m NATURAL AND ClVlL 



episcopal minister. This hnv has been but lit- 

 tle attended to, and is not at all competent to 

 the improvement of the lands, or to render them 

 beneficial to the state, or to any valuable pur- 

 pose. In any view of the matter, these lands 

 ought not to be suffered to remain useless, and 

 detrimental to the state. If the society for pro- 

 pagating the gospel in foreign parts, had made 

 such an assignation of them, as would have ser- 

 ved to promote religious instruction and knowl- 

 edge, the people would have had the benefit 

 that was intended by the grantor. Jf this be 

 neglected an unreasonable time, it becomes 

 the duty of the legislature, to prevent their re- 

 maining a public disadvantage to the state, by 

 continuing uncultivated and useless. [1806] 

 By exempting these lands from all rates and tax^ 

 es, and at times passing laws to appropriate 

 them to their own benefit and advantage, the 

 legislature of Vermont have preserved them in 

 a state of uselessness and litigation. Had the 

 state done nothing with them, but left them un- 

 touched, and without an exemption from taxes, 

 to which they justly are, and ought to be sub^ 

 ject, all difficulties and controversies about thenn 

 would have long ago ceased; they wouldhave been 

 employed for the purpose, for which they were 

 originally granted, or been in a situation, like 

 other lands, to bear part of the burdens of the 

 state. At present, they are of no use to any 

 body ; and the assembly are frequently passing 

 laws about them, which the federal courts with 

 great justice and equity, declare to be unconsti- 

 tutional and illegal. 



The principles of religious liberty, are as- 



