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Senate Debates On The Land-Grant Bill For Indigent Insane Persons, February 27, 1854

From: Senate Debates On The Land-Grant Bill For Indigent Insane Persons
Creator: n/a
Date: February 27, 1854
Publication: The Congressional Globe
Source: Library of Congress

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Mr. DAWSON. I perceive that the gentlemen from the new States are in very fine temper after a having got their railroad bills through. I never saw them with more smiling faces in all my life. In this state of things, I will now move, with the consent of my friend from Vermont, that we take up and pass the bill for the benefit of the indigent insane of the old States, and of the new States -- the bill usually known as Miss Dix's bill.

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Mr. JOHNSON. I will unite with the gentleman in going for the bill myself, though I know some gentlemen from the new States think it ought not to be passed.

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Several SENATORS. Let us take it up.

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Mr. DOUGLAS. If the bill leads to debate, I must object to its interfering with the order of the day.

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Mr. GWIN. I will state to the Senator from Georgia, that I have a slight amendment to propose to the bill; but I am willing to allow it to be brought up to-morrow morning, and put upon its passage. In five minutes the hour for the consideration of the special order will have arrived, and I do not think we can pass this bill in that time. I shall he ready to propose my amendment to-morrow morning, and the bill can then be passed at once.

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Mr. DAWSON. All I wish is to have a little mixture of humanity with these appropriations for railroads. Let us have the mixture now. This is the time.

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Several SENATORS. Now; now.

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The motion was agreed to; and the Senate resumed, as in Committee of the Whole, the consideration of the bill making a grant of public lands to the several States and Territories of the Union for the benefit of indigent insane persons.

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The bill is designed to grant to the several States and Territories ten millions of acres of land, to be apportioned under the direction of the President of the United States, in the compound ratio of the geographical area and representation of the States in the House of Representatives, with a provision, however, that no State shall be computed at more than fifty thousand square miles. The land, after being surveyed, is to be apportioned to the States and Territories in sections or sub-divisions of the sections; but to those States in which there are no public lands of the value of $1 25 an acre, land scrip is to be issued to the amount of their distributive shares in acres, which is to be sold by the States, and the proceeds thereof applied to the objects proposed by this bill. No State to which land scrip may be thus issued is to be allowed to locate it within the limits of any other State or of any organized Territory; but their assignees may locate it upon any of the unappropriated lands of the United States subject to private entry.

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The expenses of management and superintendence of lands previous to their sale, and all expenses incurred in the management and disbursement of the moneys which they may produce, are to be paid by the States to which they may belong, out of the treasury of each State, so that the entire proceeds of the sale of the lands shall be applied to the purposes for which they are given. The money derived from the sales of the lands, and of land scrip, is to be invested in stocks of the United States, or of the States, or of some other safe stocks, yielding not less than five per cent. upon the par value; and the moneys so invested are to constitute a perpetual fund, and the interest is to be inviolably appropriated to the comfortable maintenance and support of the curable and incurable indigent insane. If any portion of the fund invested, or of the interest, shall be diminished, it is to be replaced by the State or Territory to which it belongs. The bill provides how the insane are to be disposed in organized institutions, and prohibits the use of the fund, or the interest thereof, for the erection, preservation, or repair of any building for the reception or security of insane persons, or the purchase of any site or lands, for which the States must make provision. State legislation is, therefore, indispensable to accept the terms proposed, and to carry out the objects of this t bill.

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The Committee on Public Lands, to whom the bill was referred, reported it back with an entire substitute. The committee add to the proviso of the first section, which prescribes the area of a State at fifty thousand square miles, the provision that the representation of a State shall not be computed at less than six members. The second section they so change as to confine the donation of land and scrip to States, excluding Territories. By a new Section the committee provide that the States shall not dispose of any portion of the scrip for less than one dollar per acre; and they are required to make annual returns to the Secretary of the Interior of the amount of scrip sold, and the value received for it. The committee strike out that portion of the original bill which prohibits the use of the fund, or the interest, for the purchase, it erection, or preservation of buildings, or for sites or grounds.

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The PRESIDENT. The pending question is on the amendment submitted by the Senator from Indiana, -Mr. PETTIT- on the 9th instant, when the bill was under consideration, to insert the following:

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