ly devoted to the support of the primary schools, and the State or (what is the same thing) the districts, have provided the school houses. What did the Legislature mean by the "disposable income" of the University fund? Did they intend, after erecting the University buildings, to shut them up and let them stand idle, and appropriate the whole income to the payment of this claim, until the $100,000 and the interest upon it should be fully paid from this income? Certainly not. No one will contend for this, for it would require the entire income for not less than ten or twelve years to do this. And it would be a strange policy that would borrow money, and pay interest upon it, to erect buildings not intended to be used for that length of time. It would have been much wiser to have waited until the income had accumulated sufficiently to pay for the erection of the buildings. The Legislature of 1838 could only have intended that the surplus income, after paying all the expenses of supporting the University, with its department of literature, science and the arts, its department of law, and its department of medicine, as provided for by the 8th section of the act entitled "An act to provide for the organization and government of the University of Michigan, approved June 21st, 1837," which enacts that the University shall consist of these three departments. The law department has not yet been established, and the Regents find themselves seriously embarrassed, by the reflection, that if they should establish it, the Legislature of 1860, or any future Legislature, may withhold the interest on the $100,000, and thus compel them to discontinue the law department, or the medical department of the University, or to cripple or dwarf the institution in some other way. The entire income of the University is required to pay its ordinary current expenses, so that there is not, and never will be, any "disposable income" to be appropriated to the payment of the $100,000. Besides, the Library needs, and should receive, liberal additions,

which the income of the institution at present will not permit. While.Yale College has a Library of 63,500 volumes, Harvard University a Library of 116,500 volumes, which is annually being increased by an expenditure of about $5000, the University of Michigan has but about 7000 volumes. We cannot think that the State has any desire or intention to cripple or embarrass the action of the Regents, whom the people have elected to the important trust of promoting the higher education of their sons; and would it not be much more creditable, as well as honorable to the State, to be able to say at once that it established the University, at its own expense, than to have it said that after Congress had generously provided the means to support a University, the State had appropriated one-fifth of those means to defray the expenses which Congress (its benefactor) had reasonably expected would be paid by the State itself, and which the Legislature, and the constitutional convention have given strong assurance should be done. Indeed, the action of the people in the last constitutional convention preserves the integrity of the State in this respect, by declaring in the 2d section of the 8th article of the Constitution, that "the proceeds from the sale of all lands that had been, as well as of all that might thereafter be granted by the United States to this State for educational purposes, shall be and remain a perpetual fund." The relief herein asked for is not only just to the University, and due from the State, but it is essential to the complete organization and development of the institution with the three departments provided for by law. The State has been liberal, though perhaps none too much so, in making appropriations for the erection of buildings for Asylums, an Agricultural College, and other public uses; also in making loans to railroads and other objects, and in paying these loans without the hope or the expectation of reimbursement. And shall it longer continue to cripple one of its noblest institutions

by holding it in a paralyzed position, from fear that some future Legislature will refuse to pay the annual income of seven thousand dollars, which the University is at present receiving, but the legal right to which will expire before the meeting of another Legislature. Thus far, from estimates which have been made, we are told that the University has cost the State nothing. For facts and figures on this point, we beg leave to refer your Honorable Body to Senate Document No. 2, of the session of 1855. We therefore approach your Honorable Body with confidence, and ask you to relieve us and the University, from future embarrassment in the execution of our trust, by enacting a law, the effect of which shall be to enable the University to receive permanently the interest on the whole amount of the proceeds of the sales of the lands granted by the United States to this State for the use and support of a University, and thus redeem the pledge given by the first and present Constitution of the State, that "the funds accruing for the rent or sale of all such lands as have been or may hereafter be granted by the United States to this State for the support of the University, should be and remain a permanent fund for the support of said University." (Signed,)

HENRY P. TAPPAN, Pres't of the Board. BENJAMIN L. BAXTER, Regent, 1st District.

Resolved, That the memorial be adopted, and that the Secretary be instructed to prepare four certified copies of

the same-one for the Senate, one for the House of Representatives, one for the outgoing Governor, and one for the incoming Governor.

I certify the foregoing to be a true copy of the memorial and the accompanying resolution adopted by the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, in session Dec. 21st, 1858. D. L. WOOD, Sec'y.

[ No. 2. ]

COMMUNICATION from the Attorney General.

Lansing, January 14, 1859.

To the Speaker of the House of Representatives:

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SIR:-I have had the honor to receive a copy of the resolution of the House, passed on the 13th inst., in the following words:

"Resolved, That the Attorney General be and he is hereby requested to communicate to this House in writing, his opinion of the proper construction of that part of section 1, of article 20, of the constitution of this State, which speaks of the submission of amendments to the people 'at the next general election,' and to define especially what is meant by a general election."

The article referred to is in the following words:

66 Any amendment or amendments to this constitution may be proposed in the Senate or House of Representatives. If the same shall be agreed to by two-thirds of the members elected to each House, such amendment or amendments shall be entered on their journals respectively, with the yeas and nays thereon, and the same shall be submitted to the electors at the next general election thereafter, and if a majority of the electors qualified to vote for members of the Legislature voting