Rice v. Sioux City St Co

• Citation: 110 U.S. 695,28 L.Ed. 289,4 S.Ct. 177
• Parties: RICE v. SIOUX CITY & ST. P. R. CO. 1
• Decision Date: 03 March 1884
• Court: United States Supreme Court

110 U.S. 695

4 S.Ct. 177

28 L.Ed. 289

RICE v. SIOUX CITY & ST. P. R. CO.¹

March 3, 1884.

John B. Sanborn, for appellant.

E. C. Palmer, for appellee.

WAITE, C. J.

This case briefly stated is as follows: On the twenty-eighth of September, 1850, what is now known as the swamp-land act, c. 8, (9 St. 519,) was passed by congress. By sections 1, 2, and 3 swamp lands were defined, and a special grant made to the state of Arkansas. Section 4 is in these words: 'That the provisions of this act be extended to, and their benefits conferred upon, each of the other states of the Union, in which such swamp and overflowed lands, known or designated as aforesaid, may be situated.' Minnesota was then a territory, and on the third of March, 1857, an act of congress (chapter 99, 11 St. 195) was passed, granting to that territory, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of certain railroads, 'every alternate section of land, designated by odd numbers, for six sections in width an each side of each of said roads.' If when the lines of a road were definitely fixed it should appear that any of the sections included in the terms of the grant had been sold or otherwise appropriated by the United States, authority was given for the selection of others in lieu within 15 miles of the line. All lands before reserved to the United States for the purpose of aiding in any object of internal improvement or for any other purpose whatever were excluded from the operation of the act, except for the right of way. On the eleventh of May, 1858, Minnesota was admitted into the Union as a state. 11 St. p. 285, c. 31. By the act of admission, (section 3,) 'all the laws of the United States,' 'not locally inapplicable,' were 'to have the same force and effect within that state as in other states of the Union.' The line of what is now the Sioux City & St. Paul Railroad, built by a company entitled to the privileges of the act of March 3, 1857, c. 99, was located in April 1859, and the lands involved in this suit are odd-numbered sections within the sixmile limits according to that line. On the twelfth of March, 1860, congress passed an act (chapter 5, 12 St. p. 3) extending the provisions of the act of September 28, 1850, c. 84, to the states of Minnesota and Oregon, subject to a proviso, as follows: 'That the grant hereby made shall not include any lands which the government of the United States may have reserved, sold, or disposed of (in pursuance of any law heretofore enacted) prior to the confirmation of title to be made under the authority of the said act.' The lands now in dispute were certified to the state under this act, and conveyed by the governor to Rice, the appellant. This suit was brought by the railroad company to establish its title under the railroad grant by the act of March 3, 1857, c. 99, as against the swamp-land certificate. The circuit court sustained the claim of the railroad company, and decreed accordingly. To reverse that decree Rice took this appeal.

The single question presented is whether the lands passed under the railroad or the swamp-land grant. That the swamp-land act of 1850 operated as a grant in proesenti to the states then in existence of all the swamp lands in their respective jurisdictions is well settled. Railroad Co. v. Smith, 9 Wall. 95; French v. Fyan, 93 U. S. 171; Martin v. Marks, 97 U. S. 345. As Minnesota was a territory in 1850, it is conceded that the title to the swamp lands within its territorial limits did not pass out of the United States at that time, because there was then no grantee in existence. It is contended, however, that on the admission of the state into the Union in 1858, the grant, which had before rested in compact only, became absolute, and carried the title to the state, as against the United States and subsequent grantees, from the date of the original act, September 28, 1850, or at least from the date of the admission of the state.

In French v. Fyan, supra, it was said in the opinion, at one place, 'that this court has decided more than once that the swamp-land act was a grant in proesenti, by which the title to those lands passed at once to the state in which they lay, except to states admitted to the Union after its passage;' and at another, 'for while the title under the swamp-land act, being a present grant, takes effect as of the date of that act, or of the admission of the state into the Union, when this occurred afterwards.' From these expressions it is argued that the question of the right of new states to claim the benefits conferred by the provisions of the act has been settled. The case which was then before the court related only to the operation of the act in a state which was in existence at the time of its passage, and called for no consideration of its effect on new states. All that was said as to new states was merely incidental to the main question, and by no means intended as an authoritative declaration of the law applicable to that class of cases. We feel quite at liberty, therefore, to consider that question an open one, and to treat it accordingly.

Donations of the public domain for any purpose are never to be presumed. Those who claim against the government under legislative grants must show a clear title. The grant under the act of 1850 was to Arkansas and 'the other states of the Union.' Arkansas was an existing state, and the grant was to all the states in prasenti. It was to operate upon existing things, and with reference to an existing state of facts. It granted 'the whole of those swamp and overflowed lands, made unfit thereby for cultivation, which shall remain unsold at the passage of this act.' The secretary of the interior was required to make out, 'as soon as practicable,' lists and plats of lands, the greater part of which were 'wet and unfit for cultivation,' and to transmit the lists, etc., to the governor of the proper state. There is not a word in the act to show that the grant was to be a continuing one. It was to take effect at once, between an existing...