1846.

No. 24.

Communication from Executive Committee of Board of Regents.

HON. WM. L. GREENLY, President of the Senate:

The undersigned acknowledges, through their secretary, under date of the 19th instant, a resolution of the Senate as follows:

Resolved, That the regents of the University of Michigan be, and they hereby are requested to inform the Senate, whether in their opinion, the interest of the university will be promoted by a reduction of the price of university lands, and any reasons which may exist in favor or against such reduction.

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The Senate will readily perceive the difficulty which embarrasses the undersigned, in complying with the terms of their resolution. The board of regents are widely diffused, and reside necessarily at different points of the state, distant one from the other. A meeting of this board can therefore only be convened upon sufficient notice to its respective members; and to form even a quorum is often found difficult.

The unavoidable delay incident to such meeting, might defeat the object, and is therefore presumed not to have been intended by the Senate. However desirous it might have been to respond to the resolution by a report from the board of regents, time and circumstances appear to forbid such report.

The undersigned, to whom the resolution was transmitted, as chairman of the executive committee of the board of regents, having consulted with two others, members of that committee, who alone reside at Detroit, and whose views he could at this time obtain, submits the following facts and results, from the past history relative to the legislation upon the subject of university lands:

The act of congress, approved May 20th, 1826, provides that the secretary of the treasury be authorized to set apart and reserve from sale a quantity of land not exceeding two entire townships (46,080 acres) for the use and support of an university within the then territory of Michigan, and for no other use or purpose whatever.

This

may be termed the fundamental law upon which the present university is based.

In pursuance to this act of congress, the secretary of the treasury addressed a letter to General CASS, then Governor of the territory of Michigan, requesting him to designate the selections. Governor Cass convened a meeting of the trustees of the then existing university of Michigan, and submitting to them the letter of the secretary, requested that said trustees would adopt measures for making said selections. A committee was accordingly appointed, to whom this matter was confided. That committee employed a suitable person, who selected and reported a large portion of said two townships. This committee subsequently transmitted to Governor Cass, then temporarily at Washington, a list of these selections, which it is believed were confirmed by the secretary.

Congress so far recognized the control of the trustees of the former university of Michigan over part of these lands as to pass an act, approved March 3, 1835, authorizing a committee of that board to offer at public auction, and to sell certain selections previously made. The trustees, declining to sell or carry out the provisions of that act, congress, through the importunity of a certain Ohio land company, who held lands in the vicinity, was induced to repeal this act, to give authority or rather require said trustees to sell these same lands to William Oliver, agent of said Ohio company, under the allegation that the trustees had made contract with said Oliver for such sale; this act was approved March 22, 1836. A conveyance was executed in compliance with this act, and thus the university fund was divested of that portion of land selected, embracing the mouth of Swan Creek, upon which Toledo, now in Ohio, is built, and where, it is understood, the canal terminates. For this land the trustees received about a section of land in that vicinity, and $5,000 in cash. These lands were not disposed of by the trustees and formed part of the fund of the present university, and the $5,000, with the interest thereon, were transferred by a committee of the board of trustees to the treasurer of the present board of regents: The next legislation, it is believed, was the act of congress approved June 23, 1836, being supplementary to an act for the admission of Michigan, upon certain conditions, the second proposition whereof is as follows: That the seventy-two sections of land set apart and reserved for the use and