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Dubuque and Pacific Railroad Company, Plaintiffs in Error, v. Edwin C. Litchfield U.S. 66 (1860)

handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0174 and id is 1 raw text is: SUPREME COURT. Dubuue and Pacific Railroad Co. v. Litchfield. THE DuBuquE AND PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR, V. EDWIN 0. LITCHFIELD. On the 8th of August, 1846, a grant of land was made to the Territory of Iowa, for the purpose of aiding said Territory to improve the navigation of the Des Moines river, from its mouth to the Raccoon fork, in said Territory, one equal moiety, in alternate sections, of the public lands (remaining unsold and not otherwise disposed of, encumbered, or appropriated) in a strip five miles in width on each side of said river, to be selected within said Territory by an agent to be appointed by the Governor thereof, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. On the 15th of May, 1856, Congress passed an act granting to the State of Iowa, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of a railroad from Dubuque to a point on the Missouri near Sioux city, every alternate section of land, desig- nated by odd numbers, for six sections in width on each side of baid road. The State of Iowa regranted the lands to the Dubuque and Pacific Railroad Company. The land in question is claimed under these two acts by the parties respectively. The title held under the act of 1846 must prevail, provided the grant extended to lands above the Raccoon fork. This court has jurisdiction to construe this act in the case now before it, the proceedings before the Executive department, extending through more than ten years, not being sufficient either to conclude the title or to control the construction of the act. Those proceedings stated. The grant was confined to lands between the mouth of Des Moines river and Raccoon fork; that was the river to be improved, on each side of which the strip of land granted was to lie. The historical circumstances connected with the grant sustain this view. All grants of this description are strictly construed against the grantees; noth- ing passes but what is conveyed in clear and explicit language; and as the rights here claimed are derived entirely from the act of Congress, the dona- tion stands on the same footing of a grant by the public to a private com- pany, the terms of which must be plainly expressed in the statute; and if not thus expressed, they cannot be implied. The claimant, under the act of 1846, cannot be considered as an innocent pur- chaser. The act of Congress was a grant to Iowa of an undivided moiety of the lands below Raccoon fork, and the officers of the Executive department had no Farther authority than to make partition of those lands. Raving ex- tended their acts to lands lying outside of the boundaries, their attempts to make partition were merely nugatory. The court is satisfied, from evidence before it, that this is not merely a fictitiouw action.

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