The Hard-Fought Birth of Washington's Constitution

Olympia, August 16 — This was the most tedious and wearisome day that has been spent since the convention began its sessions. The members spent hours wrangling over questions that have been fully settled, and the day was barren of actual results. The article on school and granted lands has been a source of disagreements, and as it now stands, there is not a member of the convention who is entirely satisfied with all its provisions. The morning was spent in a wrangle over a proposition to confirm the sales of all school and university lands heretofore made by county or university commissioners. Colonel Moore declaimed against the action of the convention, while other members argued that many had paid their money in good faith more than twenty years ago. The proposition to confirm these titles, which the Secretary of the Interior had seen fit to reject, was finally referred to the legislature for action. The debate over whether the state should retain its school lands, instead of selling them off to speculators, also took up a significant portion of the session, highlighting a sorrowful history of similar grants in other states where the settler, not the state, benefited from the land.