained by the endowment of the Federal government will not be difficult to determine. He believed that it would be impossible to sustain the colleges proposed without the provision that scientific and classical studies shall not be excluded from them; for no father would incur the expense of sending his son to one of these institutions for the sole purpose of making him a scientific farmer or mechanic. [The bill itself negatives this idea, and declares that its object is to promote the liberal and practical educa- tion of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life. ] By far the larger portion of the veto message is devoted to the question of the constitutional power of Congress to make the donation of public lands to the different States of the Union, to provide colleges for the purpose of educating the people of those States. The general proposition is undeniable that Congress does not possess the power to appropriate money in the treasury raised by taxes on the people of the United States for the purpose of educating the people of the respective States. It will not be pretended that any such power is to be found among the specific powers granted to Congress, nor that "it is necessary and proper for carrying into execution " any one of these powers. Should Congress exercise such a power, this would be to break down the barriers which have been so carefully constructed in the Constitution, to separate Federal from State authority. We should then not only "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and ex- cises " for Federal purposes, but for every State purpose which Con- gress might deem expedient or useful. The language of the second clause of the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, which declares that Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territories or other property belonging to the United States, does not by a fair interpreta- tion of the words "dispose of" in this clause bestow the power to make a gift of public lands to the States for purposes of education. Congress is a trustee under the Constitution for the people of the United States, and, thereforc, has no authority to dispose of the funds entrusted to its care, as gifts. A decision of the Supreme Court, in which an opinion was rendered by Chief-Justice Taney, was quoted, who says in refer- ence to this clause of the Constitution: " It begins its enumeration of powers by that of 'disposing,' in other words, making sale of the lands or raising money from them, which, as we have already said, was the

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main object of the cession (from the States) and which is the first thing provided for in the article." In the case of States and Terri- tories, such as Louisiana and Florida, which were paid for out of the public treasury from the money raised by taxation, Congress had no power to appropriate the money with which these lands were purchased to other purposes, and it was equally clear that its power over the lands was cqually limited. "The mere conversion of money into land could not confer upon Congress any power over the disposition of land, which they had not possessed over money." If it could, then a trustee, by changing the character of the fund entrusted to his care for special objects, from money into land, might give the land away, or devote it to any purpose he thought proper, however foreign to the trust. Grants of lands by the national government to new States for the use of schools as well as for a State university, were defended on the ground that the United States is a great land proprietor; and from the very nature of this relation, it is both the right and the duty of Congress as their trustee to manage these lands as any other prudent proprietor would manage them, for his own best advantage. Such a grant became an inducement to settlers to purchase the land, with the assurance that their children would have the means of education. The gift of lands for educational purposes enhanced their value and is, therefore, justifiable.

This veto of the land act establishing national colleges put an end to any further hopes of its passage during Mr. Buchanan's administration. If Congress occupied the relation of a legal trustce to these lands, it was bound by the legal limitations of such a trustee, instead of having the power to interpret intelligently under the Constitution what was the normal exercise of its powers. The law-making power was, by this argument, made subject to a power created by it.

Mr. Morrill, in replying to the President's veto, claimed that there was no possibility of a lack of harmony between the State and Federal authorities on account of any provision in the bill, which left the ar- rangement and control of institutions founded under the act wholly to the State. On the question of passing the bill over the veto, there were 105 ycas and 96 nays, not the requisite two-thirds to enable the act to become a law.

Mr. Morrill was not, however, discouraged, and two years later, upon the accession of a new administration, he gave notice, on De- cember 8, 1861, that he would introduce a bill donating public lands for the support of colleges in the various States. The bill was formally

