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eBook details

• Title: Leavenworth, Lawrence, And Galveston Railroad Company v. United States
• Author : United States Supreme Court
• Release Date : January 01, 1875
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 90 KB

Description

This bill was brought by the United States to confirm and establish its title to certain tracts of land, and to enjoin the appellant from setting up any right or claim thereto. These tracts, situate within the Osage ceded lands in Kansas, and specifically described in 'certified lists' furnished by the Commissioner of the General Land-Office, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, to the governor of the State, were subsequently conveyed by the latter to the appellant. Having the force and effect of a patent (10 Stat. 346), the lists passed the title of the United States to the tracts in question, if they were embraced by the grant in aid of the construction of the appellant's road. But the appellee contends that they were not so embraced. If such be the fact, inasmuch as public officers cannot bind the government beyond the scope of their lawful authority, the decree of the Circuit Court granting the prayer of the bill must be affirmed. The act of Congress of March 3, 1863 (12 Stat. 772), is the starting-point in this controversy. Upon it and the treaty with the Great and Little Osage Indians, proclaimed Jan. 21, 1867 (14 id. 687), the appellant rests its claim of title to the lands covered by the patents. It is, therefore, of primary importance to ascertain the scope and meaning of that act. The parties differ radically in their interpretation of it. The United States maintains that it did not dispose of the Osage lands, and that it was not intended to do so. On the contrary, the appellant insists that, although not operating upon any specific tracts until the road was located, it then took effect upon those in controversy, as they, by reason of the extinction of the Osage title in the mean while, had become, in the proper sense of the term, public lands. This difference would seem to imply obscurity in the act; but, be this as it may, the rules which govern in the interpretation of legislative grants are so well settled by this court that they hardly need be reasserted. They apply as well to grants of lands to States, to aid in building railroads, as to grants of special privileges to private corporations. In both cases the legislature, prompted by the supposed wants of the public, confers on others the means of securing an object the accomplishment of which it desires to promote, but declines directly to undertake.

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