Morrill Act

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The full title of the Morrill Act is An Act Donating Public Lands to the Several States and Territories Which May Provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. This long title expresses one of the two governing principles of the act: practical knowledge and equality of opportunity.

The first section of the Act enunciates that Congress will give each state thirty thousand acres of federal land for each of its representatives and senators to promote public education in agriculture and the mechanical arts. This first section thus explicitly establishes the beginning of the federal government's direct involvement in public education. The second section allows the states to sell the donated land to private parties and use the income for the purposes expressed in the first section. Although the Morrill Act had a revolutionary impact on American education, eventually contributing to the establishment of more than sixty colleges and universities, this part of the legislation had the immediate effect of enriching a few major speculators. Businessmen and entrepreneurs were able to exploit the states' need to meet wartime expenses and could buy the land cheaply. The large supply meant that most states received very little for their land. Kentucky, for example, received only fifty cents per acre. Some states were able to keep their allotment for several years and eventually sell it at a much higher price. The land given to Cornell University was sold for over $5.50 per acre.

The second section of the document also maintains that if the federal land within a state was insufficient to meet that state's land grant, the state was issued “scrip” that authorized the state to select federal lands in other states to fund its institution. The third section makes clear that “all the expenses of management, superintendence, and taxes” previous to the sale of the land should be paid by the treasuries of the states to the federal treasury without being deducted from the proceeds of the sale. Thus, the entire income from the sale of the land should be devoted to the support of higher education in the agricultural and technical sectors.

Section 4 contains the core principles of the Morrill Act. It establishes that the money obtained from the sale of the land should be invested in “stocks of the United States, or of the States, or some other safe stocks.” Such investment should constitute “a perpetual fund” for “the endowment, support, and maintenance” of at least one college where teaching would focus on agriculture, the mechanic arts, and military strategy. The inclusion of military strategy was instrumental in engineering the passage of the act during the Civil War. The section also makes clear that the focus on a practical curriculum is intended to promote the education of “the industrial classes.” It reflects the growing need for agricultural and technical education in wartime America. As higher education was still largely unavailable to many agricultural and industrial workers, the Morrill Act aimed to provide a broader segment of the American people with a practical curriculum that was relevant to their daily lives.

Section 5 lists seven conditions for the granting of the land to the states. The states should maintain the fund's stability, reintegrating any sum that is lost. As an exception to this first condition, a maximum of 10 percent of the fund can be used to establish experimental farms authorized by the legislature. This type of activity would be allocated special funds with the Hatch Act of 1887, which authorized direct payment of federal grant funds to each state to establish an agricultural experiment station in connection with the state's land-grant institution.

The second condition forbids using the income from the sale of the land to construct or maintain buildings. The third condition gives each state five years to begin its support of at least one higher education institution promoting studies in agriculture and the technical arts. The fourth condition requires the states to produce an annual report on the institutions' progress. The fifth condition determines that if the state selects lands whose price has doubled because of a railroad grant, the acres of land should be proportionally diminished.

The sixth condition is one of the most important for the historical context of the document, for it forbids states in rebellion against the U.S. government to benefit from the act. This is a clear reference to the southern states that had seceded from the Union. After the war, the act was extended to the former Confederacy, and a second Morrill Act was passed in 1890, aimed specifically at the southern states. This second act provided cash rather than lands to the institutions of southern states that could prove that race was not a criterion for admission. Those states for which race was a criterion for selection could still benefit from the second Morrill Act if they had a separate land-grant institution for people of color.

Finally, as a seventh and last condition, a state could benefit from the act if it accepted the law within three years of July 23, 1866. As an exception to this last condition, the document allows the territories that would become part of the Union to benefit from the act if they ratified it within three years from their admission.

The last three sections of the Morrill Act deal with land scrip. The document states that any land scrip issued as a result of the act should not be subjected to location before January 1, 1863. It also fixes the compensation for the land officers who locate the land scrip. Finally, the act requires the governors of the states that were issued land scrip to write an annual report on the sales of the scrip, their amounts, and the appropriations made as a result.