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introduced on December 16, read twice, and referred to the Committee on Public Lands. Here it was kept until December 20, 1862, when the chairman of the committee reported back the bill with a recom- mendation that it should not pass. This adverse action in the House having been anticipated, the same measure was introduced in the Senate by the Hon. Benjamin Wade, of Ohio, on May 2, 1862, where it was referred to the Committee on Public Lands and ordered to be printed. On the 16th of May Senator Harlan reported back the bill as amended by the committee with a favorable recommendation. On the 19th of May the bill was formally considered in Committee of the Whole. It was stated to be essentially the same as that passed by both Houses of Congress two years before, save that the appropri- ation granted 30,000 acres of land to each State for each representative or senator in Congress in place of 20,000 acres of land, as provided in the original bill. The hostility of certain Western senators, who feared that their States would be affected disadvantageously by the passage of the bill, was the principal occasion for opposition at this time. It should be borne in mind that senators from the South were not in attendance. Some senators, fearing that the passage of the bill would exhaust all the valuable lands in their own States, de- sired to limit the grant to government lands in the territories. The popular favor with which this measure was regarded throughout the North had constantly increased within the two years since Mr. Buchan- an's veto. Mr. Wade stated that "a great many States, and I believe most of our free States, have passed resolutions in their Legislatures instructing their senators to go for the bill." Senator Harlan from Iowa stated that he represented a State that would be adversely affected by the bill, but that he should vote for it for two reasons: first, because the Legislature of his State had instructed him to do so; and secondly, because "I do not believe the State will be seriously damaged should the bill become a law, and justice to the old States seems to require it." The Committee on Public Lands concluded, in view of all the facts which exhibited a policy of large liberality towards the new States, that it would not be unreasonable for the old States to insist on such a dispo- sition of a small part of the public land as would result in benefit to them, especially as they had by an almost unanimous vote agreed to the passage of the Homestead Bill. This bill proposes to grant to the States less than ten million acres. We now have of sur- veyed and unsold lands over one hundred and thirty-four million acres.

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At the same time there is a total of unsold and unappropriated lands of 1,046,280,093 acres. It is, therefore, a trivial gift of this vast national estate to bestow upon education." Mr. Wright of Indiana re- marked : " If this fund is to be raised in this way I would much rather devote it to the females of the land. Do not be startled, gentlemen, it is so. Look at your half million of men in the army with neglected daughters and sisters to be raised and educated." Another argument by Senator Harlan, the chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, is worthy of notice. "This body is a body of lawyers. Heretofore appropriations of lands have been made for such universities. The proceeds of the sales of these lands have usually gone to educate the children of professional men. Here, for the first time I believe in the history of the Senate, a proposition is made to make an appropriation of lands for the education of the children of the agriculturists of the nation, and it meets very strenuous opposition from a body of lawyers. If this Senate were composed of agriculturists chiefly, they would have provided first for an agricultural college and probably afterwards for a college in which the sons of lawyers, physicians and other professional men could be educated. I do not believe that if the proposition were submitted to a vote of the people of the country you could array one- fifteenth of the voters against it." Various amendments were sub- mitted, which did not change the essential features of the bill, limiting in one case the amount of land that might be appropriated in any single State to one million dollars. A provision that the act should not take effect until July 1, 1864, was lost. It was provided that when- ever there are public lands in a State, the quantity to which said State shall be entitled, shall be selected from such lands. An amendment granting a sum of money from the proceeds hereafter derived from the sale of the public lands, equal to $30,000 for each senator and repre- sentative in Congress, to which the States are respectively entitled, was lost.

The passage of this amendment would have left the value of the the public lands undisturbed, but would have limited the large re- turns from the careful administration of the fund and the sale of the scrip, and made impossible the large sum which Cornell Uni- versity and the University of California have realized. The bill finally passed on June 11, with a vote of thirty-two in its favor to seven against, and was then sent to the House for concurrence. On July 17, after various dilatory motions to again refer the bill to the

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Committee on Publie Lands had been voted down, the bill passed by a vote of ninety to twenty-five, was signed by the speaker on July 1, and received the signature of the president on the same day. During most of the time in which this bill was under debate, Dr. Amos Brown was in Washington and active in influencing members of Congress in its favor. Some of the amendments to its provisions in the Senate were introduced at his personal suggestion.

