sive of an opinion of that body, that the title to these pieces of ground was reserved by and remains in the general government.

No. 5.

1848.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT RELATIVE TO THE SALE OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT LANDS, &c.

The committee on Internal Improvement to whom was referred the following resolution:

"Resolved, That the committee on Internal Improvements enquire into the expediency of providing by law for the sale of the unappropriated lands granted to the State by Congress, for Internal Improvement purposes, and of applying the proceeds thereof in payment of interest on the Internal Improvement debt, and report by bill or otherwise;"

Respectfully report, that they have had the subject under careful consideration, and after due deliberation thereon, have arrived at the following adverse conclusion:

1st. In entering upon their duties, your committee have had direct reference to the act of Congress donating those lands to the State. Said act was approved Sept. 4, 1841, and by reference to the 9th section thereof it is found that the improvements to be made with those lands, are limited to roads, railways, bridges, canals, improvement of water courses and draining swamps, and that the transportation of the mails, munitions of war and troops on those highways are forever to be free from toll or charge upon the United States.

2nd. In the sale of our works of Internal Improvements, these rights have not been reserved to the United States.

3d. In the opinion of your committee, these lands cannot be converted into cash for a long period of time, and hence would not meet the object sought for.

4th. They may be disposed of and settled in a short period of time if they are offered for labor, to be expended in the regions of country where they are situated.

5th. Such settlement of these lands will necessarily add to our wealth and population, and in that way will soon materially increase the amount of our taxable property.

6th. The diversified objects to which these lands may be applied under the act of Congress, clearly conveys the idea that the donation was intended to benefit the early settlers in the newer regions of the State, in the same degree at least, as the older and more populous parts thereof.

7th. A large amount of these lands have already been appropriated and expended in the south and eastern portions of the State, where the inhabitants are provided with good roads and railways, and facilities for getting to market with their produce, which must render them prosperous in a high degree.

8th. An approximation toward even-handed justice, would, in the opinion of your committee, seem to require, that the remainder of our Internal Improvement lands, should be appropriated to opening and improving roads, building bridges, removing obstructions in our navigable rivers, &c., &c., in the newer and less populous regions of the State-and which have hitherto almost necessarily been without the pale of the sustaining measures of the State.

9th. Such a disposition of these lands as your committee recom mend, would not only add largely to the taxable valuation of property in the State, at large, but would aid the settlers in the newer counties (by giving them facilities of getting to market) much better to endure the onerous and heavy burthens of direct taxation which is now awaiting them, and which they are at present but poorly prepared to sustain.

10th. These lands were granted to the State for the purposes heretofore mentioned, in September, 1841, and must naturally have been intended to be prospective in their application to our works of internal improvement, and cannot without a manifest perversion of the true intent of the donation, be applied to the payment of liabilities incurred prior to the act of donation.

From the above reasons among many others that might be adduced, your committee are unanimous in the conclusion, that the disposition of the Internal Improvement Lands of the State, in the

manner suggested by said resolution, would be inexpedient, in violation of the intention of the grant, and manifestly unjust.

R. CROUSE, Ch'n Com. on In't Imp't.

Michigan, January 28, 1847.

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