ux river, south of
the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude.

Also from La Crescent via Target lake up the valley of the Root river,
to a point east of range 17.

The territory or future state was authorized to sell one hundred and
twenty sections of this land whenever twenty continuous miles of any of
the roads or branches was completed,--the land so sold to be contiguous
to the completed road. The right of way or road bed of any of the
subsidized roads was also granted through any of the government lands.
The roads were all to be completed within ten years, and if any of them
were not finished by that time the lands applicable to the unfinished
portions were to revert to the government. The lands granted by this act
amounted to about 4,500,000 acres. An act was subsequently passed on
March 2, 1865, increasing the grant to ten sections to the mile. Various
other grants were made at different times, but they do not bear upon the
subject I am about to present.

This grant came at a time of great financial depression, and when the
territory was about to change its dependent condition for that of a
sovereign state in the Union. It was greeted as a means of relief that
might lift the territory out of its financial troubles, and insure its
immediate prosperity. The people did not take into consideration the
fact that the lands embraced in the grant, although as good as any in
the world, were remote from the habitation of man, lying in a country
absolutely bankrupt, and possessing no present value whatever. Nor did
they consider that the whole country was laboring under such financial
depression that all public enterprises were paralyzed; but such was,
unfortunately, the monetary and business condition.

On the twenty-third of February, 1857, an act had passed the congress of
the United States authorizing the people of Minnesota to form a
constitution preparatory to becoming a state in the Union. Gen. Willis
A. Gorman, who was then governor of the territory, called a special
session of the legislature to take into consideration measures to carry
out the land grant and enabling acts. The extra session convened on
April 27th. In the meantime Governor Gorman's term of office had
expired, and Samuel Medary of Ohio had been appointed as his successor,
and had assumed the duties of his office. He opened the extra session
with an appropriate message. The extra session adjourned on the 23d of
May, and in accordance with the pro