Morrill Acts

The Morrill Act of 1862

The Morrill Act of 1862 was spearheaded by Justin S. Morrill, a U.S. Representative from Vermont during the Civil War. Initially, he had advocated legislation to create a national agricultural school similar to West Point, but it was vetoed by President Buchanan. This defeat was a temporary setback, because Morrill went on to labor long and hard to bring a revised version of his bill to the next president's desk.

[Page 318]On July 2, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the first Morrill Land Grant Act. This act would initiate a revolution in American higher education, as it provided states with the funds they would use for

Justin S. Morrill, the author of the act, was born in Vermont and had to leave school at age 15. He never attended college but was involved in agriculture and other businesses. As his entrepreneurship flourished, he was able to build a magnificent residence and, in 1854, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served for 12 years. Morrill, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1867 and served until his death in 1898, was also involved in the creation of the Library of Congress and the Washington Monument. Further, he was instrumental in the enactment of the Morrill Land Grant of 1890, the Second Morrill Act, which provided funds for colleges for Black students.

The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890

The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890, also known as the Agricultural College Act of 1890, helped with the creation of agricultural colleges and mechanical curricula while being designed to bring higher education to former slaves, as they were unable to gain entrance to colleges and universities for Whites. This act led to the creation of 17 historically Black land grant colleges in the former Confederate states, which had the apparently unintended consequence of buttressing racial segregation in higher education, insofar as the act called on states either to admit freed slaves to their existing land grant colleges and universities or to create new postsecondary institutions for qualified students.

...