Senator BLODGETT: I have been beaten in every measure that I have favored in relation to this grant. I see Senators from the southwest voting for the amendments, who have no interest in this School of Mines. I think the Senator from St. Louis has no right to say that there has been trading. Senator RIDGELY: I did not state. I asked for light.

Senator GRAHAM: I have tried to have such a college as I thought would be of the greatest benefit to the State. I find that my views are not indorsed by the majority. I now withdraw all further opposition to this bill.

Senator ROLLINS: Sir, I am most gratified to see the opposition at last giving way. I aim at a noble object, and I have been worried long enough over the passage of this bill. Senators have witnessed the great and anxious efforts that I have made the last three winters in this Capitol to put it through. Are there not other generous hearts who in this hour of my greatest need will come to the rescue, and aid me to concur in these amendments, and thus pass the bill and end the strife? The noble speech which has just fallen from the lips of the Senator from Jackson touches me to the quick. I return to him my grateful acknowledgments, and unlike Hannibal the great Carthaginian general, who was taught to swear eternal hatred to Rome, I now swear in all the future eternal friendship to the Senator from Jackson. The fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments were adopted.

The seventh amendment was read.

Senator Evans offered an amendment striking out "southeast Missouri" and inserting "any county known as a mining district."

Senator EVANS: I think this is simple justice to the many mining regions. in our State outside of southeast Missouri. It is true that my county is included in the boundaries of southeast Missouri, and I am certain that Phelps County will outbid any other and the School of Mines will be established there; but I have not the heart to say that other counties of my district shall not be permitted to bid for the location. The counties of southeast Missouri should not at our hands receive privileges not granted to the counties of Pulaski, Wright, Ozark, Douglas, Webster, Christian, Newton, or other of our mining counties. Sir, I venture to stem the dark and sickening sluice of oppression that pours its gall upon the southwestern part of the State. Were I to see any other section so imposed upon I would as readily resent it. A wrong is done to a worthy section of this State that will yet bring a blush of shame upon men who have thus far failed to see their error. It was not enough to fasten the lands of southwest Missouri for the benefit of the Boone County school; not enough to take a second State college to the same place and bury it in the first; not enough to give that county more than its share of curators; not enough for these curators to appoint the land commissioner; not enough to lease these lands out to transient people instead of selling them to actual settlers; not enough that southwest Missouri had always been espec

ially slighted in the way of State and National favors. No, that grand locality, whose people were all Union soldiers, must take a cup more bitter still. Boone County offers a School of Mines to southeast Missouri, but bids for the location must not extend a mile into southwest Missouri. The mines west of range ten come under the ban-they are in southwest Missouri. Strange that other sections will not see to the adoption of fair play; fair and equal legislation is best, and I am not sure that we are not sworn to legislate equally and fairly. I ask for enlarged liberty, toleration, and justice, equally distributed to all sections and all men under our high waving flag.

Senator ROLLINS: The Senator from Phelps [Mr. Evans] has accomplished his purpose in offering this amendment. He did not expect it to be adopted. He only wanted to show his constituents how dearly he loved them, and how watchful he was of their best interests. He evidently wants to come back to the Senate again and still continue to grace the seat which he so nobly fills; and being a gentleman of the most liberal views, a statesman of tremendous breadth, I should not be surprised if he aspired to still higher honors at the hands of the people. Sir, I trust he may succeed, for all must concur with me, who have witnessed his course (and especially upon this bill), that a terrible calamity would befall the State for him to absent himself from her legislative councils. Unwilling to trust his tongue and his talents for extemporaneous debate, he comes in here at this late hour with his little written speech of a finger's length, having compressed into it all the bitterness which flows from misapprehension and misrepresentation, and chooses to stake his reputation upon that speech as a wise and enlightened lawmaker! No wonder, sir, that our school system does not better flourish! No wonder that our benevolent policies and our higher institutions of learning are slow to take root, and some of them wither and perish, when the people continue to choose, as the guardians of these great and sacred interests, such agencies as the Senator from Phelps! Sir, for one I utterly repudiate his sectionalism; I trample beneath my feet his poor and puny efforts to awaken a prejudice in the minds of the people living in different parts of the State! His flings at my own county are so frequent, and at the same time so weak and puerile, that they awaken in my bosom a feeling rather of pity than of scorn. Sir, this bill does no injustice to any part of the State. These institutions must be located somewhere. Every county cannot have them, and where else would you place a mining school (if you separate it from the University) except in the very heart of the mining region? What more does the Senator want? His own county and a very large portion of his district are embraced within this bill. He ought to be satisfied; his constituents, if they are of liberal minds and unlike him, will be satisfied; and the brave and loyal men of the southwest, who are so well represented here, appreciating the advantages of their location, and the early development of their rich and beautiful country by the railroads and other facilities of commercial inter

course which will very shortly reach them, will not thank him, either for his pretended sympathy or for his impertinent and unasked defense of them. When the great southwest needs a champion to vindicate its rights upon this floor, the good people of that favored region will look elsewhere than to the Senator from the "Little Piney"! But the Senator goes for "enlarged liberties, toleration, and justice equally distributed to all sections and all men under our high waving flag." Sir, considering his exact position upon the great issues of the hour, this is most "excruciating." I cannot do justice to the subject. I give it up. I call for a vote on the amendment. Senator BRUERE: I shall vote aye on this amendment and do justice to the whole southern part of the State.