The Rev. Amos Brown, LL. D., was born in Kensington, New Hamp- shire, on Mareh 4, 1804. His early boyhood was spent on a farm, and his earliest educational privileges were limited to the advantages afforded by the district schools of New England. He prepared for college in the Academy at Hampton, New Hampshire, where his orig- inal purpose to study medicine was changed, and he entered Dartmouth College in 1829, with the purpose of becoming a student of theology. During his aeademic and collegiate course he supported himself by teaching. After graduating from college, he entered Andover Theo- logical Seminary. His course in the Theological Seminary was inter- rupted by an absence of one year, in which he acted as the principal of the academy in Fryeburg, Maine. After leaving Andover, he became principal of the Gorham Academy and Teachers' Seminary, where he remained for twelve years. Mr. Brown was an educator of great ability and power. He gathered the ablest teachers about him, and was one of the earliest advocates of eocducation. His ability as an organizer was of a high order, and both as a diseiplinarian and a teacher he ex- erted a powerful influence upon those whom he trained. His personal instruction was mainly in mental seienee, and with it he discussed theories of instruction and the principles of intellectual growth. The reputation of his sehool was so great that it attracted pupils from other States, and the Hon. Horace Mann, who visited the Gorham Academy in order to study the theories and methods which were employed there. often spoke of Dr. Brown as one of the ablest teachers of New Eng- land, saying that he would make the best eollege president of all whom he knew. Later he resigned his position in order to enter the ministry, for which he had prepared, and became pastor of a Congre- gational church in Maehias, Maine; but so strong was his passion for his favorite pursuit of teaching, that after three years' service in Machias he assumed charge of the academy in Ovid, New York. Here his former success was repeated. The Seneca Collegiate Institute became one of the most prominent schools of this State, and some of the most

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eminent scholars of the country felt the influence of Dr. Brown's in- spiring personality, among them President W. W. Folwell, of the University of Minnesota; Professor J. L. Morris, of Cornell University; Professor T. L. Lounsbury, of Yale, one of our ablest scholars in Eng- lish literature, and known especially for his brilliant studies in Chaucer; also Professor B. Joy, of Columbia College. Mr. Brown instituted public lectures in order to awaken an interest in scientific farming in the agricultural community around, and in this manner his attention was first called to the need of a State agricultural college.

The Rev. Amos Brown was influential in securing the charter for the State Agricultural College and in locating the same in Ovid. He also originated the plan of asking from the State the loan of $40,000, with- out interest, from the United States deposit fund. His remarkable ability in influencing men is shown by his success in inducing the leg- islators to grant this gift to the Agricultural College. Dr. Brown was one of its trustees, but he was not, as was anticipated, made its presi- dent. About this time the trustees of the People's College in Havana sought to perfect its organization, and on August 12, 1857, Mr. Brown was elected president of that institution. It is noticeable that, while he shared the plans and purposes of the new college, he desired to give a broader scope to its curriculum ; and in his inaugural he stated that its object would be to promote literature, science, arts and agriculture. Agriculture, and various branches of manufactures and the mechanic arts, were to be systematically studied within the college as a part of its regular course. He was more and more impressed with the impor- tance of practical and scientific education, and with the conviction that such education must be supported by the national government, an appropriation of public lands naturally suggested itself to his mind as a practical and constitutional method of bestowing such aid.

Soon after the introduction of the Morrill Bill, Dr. Brown was requested by the trustees of the People's College to go to Washington and labor to promote its passage. The debt which the country owes to Dr. Brown for promoting the noblest grant for popular education which the world has known, may be estimated by the deliberate judg- ment of the value of his services expressed by those who were most intimately indentified with the passage of this measure in Congress. Senator William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine, wrote: "Mr. Brown, as I be- lieve, was not only father of the bill, but to his persistent, efficient and untiring efforts its success was mainly due. I have no hesitation in say-

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ing that but for him it would have failed, in my judgment, altogether." Senator Morgan, of New York, stated: " The first man who suggested to me the passage of the bill was yourself; and from my own knowledge the first bill passed, which was vetoed by Mr. Buchanan, would not have had the remotest chance in either house of Congress without your inter- est, labor and most efficient efforts." Senator Harris, of New York, also said: "The agricultural interests of the country are indebted to him more than to any one. indeed every one else, for the passage of the law devoting public lands to agricultural colleges." Senator Clark, of New Hampshire, wrote: "It might have passed without you, and I cannot say that it would not; but sure I am no one was so active or efficient as you in removing obstacles to it or securing it friends."

