By an act approved August 4, 1854, the act of June 29, 1854, was repealed; and although four grants have been declared forfeited, for failure of the grantees to perform the required conditions, this is the only one which Congress has in terms repealed.
It is to be regretted that subsequent legislation was not as devoid of ambiguity. Had it been, much embarrassment might have been saved the Government. I refer particularly to that clause or section respecting the vesting of title and the manner in which the State was to acquire rights under the grant. By the terms thereof no patents were to issue except as the work of building the road progressed.
By the omission of such language from the grants subsequently made from time to time to as late as 1862, the Department of the Interior believed that the duty of “disposal” was properly in the States charged with executing the trusts; and in all the earlier grants, immediately upon the location of the roads and determination of the limits of the grants, certified, in whole, the lands to which the companies would ultimately have been entitled had the roads been completed as required. At that time there was but little doubt that all of the roads would be rapidly constructed; but the civil conflict very naturally put a stop to such extended improvements, and to-day about twenty railroads remain uncompleted, and the lands certified to the States for their use and benefit exceed by 1,058,295.86 acres the lands actually earned by the portions of the several roads constructed.
Out of the act of June 29, 1854, and the repealing statute a very interesting question arose, which received, ultimately, the consideration of the Supreme Court. A suit was brought in trespass by Edmund Rice against the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Company, for cutting timber on a tract of land in Minnesota. The company, in its defense, set up title under the granting act aforesaid; to which plaintiff replied, reciting the repealing statute. On demurrer by the company, the question as to whether an interest had vested under said grant was thus fairly presented to the Supreme Court. That body decided, after elaborate review of the whole case, that the act of August 4 was “a valid law”, and that no interest, beneficiary or otherwise, had vested under the said grant.
In 1856, at different times, various grants were made to the States of Iowa, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Mississippi, and on the 3d of March, 1857, to Minnesota.
An examination of these grants—say the one to Iowa, it being first of the series—shows that, with the exception of the fact that the sections granted were designated by odd instead of even numbers, they were similar to the Missouri grant of 1852. The change there inaugurated was owing to the fact that certain even sections in each township had been previously given to the several States for school purposes, and in a grant embracing a large territory the difference to the railroad grants caused thereby would be considerable. From 1857 until 1862 Congress seems to have been otherwise engaged, for I am unable to find that any acts were passed during that period touching railroad grants.
By an act approved July 1, 1862, a new departure was taken. Certain persons were created into a body corporate under the title and name of the “Union Pacific Railroad Company”. The object thereof was the construction and maintenance of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean.
They were granted the right of way through the public lands to the extent of two hundred feet in width on each side of the line of road, together with the necessary grounds for stations, buildings, workshops, etc. They were also granted in aid of the construction of the road “every alternate section of public land”, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of five alternate sections per mile, on each side of the road; and all lands which had been disposed of or reserved, and mineral lands, were excepted.
Sections 5 and 11 of the act related to the issuance of bonds by the United States. Section 7 required the company to file a map of its general route, and directed the Secretary of the Interior to thereupon withdraw the lands within fifteen miles of such line.
Various other roads were provided for upon the same conditions, now known as the Central Pacific, Central Branch of the Union Pacific, Kansas Pacific, and Sioux City and Pacific.