<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" LINCOLN, Nebraska \u2014 The agriculture school at the university here runs a killer ice-cream stand. I&amp;#039;m not kidding. This might be the best example of the benefits of big government since the GI Bill. There is an ice cream stand here because there is an agriculture school here, and there is an agriculture school here because there is a university here, and there is a university here because of something called the Morrill Act, which is 150 years old this year. On July 2, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the first Morrill Act, by which the federal government granted each state 30,000 acres of public land for each member of Congress the state had. In turn, the states were supposed to sell the land and put the money into an endowment for the construction and maintenance of institutions of higher learning. Hence, we have the land-grant colleges that have provided us with, among other things, so much really good college football down through the years. A little less than two months earlier, Lincoln had signed the Homestead Act of 1862, which guaranteed that there would be students to attend those universities in perpetuity. (And, yes, the implementation of both of these acts was morally compromised by the prejudices of the times. It wasn&amp;#039;t until the Second Morrill Act in 1890, when legal segregation was pretty much established throughout the south, that the deal was extended to colleges serving African American students, and the Homestead Act was yet another of a couple of thousand laws that didn&amp;#039;t do any favors for the Native Americans, who&amp;#039;d already been pushed off much of the land in question by the gentle ministrations of the U.S. Army.) What both of these acts did was to commit the government of the United States \u2014 which is to say, the people of the United States \u2014 to a program of public education and private land ownership. It increased the aspirational demands of a great number of people on their national government, and it injected into the culture and politics of the nation a sense that upward mobility was possible, and that it was important to the government of the United States, which is to say, to the people of the United States. It became a duty for all of us to ensure the benefits of an education to our fellow citizens because, through that, we would make this a better country. It is impossible to think of the history of America west of, say, the Berkshires, without the notion of land-grant colleges and universities. It is something out of our history to be very proud. It is also something to remember in these days in which we are told, relentlessly, the fairy tale of individual American initiative and FREEEEEDOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM! as though some plucky &amp;quot;entrepreneur&amp;quot; woke up in Seward one day and thought, &amp;quot;Think I&amp;#039;ll start me the University Of Nebraska today.&amp;quot; It is also something to remember in these days when the notion of &amp;quot;public lands&amp;quot; in the first place is under assault as a restriction on the essential constitutional freedom of oil derricks. So here&amp;#039;s to the Morrill Act and the Homestead Act, and happy birthday. Maybe when you&amp;#039;re all dressing up like Civil War soldiers this year and marching into fake battle along Antietam Creek, you should give a thought to the 150th anniversary of a couple of things that made the war worth fighting. It is also something to remember in these days when it is being argued that the administration should have gone for financial reform first, before health-care, because the system can only handle one big thing at a time. Lincoln signed the Morrill Act and the Homestead Act while he was commanding one side of a bloody Civil War. Used to be we could do three things at once. Also, too, ice cream. Killer. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13861/morrill-act-anniversary-8559120/>