- Event type: CREATE
South Dakota State Constitutional Convention 1889
Following the rejected 'Sioux Falls' Convention of 1885, the South Dakota Convention met and began the drafting process in July of 1889. They used the articles of the Sioux Falls Convention as starting propositions to begin the amendment process. The South Dakota Constitution was ratified in October 1889.
Committee on Education and School Lands
To see the full record of a committee, click on the corresponding committee on the map below.
Report of the Committee on Education and School Lands
To the President of the United States:
Your memorialists, the members of the Constitutional Convention, for the State of South Dakota, now in convention assembled at Sioux Falls, in said state respectfully represented:
That several of the most valuable sections of the lands reserved for the use of the state for school purposes, which lie in agricultural districts, and some of which are contiguous to considerable towns and cities are sought to be improperly appropriated under pretense or claim that they are mineral or coal lands, and therefore subject to appropriation and entry under the mineral and coal land laws of the United States. Successful efforts in this behalf will cause great loss to the school fund of the state.
Proceedings by the claimants to such lands are necessarily ex parte, and at present no authority exists in the state, or any of its agents to oppose these claims.
Your memorialists are advised that applications for patents have been, or are about being made to the land department of the United States for such lands based upon their alleged mineral character. We know of no proceeding by any authorized agent of the people of South Dakota by which the applications for patent can be as yet successfully resisted. The people have no standing in the department for such purpose. As soon as the state shall be admitted, and its agents qualified, South Dakota will be in condition to resist their claims successfully, or to protect the rights of the state whatever they may be relating thereto.
Therefore your memorialists respectfully but earnestly pray the President of the United States to direct that all proceedings relating to the entry of or issuance of patent to alleged mineral or coal lands situated within the agricultural districts of South Dakota be postponed and stayed until the Slate is by proclamation of the President declared admitted into the Union of States and until the Legislature of said State shall have the opportunity to appoint the requisite agents therefor and provide by law for contesting the right to make such entries and, obtain from the government patents to such lands.
H. A. HUMPHREY,
Acting Chairman of Committee on School Lands.
Decisions yet to be taken
Document Timeline
- Report of the Committee on Education and School Lands (introduced on 1889-07-10 14:00:00 - CREATE - e906427) [This document]
[view current proposal at this moment]
- None (introduced on 1889-07-10 14:00:00 - REPORT_PROPOSAL - e505209) [view current proposal at this moment]