The establishment of steam communication for the summer season made the “territorians” of Minnesota feel the more keenly the isolation in the long winters. Governor Gorman in his first message (January 11, 1854) said: “To get out from here during the winter ... is far above and beyond any other consideration to the people of Minnesota. To accomplish this you must concentrate all the energies of the people on one or two roads, and NO MORE for the present. I have but little doubt that Congress will grant us land sufficient to unlock our ice-bound home, if we confine our request to one point.” This wise counsel had its effect on the legislature. On February 20 Joseph R. Brown introduced into the council a bill to incorporate the “Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Company,” which was presently passed by that body, but by no large majority. In the house lively opposition sprung up, and dilatory proceedings delayed passage till the last night of the session (March 3). Governor Gorman gave it a reluctant approval because he had been allowed but sixty-five minutes before the expiration of the session to examine its provisions. It is quite remarkable that a bill of such importance, the talk of the town, had escaped his notice. The act authorized the chartered company to build and operate a railroad from the head of Lake Superior via St. Paul to Dubuque, Iowa, within a specified term of years. The franchise was to be void unless the first board of directors should be organized on or before the first day of July following.
The real ground of opposition in the legislature, and of Governor Gorman’s reluctance, lay in a provision, “that any lands granted to the said territory to aid in the construction of said railroad shall be and the same are hereby granted in fee simple, absolute, without further act or deed,” to said company. There was ambiguity in the paragraph relating to the northern terminus, leaving it in doubt whether that might not be located outside of Minnesota. It was suspected that the intention was to place it at Bayfield, Wisconsin, where influential persons had made purchases of real estate. It remained to secure from Congress the much needed and hoped for land grant. A bill to grant even number sections of public lands for six sections in width on both sides of the proposed railroad line, so drawn as to allow the grant to pass to the company chartered by the Minnesota territorial legislature, was introduced in the House on March 7. The Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, warmly recommended its passage because of the service the road would render in transporting troops, munitions of war, and mail.
The proposition to grant a million acres and more to so remote and thinly settled a territory at once aroused inquiry and opposition. The policy of granting public lands for building railroads was still novel; there were but three precedents, that of the Illinois Central grant of 1850 being the oldest. The measure, however, had its friends, and the opponents were driven to the device of killing the bill by amendments. And they succeeded. Presently came a revulsion. Members from the South and West regretted that the railroad land grant policy had received so rude a backset. There was no little sympathy for Minnesota, struggling for an open road and a market. Another effort was resolved upon. Mr. Sibley, then in Washington, drew a new bill identical in the main with that which had been put to sleep, but so changed as to vest the grant in the territory and leave its disposition to the next or a later legislature. This bill was passed and approved on June 29.
The incorporators named in the Minnesota act creating the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Company met in New York on July 1, on one day’s notice, and “organized” by the election of a board of directors. The board immediately elected the necessary officers and took the proper resolutions for beginning their enterprise. On the 24th of July it was charged on the floor of the House of Representatives at Washington that the “Minnesota bill” had been mutilated after its passage by the House, so that the Senate had really passed a differing bill. The effect of the change (simply the word “and” written over an erasure of the word “or”) had the effect to vest the lands granted in the Minnesota corporation; just what Congress had intended not to do. An abortive investigation followed, and the mutilated bill was repealed by a section added to a private bill to increase a certain pension, pending in the Senate, and awaiting third reading. This action was of course disappointing to the railroad company and those friendly to it. Delegate Rice was of opinion that the alteration of “or” to “and” was purely verbal and immaterial, and eminent attorneys advised the company that a grant having been made for sufficient considerations, it had become an irrevocable contract. The pretended repeal, therefore, was void. To test this question a case entitled The United States vs. The Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad Company was brought before the district court of Goodhue County, asking the award of damages for certain oak trees felled on land belonging to the government. The defense contended that no damages were done, because it had cut the trees on land granted by Congress by the act of June 24, 1854. The issue was, of course, the constitutionality of the repealing act. The court held the act void, and the Supreme Court of the territory sustained that judgment before the end of the year. This was very encouraging to the company, but their joy was presently changed to sorrow. When the Attorney-General of the United States learned from the newspapers of this litigation, and of a suit brought in behalf of the United States without his knowledge or authority, he removed the accommodating district attorney from office (December 30, 1854), and later discontinued the suit.
When the legislature of 1855 convened, on January 3, the company, sustained by the Supreme Court of the territory, was in a position to approach that body with confidence. Its affairs now entered more fully than ever into territorial politics, and it is only on this account that further notice of them is taken. Mr. Rice, supported by Mr. Ramsey, a director of the company, championed the railroad cause. Governor Gorman and Mr. Sibley led the opposition forces. The former in his message denounced the “or” and “and” jugglery, and the latter, as chairman of the judiciary committee of the lower house, framed a damaging report which called for a memorial to Congress to annul the charter of the company granted by the Minnesota legislature March 3, 1857. The memorial was not voted, but the national House of Representatives by resolution of January 29 decided, for its part, to annul. The Senate did not concur, and Delegate Rice was comforted. When the news reached St. Paul on March 24 the whole town was illuminated.