Senator Wade, of Ohio, who took charge of the passage of this law in the United States Senate, in speaking of the influence of the People's College in the passage of that law, wrote: "Having taken a deep inter- est in that measure, I ought to be qualified to speak with confidence on the subject, and I do not hesitate to say that, had it not been for the exertions of that institution, I do not believe the measure could have received the sanction of Congress. Great credit is due to the exertions of the Honorable Mr. Morrill of the House for his unwearied labors in its behalf; yet I always believed, and still believe, that had it not been for the able, energetic and unwearied exertions of the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the People's College, it would never have become a law. It encountered great opposition in some quarters on account of its supposed antagonism to the Homestead Bill, and much also from the mere indifference of members who did not take interest enough in the measure to give it a thorough investigation-more still from sev- eral members from the land States, who feared its passage would con- flict with the rapid settlement of their States. All these difficulties, however, were overcome by the intelligent and persevering labors of Mr. Brown, whom I consider really the father of the measure and whose advice I believe entitled to more weight in carrying the law into execu- tion than that of almost any other man."

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III.

PRELIMINARY HISTORY: 1. THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE .-

2. THE NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

Two colleges preceded the foundation of Cornell University, which exercised an immediate influence upon its history and determined in part the form which it assumed. The one most nearly related to it was the PEOPLE'S COLLEGE, situated in Havana, N. Y. The foundation of this College is due, pre-eminently, to the enthusiasm and labors of one man, Mr. Henry Howard, afterward a resident of Ithaca; and espe- cially to his labors in connection with an organization called the Me- chanics' Mutual Protection, which had numerous affiliated societies throughout the State of New York. This society arose in that unsettled period which followed the panic of 1837. This was the era of the rise of corporations with a maximum of wealth and a minimum of respon- sibility. A spirit of wild speculation pervaded the country. The pub- lic lands, one source of the national revenue, were sold and paid for in depreciated local currency. Banks were even organized whose sole object was to issue money to acquire possession of such lands. The removal of the United States deposit fund from the various State banks in which it had been placed, and its distribution among the States, de- prived these banks of funds which had furnished their capital, and upon which their prosperity rested. Financial distress followed immediately. Banks throughout the country failed; manufactories were closed and laborers deprived of means of support, or were paid in depreciated cur- rency. The nation seemed on the verge of financial ruin. A wild panic spread throughout the country. Bread riots broke out in the metropolis, and agitators fanned the excitement of the oppressed and suffering people. A special session of Congress was called to take measures to avert national bankruptcy and to relieve popular distress. The relations of labor to capital became subjects of earnest and often excited discus- sion. At this time a convention of mechanics was called to meet in the city of Buffalo, and an organization was formed called the Mechanics' Mutual Protection (July 13, 1843). Its object was a noble one. It sought to diffuse a more general knowledge of the scientific principles governing mechanics and the arts, and to elevate workmen, by making

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them independent, and increasing their proficiency in their several call- ings, by rendering to each other counsel and mutual assistance, which would elevate the life of the mechanic, and protect them from the en- croachments of wealth and power, which might combine against them, and to enable them to secure remunerative wages, and above all to awaken a common interest in their profession.

In the winter of 1848 three men met at the house of Mr. Howard, in Lockport, to discuss plans for a technical school, which, if approved, were to be presented to the society of their order in Lockport. These men were Henry Howard, D. H. Burtis, J. P. Murphy and R. P. But- rick. The Hon. Washington Hunt, at that time comptroller of the State and afterward governor, approved of the plan. The address which Mr. Howard prepared embodied a history of efforts to establish agricultural and technical schools in Europe and in the various States of this country, and also the results of manual labor schools in Switzerland and other countries of Europe. During the years 1848 and 1849, Mr. Howard, although called a visionary, delivered this address before various associations of the Mutual Protection. The purpose to found such an institution met the views of the most thoughtful members of the local society, and the address was published and distributed among the lodges, "Protections," throughout the State, about seventy in num- ber.

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Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York : including a history of Cornell University, Part 38

Author: Hewett, Waterman Thomas, 1846-1921; Selkreg, John H Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Hewett, Waterman Thomas, 1846-1921; Selkreg, John H
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1194