Again, however, there was no decision; the constitutional status of the University was undecided. But in 1892 a decision did establish that the people of the State, in incorporating the University, had, by their Constitution, conferred the entire control and management of its property upon the Regents, and had thereby excluded all departments of the state government from any interference with it. The property of the University was state property it is true, but it could only be administered by the Board of Regents as a separate division of the State administration.
Finally in 1895 it was definitely decided that the Legislature had no constitutional right to interfere in or dictate as to the management of the University. The question was once more the Homeopathic issue, which took the form of a legislative action to compel the Regents to remove the School to Detroit. This time the Regents reversed their earlier policy and the measure was stoutly resisted by the Board. Judge Claudius B. Grant, '59, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, laid down the principles now accepted as governing the relations of the University and the Legislature. The Board of Regents, he maintained, was the only corporation whose powers were defined in the State Constitution, whereas in the case of every other corporation established by the Constitution it was provided that its powers should be defined by law. "No other conclusion was, in his judgment, possible than that the intention was to place the institution in the direct and exclusive control of the people themselves, through a constitutional body elected by them." Otherwise the Regents would become merely "ministerial officers" with no other duties than to register the will of the Legislature.
The independent status of the University has also been more firmly established in late years by other legislative enactments and decisions. As early as 1863 it was recognized that the Regents had power to hold and convey real estate, though they had no authority over the land granted by Congress for the support of the University, nor over the principal of the fund established through the sale of that land. In 1890 such property was declared exempt from taxation, and in 1893 the Board of Regents was declared to be alone responsible under contracts made by it for the benefit of the University. In the new Constitution of 1908 the Regents were given the right of eminent domain, and on a number of occasions since that time have been able to acquire "private property for the use of the University in the manner prescribed by law." It is difficult to see how the growth of the University during the past twelve years with its constantly expanding building program could have taken place without this salutary check upon the exorbitant demands of property owners in the neighborhood of the Campus.
This financial autonomy of the Regents, once an appropriation is made by the Legislature, has not gone unquestioned, however, particularly by the Auditor-General. The University fund from early years has been borrowed by the State which until 1896 paid the original interest rate of seven percent. The Auditor-General then decided that the legal rate of six percent should be enforced. The matter was laid before the Supreme Court, however, and the old rate was restored. In 1900 it was definitely ruled by the Attorney-General that "the Auditor-General has no authority to refuse to audit and pay vouchers for real estate purchased by the Board of Regents," and subsequently in 1911, the Supreme Court maintained that the "judgment of the Regents as to the legality and expediency of expenditures for the use and maintenance of the institution" could not be considered "subordinate to that of the Auditor-General."
The powers of the Regents have also been strengthened by other rulings of the Attorney-Generals of the State. Thus in 1900 the power of the Regents to determine student fees was declared not subject to legislative control, while in 1911 the same freedom in the matter of the determination of entrance requirements was conceded. The Board was also declared in 1908 free from the application of an act of the previous year providing for the approval and regulation of salaries in the various state institutions.
The University has thus been as fortunate in the development of its relations with the State as it has been in its internal growth. Though there have been many critical times, the movement has always been forward. The Regents have been careful and conservative in their relations with the Legislature, but they have insisted upon the independence of the University and have been sustained in this position with increasing firmness by the Supreme Court. The Legislature has shown an ever-increasing friendliness toward the University and has never refused to come to the aid of the institution, whatever its views as to the constitutional questions involved in the establishment of the University. This was shown as never before by the 1919 Legislature, which not only granted to the University appropriations amounting to $2,200,000, but gave it by the unanimous vote of both houses, a thing which had never happened before. The Legislature even included one item for which the officers of the University had hardly dared hope to have favorable action at that session.
With its constitutional status so well established; with the Legislature so ready to co-operate in furthering the best interests of the University, with its curriculum continually expanding, though wisely and not too rapidly, and with an ever-increasing emphasis on the highest ideals of scholarship and service, there is every promise for a future of greater usefulness and effective service for the University. We, who love the University of Michigan for what it has accomplished, for what it is, and for what it may become, may well look for a development through the coming years that shall be a fitting continuation of the remarkable success of the great experiment involved in its establishment.