The charter of the company provided that unless fifty miles of road should be completed within one year the franchise should be forfeited. An extension of time and certain modifications were necessary. A bill granting these was passed by sufficient majorities. Governor Gorman vetoed it in a message of great sharpness, closing with an insinuation that the “money-king” had had more than his share of influence. The houses by exact two thirds votes passed the bill over the executive veto. Mr. Sibley and his friends had to content themselves with a personal memorial to Congress, which his biographer declares to be unequaled “for fearless and burning exposure of wrong and perfidy, in the annals of any territory or state.” The company had been let to live, but it was obliged to apply to the next legislature (1856) for a further lease of life. This was accorded by good majorities in both houses. Again Governor Gorman interposed his objections, declaring it futile to extend the life of the corporation. A new bill, drawn in such manner as to obviate the executive criticisms, was passed by a close vote at the end of the session. The bill received the reluctant approval of the governor. Three successive legislatures having sustained the company’s charters, he acquiesced, with slight confidence, however, in its professions.
The company now made a second resort to the courts to establish its claim to the grant of June 29, 1854. One of its directors, having bought of the United States a piece of land in Dakota County, brought suit against the railroad company for trespass. The district and supreme courts of the territory gave judgment for the defendant company, holding that it had good title to the land grant and therefore was not guilty of the alleged trespass. Before entry of judgment, however, in the latter court, the case was removed to the United States District Court; and this tribunal also found for the defendant. The Supreme Court of the United States, on writ of error from below, in December, 1861, disposed of the case by deciding (two justices dissenting) that the act of Congress of June 29, 1854, vested in the Territory of Minnesota no more than a naked trust or power, which could be and was revoked by the repealing act. The territorial legislature had exceeded its power in attempting to vest title in fee simple in the railroad company.
It was in the period now in view that Minneapolis, which has become the largest Minnesota city, had its beginning. The military reservation of Fort Snelling as delimited by Major Plympton in 1839 comprised, as was guessed, about 50,000 acres. The surveys made in later times show nearly 35,000 acres. So soon as it became known that a treaty of cession would be exacted from the Sioux, it was believed by the neighboring residents that Fort Snelling would be abandoned and the reservation opened for settlement. In 1849, when the first attempt was made on the Sioux, Robert Smith of Alton, Illinois, a member of Congress, having a “pull” at Washington, got leave of the War Department to lease the government mill at the Falls of St. Anthony on the west side. Later this concession ripened into a purchase of a quarter section abutting on the cataract. In the next year John H. Stevens, acting for himself and another, had similar leave granted to occupy the river front above the Smith claim, on condition of operating a ferry, free to government, at the falls. In the next year, 1851, a number of citizens of St. Anthony, already a thriving village of some six hundred people, thought it would be well to establish inchoate claims on some of the beautiful terraces which lay in view from their homes, beyond the river. They accordingly crossed over, staked out quarter sections as well as possible in the absence of surveys, built claim shanties, and had some plowing done. Still another year later, 1852, when in midsummer the Sioux treaties and amendments had been ratified and it was evident that the Sioux must soon move towards the sunset, and that the military reservation would be given up and opened to settlement, there took place a wild rush of St. Anthony men across the stream to seize on the coveted lands. It was not long till the whole terrain of Minneapolis was covered with claims. The action of Congress ordering a survey of the reserve expedited these irregular preëmptions.
The expectations of the squatters were so far met that on August 26, 1852, Congress authorized the “reduction” of the reserve, and the survey and sale of the excluded area. Two years passed before the surveys were completed and the lands advertised for sale. It was not desired that haste be made. On the completion of the surveyor’s work, the squatters formed a so-called “Equal Rights and Impartial Protection Claim Association of Hennepin County, M. T.,” the prime object of which was to adjust the numerous tracts of claimants to the lines of survey. This was effected by the action of an executive committee allowed to use discretion and guaranteed support. There was a second use for this organization. There was a considerable area east of the Mississippi left outside the boundary of the reduced reserve. This had been offered for sale in the usual subdivisions in September, 1854, at public auction. There was but one bidder, and he was surrounded by interested citizens who would have made it uncomfortable for any other person who might thoughtlessly inject a superfluous bid and mar the harmony of the occasion. The government got $1.25, the minimum price for wild lands, for property worth easily ten times that sum, and nobody’s conscience was strained. In anticipation of a public sale of the main portion of the reserved lands on which Minneapolis has been built, the claim association mentioned was prepared, by similar proceedings, to prevent any speculators (others than themselves) from depriving them of their rights by offering to pay value for the lands. But the plats were by some unknown influence held back in Washington and the sale was postponed. When Congress assembled in December, 1854, a strong delegation of claimants appeared in Washington and secured further postponement of the public sale. Delegate Rice took up their cause with vigor and presently obtained the passage of an act granting preëmption right to all who might comply with preëmption conditions. In the spring of 1855 the fortunate claimants proved up, and the government received $24,688.37 for 19,733.87 acres of land worth more than $200,000. There is a tradition, lacking support by particular facts, that military officers in the neighborhood profited by arrangements with squatters, who agreed to divide spoils in consideration of being left undisturbed on their claims. Citizens not having such arrangements were discouraged, and in some cases driven off by force.