About the Morrill Land Grant
Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner of Illinois College in Jacksonville began a political movement in the 1830s calling for the creation of agricultural colleges nationwide. Turner successfully convinced the Illinois General Assembly to adopt a resolution in 1853 that called upon Congress to enact a land-grant bill to fund a system of such colleges. Vermont Congressman Justin Smith Morrill took up the cause and introduced the legislation in 1857 that allocated land for these educational institutions to teach engineering and agricultural subjects. The Morrill Act was passed by Congress in 1859, but vetoed by President James Buchanan. In 1861 Morrill resubmitted the act, and aided by the secession of many states that had not supported it, the Morrill Act passed Congress and was signed into law by President Lincoln on July 2, 1862.

The Morrill Act for the first time enabled the new western states, including Illinois, to establish colleges for their citizens to receive advanced education. The act gave every state that had remained in the Union a grant of 30,000 acres of public land for every member of its congressional delegation. The states sold this land and used the proceeds to establish colleges in engineering, agriculture and military science. More than 70 "land-grant" colleges, as they came to be known, were established under the original Morrill Act; including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Although originally started as agricultural and technical schools, many land-grant colleges grew into large public universities which over the years have educated millions of people from around the world who otherwise might not have been able to afford college.