The Founding of Alabama’s Land Grant College at Auburn

Abstract

The Founding of Alabama’s Land Grant College at Auburn William Warren Rogers Correction: This digital version of volume 69, issue no. 1 of the Alabama Review differs from the print edition. Pages 34, 50, 63, 65, and 67 in this digital version reflect corrections made to the previously-distributed print edition. In 1857 Justin S. Morrill, a congressman from Vermont, introduced a bill that became known as the “land grant” act. President James Buchanan vetoed the bill, but his successor, Abraham Lincoln, proved more sympathetic, signing it into law on July 2, 1862.1 The act provided that for each U.S. senator and representative a state would receive 30,000 acres of public land or land scrip to be used to establish a college to offer courses in agriculture, engineering, and military training. The individual college would determine other courses to be offered. Applications had to be made within five years.2 The 1862 act excluded the Confederate states, but subsequent acts in 1864 and 1866 removed that restriction and extended the application time.3 According to the provisions of the acts, Alabama was entitled to 240,000 acres of land. In February 1867 the legislature authorized Governor Robert M. Patton to move to secure the benefits of the law and appropriated $500 to aid him.4 The 1867 constitutional convention was also interested in a land grant college in Alabama. Unionist Daniel H. Bingham from Limestone County offered an amendment to the constitutional section on education, calling upon the state to secure the benefits of the Morrill Act, noting that the proposed college might be made “a branch” [End Page 54] of The University of Alabama.5 The location of the college became a vital issue in its creation, and although the convention adopted his amendment, it was not included in the final draft of the constitution. Despite eloquent entreaties there were no tangible steps to take advantage of the Morrill Act until 1869. The act of 1868 had empowered the governor to employ an agent to help implement the law, and Republican Governor William Hugh Smith selected C. D. Hudson. Presenting himself to the U.S. secretary of interior in May 1869, Hudson filed the necessary papers. In turn, the documentation was forwarded to the commissioner of the general land office, and certificates representing 240,000 acres of agricultural college scrip were delivered to Alabama.6 Yet, the question of where the school would be located and under what conditions still remained unsolved. In 1869 the state board of education requested Congress to place the grant of 240,000 acres of land at the disposal of the board, explaining that the Morrill Act specified that no Federal monies be spent on construction of buildings. The board noted that The University of Alabama, which it supervised, already had a campus. Having asked Congress [End Page 55] for control of the land, the board also requested that the Alabama legislature make the proposed land grant college a branch of the state university.7 Unfortunately, the political wars of 1870 saw educational concerns pushed into the background after the election of Democrat Robert B. Lindsay as governor. Finally, in 1871 the legislature authorized the governor to dispose of the scrip and appointed a board of commissioners to aid him.8 Lindsay sold the scrip at ninety cents an acre, and thereafter the board of commissioners directed the state auditor to invest the money in 8 percent bonds of the state of Alabama.9 If Alabama expected to enjoy the benefits of the Morrill Act, the November 1871 legislature had to act before the deadline for participation expired. The Montgomery Alabama State Journal, the state’s leading Republican newspaper, insisted that the five-year period outlined in the law applied to Alabama’s act of acceptance in 1867. However, the Democratic Montgomery Advance insisted that the acceptance act of 1868 prevailed and that the state had an extra year to move. When the Alabama State Journal dismissed such arguments, the Advance observed that “politics” had entered the decision-making process: a Republican had been promised a professorship. The Alabama State Journal countered that the board of education...