Horace Gray

“ By each of the acts of congress successively admitting the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri into the Union, congress agreed that 5 per cent. of the net proceeds of public lands within the state, sold by congress, should be applied to the making of a road or roads leading to the State; and by those and other acts it was provided that, of this 5 per cent. fund, 3 per cent. should be disbursed by the states, and two per cent. by the United States. ”

“ It is argued for the appellant that, as by the act of 1857 the account between the United States and the other states is to be settled 'upon the same principles' as prescribed in that act with relation to Mississippi, and in the act of 1855 with relation to Alabama, and as by the act of 1841 the 2 per cent. fund had been relinquished to Alabama and to Mississippi, therefore the payment to the state of the whole 2 per cent. is one of the principles on which the account with each of the other states is to be settled. ”