Senator GOTTSCHALK: I do not see why the southeast is to be preferred to any other section in locating a high school or college.

The amendment to the seventh amendment was not agreed to by the following vote:

Ayes-Messrs. Bruere, Evans, Filler, Gottschalk, Human, Waters, and Williams-7.

Noes-Messrs. Birch, Blodgett, Brown, Buckland, Conrad, Dodson, Essex, Graham, Harbine, Morrison, Rea, Rogers, Rollins, Roseberry, Reed, Shelton, Spaunhorst, and Vandivert-18.

Absent- Messrs. Cavender, Clark, McMillian, Morse, Ridgley, Carrol, Davis, Todd, and Headlee-9.

The seventh amendment was agreed to.

A motion to take a recess until to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock was lost. The eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth amendments were taken up and agreed to without debate. The seventeenth amendment, striking out twenty-fifth section of original bill in relation to Lincoln Institute, was then taken up.

Senator Bruere moved to reject this amendment, and called for the ayes and noes.

The amendment to the seventeenth amendment was lost.

The seventeenth amendment was then agreed to.

The eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second, twentythird, and twenty-fourth amendments, and the amendment to the title were then taken up and agreed to without debate.

Senator Birch moved that the vote by which these amendments were agreed to be reconsidered, and that that motion be laid upon the table. Ayes and noes called.

The motion to reconsider was laid upon the table.

Adjourned.

And thus the Agricultural and Mechanical College Bill finally passed the two Houses of the General Assembly of the State.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

Where Should it be Located? Letter from Honorable James S. Rollins to Honorable F. Muench.

COLUMBIA, January 24, 1866.

HON. F. MUENCH, Senate Chamber, Jefferson City.

Dear Sir: When I was at the Capitol of the State, a few days since, it was my purpose to call upon you; but being pressed for time I was deprived of that pleasure. Knowing the great interest which you take in everything pertaining to the welfare of Missouri, I desired to compare views with you in regard to the proper location of the proposed Agricultural and Mechanical College. Deprived of the opportunity, I avail myself of this mode, and take the liberty of making a few free suggestions on the subject.

The amount of land to which Missouri is entitled under the Act of Congress "to provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts is 330,000 acres. The law further provides "that whenever there are public lands in a State subject to sale at private entry, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, the quantity to which said State shall be entitled shall be selected from such land within the limits of such State." And there being still a large amount of public land in this State "subject to sale at private entry at one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre," it follows that the entire quantity of land to which Missouri is entitled under the above recited act must be selected within the State. Other States having no public lands are authorized to receive scrip, to sell the same, and to invest the proceeds thereof and "apply the interests thereon to the uses and purposes prescribed in the act of Congress."

The first question that naturally suggests itself respects the value of this land to the State of Missouri. What is it worth? And how soon can the fund be made available for the purposes to which it is dedicated? Certainly after the lands are selected it will be a good many years before all of them can be sold, and until then the fund must remain unprofitable. Therefore it occurs to me that when we consider the actual sum to be realized from these lands, and the length of time that it will necessarily take to convert them into cash, the policy of dividing the fund will be subversive of the objects of the national Government in making this grant to the States, and especially so in Missouri. There should be no division of the fund here.

By a wise policy the lands should be made to bring the largest sum, and the whole amount thereof ought to be forever and sacredly invested to promote the beneficent object for which the grant was intended. Instead of squandering the fund by dividing it amongst a half-dozen different institutions, each division yielding enough to support a single professorship, it should be consolidated and made a permanent endowment for a department of learning devoted to "agriculture and the mechanic arts," which would be accessible to all the youth of the State, and of which every citizen in all future time should be justly proud.

Having made these suggestions in regard to the probable value of the fund and against the policy of a division of it, the next question that I would raise is, which is the best point in the State for the location of the institution? Under the law of Congress "no portion of said fund, nor the interest thereon, shall be applied directly or indirectly, under any pretense whatever, to the purchase, erection, preservation, or repairs of any building or buildings." Whatever sums may be needed for these purposes must be provided either by taxing the people of the State, or by donation from the people of the county in which the college may be located, unless the State has already under its control buildings suited to the purpose. And although the law of Congress provides that "a sum not exceeding ten per centum upon the amount received by any State, under the provisions of the act, may be expended for the purchase of lands, for sites or experimental farms, whenever authorized by the respective Legislature of said State," it is not desirable that the original fund should be at all diminished.

Wherever located, the people of the county ought to be willing to provide land sufficient for the use of the college, and thus save for the permanent benefit of education the whole Congressional grant.

The next question that presents itself is whether the State is in a condition to plant the proposed institution without taxing its treasury either for money to erect the necessary buildings or the purchase of a suitable farm ? Allow me to say that what I shall add upon this subject is prompted by no consideration of self-interest. I desire simply to encourage the adoption of such a policy as will save the fund from waste, and the State treasury from heavy burden, and will secure the location of the college at a point where it can at once be put into successful operation, and where its final success would be insured beyond reasonable doubt. If the State University were located at any other place than where it is, with all its attendant advantages, I should most certainly be an earnest advocate of connecting the Agricultural College with it, and I offer the following arguments, to my mind. conclusive, why this should be done :

1. The State has here a spacious edifice, sufficiently large for the accommodation of one thousand pupils, and which, with the grounds upon which