Railroad Company v. Smith/Opinion of the Court

by Samuel Freeman Miller

United States Supreme Court

76 U.S. 95

Railroad Company  v.  Smith

The grants of lands by Congress to the States in aid of railroads have generally been made with reference to the lands through which the roads were to pass, and, as the line of the road had to be located after the grant was made, it has been usual in the acts making the grant, to describe them as alternate sections of odd numbers within a certain limit on each side of the road, when it should be located.

This, of course, left it to be determined by the location of the road what precise lands were granted. So far as this uncertainty in the grant was concerned, it was one which might remain for a considerable time, but which was capable of being made certain, and was made certain, by the location of the road. But as Congress could not know on what lands these grants might ultimately fall, and as the roads passed through regions where some of the lands had been sold, some had been granted for other purposes, and some had been reserved for special uses, though the title remained in the United States, these statutes all contained large exceptions from the grant, as measured by the limits on each side of the road and as determined by the odd numbers of the sections granted.

We have had before us two cases growing out of the construction to be given to the language of these exceptions in the grant of May 15th, 1856, to the State of Iowa. The first of these was the case of Wolcott v. The Des Moines Company. ^[1] The other is the case of The Railroad Company v. Fremont County, decided at this term. ^[2]

The case before us arises under a similar grant to the State of Missouri, with like reservations in the act, but it raises a question somewhat different from that presented by the other two cases.

In the last of those cases it was determined that a proviso which excluded from the grant 'all lands heretofore reserved by any act of Congress, or in any manner by competent authority, for the purpose of aiding in any object of internal improvement, or for any other purpuse whatever,' excluded the lands granted to the States by the act of September 28th, 1850, known as the swamp-land grant. In that case the county of Fremont, claiming under the swamp-land grant, was plaintiff, and the railroad company, claiming under the grant to the State for railroads, was defendant, and the main point in it related to the evidence which might be necessary to establish the fact that the lands claimed by plaintiff were swamp and overflowed within the meaning of the act of 1850.

In the present case the position of the parties is reversed, the plaintiff claiming under the act of June 10th, 1852, granting lands to the State of Missouri for railroad purposes, and the defendant claiming under the swamp-land grant.

In the former case it was necessary for the plaintiff, who must succeed on the strength of her own title, to show satisfactory evidence that the title of the United States had, under the swamp-land grant, become vested in Fremont County. The opinion of the court shows how this was successfully done in that case.

In the present action it was incumbent on the railroad company to show that the title of the United States had become vested in the company under the grant for railroad purposes.

It is admitted that this has been done, unless the land is of that class reserved from the grant as swamp land; for the act under which plaintiff claims has an exception in precisely the same terms with the act for the benefit of the Iowa railroads.

In the former case the plaintiff, claiming under the swamp-land grant, was bound to establish his title by such evidence as Congress may have determined to be necessary to make the title complete in the State, or the grantee of the State, to which the lands were supposed to be granted, otherwise the plaintiff established no legal title. In the present case it is not necessary to defeat the title under the railroad grant to show that all the steps prescribed by Congress to vest a complete title in defendant, under the swamp-land grant, have been taken. It is sufficient to show that this land which is now claimed under the railroad grant, was reserved out of that grant, and this is done whenever it is proved by appropriate testimony to have been swamp and overflowed land, as described in the act of 1850.

In order to determine the character of the testimony which will prove this, it may be useful to look at the statute which granted these swamp lands.

The first section of the act, after declaring the inducements to its passage, says that the whole of these swamp and over-flowed lands, made thereby unfit for cultivation, and unsold, are hereby granted to the States.

The third section, for further description, says that all legal subdivisions, the greater part of which is wet and unfit for cultivation, shall be included as swamp lands; but when the greater part is not of that character the whole of it shall be excluded.

Congress has here given a criterion, apparently not difficult of application, by which to determine what was granted, to wit, such legal subdivisions of the public lands, the greater part of which were so far swamp and overflowed as to be too wet for cultivation. Now, here is a present grant by Congress of certain lands to the State within which they lie, but it is by a description which requires something more than a mere reference to their townships, ranges, and sections, to identify them as coming within it. In this respect it is precisely loke the railroad grants, which only became certain by the location of the road. In fact, in this regard the swamp-land grant was the more specific, for all the lands of that description were granted, and they have remained so granted ever since, while no particular land was described by the railroad grant, which was a float, to be determined by the choice of the line of the road in future. No act of Congress has ever attempted to take back this grant of the swamp lands, or to forfeit it, or to give it to any other grantee, or modified the description by which they were given to the States. It was protected by positive reservation in the grant under which plaintiff claims. Now, when a party claiming under that grant sues to recover a particular piece of land which is excepted out of the grant by appropriate language, is is not competent to show by parol proof that it was of the class covered by the first grant and excepted from the second, namely, so swampy, overflowed, and wet, as that the major pary of the tract was unfit for cultivation?

By the second section of the act of 1850 it was made the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to ascertain this fact, and furnish the State with the evidence of it. Must the State lose the land, though clearly swamp land, because that officer has neglected to do this? The right of the State did not depend on his action, but on the act of Congress, and though the States might be embarrassed in the assertion of this right by the delay or failure of the Secretary to ascertain and make out lists of these lands, the right of the States to them could not be defeated by that delay. As that officer had no satisfactory evidence under his control to enable him to make out these lists, as is abundantly shown by the correspondence of the land department with the State officers, he must, if he had attempted it, rely, as he did in many cases, on witnesses whose personal knowledge enabled them to report as to the character of the tracts claimed to be swamp and overflowed. Why should not the same kind of testimony, subjected to cross-examination, be competent, when the issue is made in a court of justice, to show that they are swamp and overflowed, and so excluded from the grant under which plaintiff claims, a grant which was also a gratuity?

The matter to be shown is one of observation and examination, and whether arising before the secretary, whose duty it was primarily to decide it, or before the court, whose duty it became because the secretary had failed to do it, this was clearly the best evidence to be had, and was sufficient for the purpose.

Any other rule results in this, that because the Secretary of the Interior has failed to discharge his duty in certifying these lands to the States, they, therefore, pass under a grant from which they are excepted beyond doubt; and this, when it can be proved by testimony capable of producing the fullest conviction, that they were of the class excluded from plaintiff's grant.

The decision of the case of the Railroad Company v. Fremont County disposes of all the errors alleged in this case but the admission of the verbal testimony, and as we are of opinion that the State court did not err in that, the JUDGMENT IS AFFIRMED.

Notes

1. 5 Wallace, 681.
2. The case immediately preceding.