Opinion of the court.

fully argued, and from the opinion of the court, which remains on file, though unreported, the following language is taken: "The reasons for this withdrawal of the lands from public sale, or private entry, are stated at large in the opinion of the court in Wolcott v. The Des Moines Company, and need not be repeated. The point of the reservation was very material in that case, and we have seen nothing in the present one, either in the facts or in the arguments, to distinguish it." Whatever, therefore, may have been the design of the original parties to the suit of Wolcott v. The Des Moines Company, it is clear that the question here involved was argued fully by parties deeply interested on both sides, and received the attentive consideration of the court, and as an authoritative exposition of its views is entitled to the same weight as other well-considered cases.

We do not propose to review or add to the able and, to us, satisfactory argument of the judge who delivered that opinion, as well as the one in Reily v. Wells, but will notice the only new legal proposition advanced by counsel in the present case.

It is attempted to be shown that the proviso on which so much depends was one which in almost the same words it has been usual to insert in all grants of a similar character by Congress. And it is argued that, therefore, it could have no special reference in the mind of Congress to the lands certified under the act of 1846. If, however, this were conceded, it must remain true that the effect of the proviso was to cover such cases as came within its terms, whether known or unknown to Congress, and the opinion in the case referred to shows how distinctly those lands did come within the language and spirit of the proviso. So clear is this that it still seems to us that Congress did know of this reservation, and did intend to protect it as stated in that opinion.

We, therefore, reaffirm, first, that neither the State of Iowa, nor the railroad companies, for whose benefit the grant of 1856 was made, took any title by that act to the lands then claimed to belong to the Des Moines River grant of 1846; and, second, that by the joint resolution of 1861,

Statement of the case.

and the act of 1862, the State of Iowa did receive the title for the use of those to whom she had sold them as part of that grant, and for such other purposes as had become proper under that grant.

The decrees in both cases are accordingly

AFFIRMED.

Mr. Justice DAVIS did not take part in this decision, on account of a supposed interest in the question; and Mr. Justice BRADLEY did not sit on the hearing.

HOMESTEAD COMPANY v. VALLEY RAILROAD.

1. In this case the court decides, for the fifth time, that neither the State of Iowa nor any railroad company for whose benefit the act of Congress of May 15th, 1856 (11 Stat. at Large, 9), was made, took any title to the lands then claimed by the Des Moines Navigation and Railroad Company, under what is known as the River Grant of August 8th, 1846 (6 Id. 77); and that the joint resolution of March 2d, 1861 (13 Id. 543), and the act of July 12th, 1862 (12 Id. 25), on this subject transferred the title from the United States and vested it in the State of Iowa for the use of its grantees under the said River Grant.

2. Neither the railroad companies nor their grantees, as respected any lands granted by the said act of May 15th, 1856, or by the act of the legislatúre of Iowa, passed July 14th, 1856, were cestui que trusts of what are called the Indemnity Lands, which were granted by the act of Congress of July 12th, 1862; nor in view of the action of the officers of Iowa and of the Federal government on the subject, and of the subsequent legislation of the said State and of Congress on it, were they entitled otherwise to any portion of those lands.

3. A party who has no title to lands cannot acquire one by mere payment of taxes on them.

4. A party by paying taxes which another party ought to pay, but does not pay, cannot make such second party his debtor by having stepped in and paid the taxes for him, without being requested so to do.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Iowa; the case being thus:

On the 8th of August, 1846, Congress granted* to the then Territory, and now State, of Iowa—

* 9 Stat. at Large, 77.

Statement of the case.

"For the purpose of aiding said Territory to improve the navigation of the Des Moines River, from its mouth to the Raccoon Fork, so called, in said Territory, one equal moiety, in alternate sections, of the public lands, in a strip five miles in width, on each side of said river."

The second section of this act provided that the lands so granted should not be sold or conveyed by the Territory, nor by any State to be formed out of it, except as the improvements progressed; that is, that sales might be made so as to produce the sum of $30,000, and then cease until the governor of the Territory, or State, as the case might be, should certify to the President of the United States the fact that one-half of this sum had been expended on said improvements, when sales again might be made of the remaiuing lands sufficient to replace this amount. The sales were thus to progress as the proceeds were expended, and the expenditure so certified to the President.

After this grant to the State of Iowa, sometimes called

Statement of the case.

"the river grant," the legislature incorporated the Des Moines Navigation and Railroad Company, for the purpose of carrying out the improvement for which the lands had been granted; and the lands, with some exceptions, stated infra, page 157, were conveyed to that company.

Somewhere near the middle of the State, at Des Moines City, the Des Moines River receives as a tributary a stream called the Raccoon Fork. It thus happens that about onehalf the river is above the point where this fork enters and one-half below. Each half traverses, of course, a region of great extent and value.

From the phraseology of the above-quoted grant of Congress, it is obvious that a controversy was susceptible of being raised; the point open to question being, whether Congress meant to grant to the State land on the Des Moines River above the point where the Raccoon Fork enters, as well as the land below this point, or whether it meant to grant only land below. On the one hand, the grant was for the purpose of improving the navigation of the river "from its mouth To the Raccoon Fork." On the other, the grant itself was of one equal moiety, &c., "on each side of the said river."

As early as February, 1848, a controversy assumed form: and what was the true meaning of the grant was a question which came before a succession of officers of the United States, commissioners of the land office, secretaries of the treasury, secretaries of the interior, and attorneys-general. Some of these thought that the grant did not extend above

e fork. Others, including Mr. A. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior (the department to which the subject primarily belonged), was of the opinion that it did, and certified the lands above as though that were the true construction of the grant.

The agents of the State, who had been appointed by the governor to select the sections designated by odd numbers, selected them from the mouth of the river towards the northern boundary of the State as far as surveyed; in other words, above the fork as well as below.

Statement of the case.

On the 15th of May, 1856, Congress, by act of that date,* granted to the State of Iowa, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of certain railroads specified (including the Dubuque and Pacific Railroad), every alternate section of land for six sections in width on each side of said roads. Standing without any restriction, this graut, as the road named was laid out, would have embraced certain tracts which, if the act of the 8th of August, 1846, rightly construed did include tracts above the fork, had been granted under that act for the improvement of the navigation of the Des Moines River. But the grant did not stand without restriction. On the contrary, it contained a reservation, thus:

"Provided, that any and all lands heretofore reserved to the United States by any act of Congress, or in any other manner by competent authority, for the purpose of aiding in any object of internal improvement, or for any other purpose whatsoever, be, and the same are hereby, reserved to the United States from the operation of this act, except so far as it may be found necessary to locate the routes of said railroads through such reserved lands, in which case the right of way only shall be granted, subject to the approval of the President of the United States."

If, therefore, Mr. Stuart and the Department of the Interior, and the officers of the Federal government, who had acted on the idea that the grant included lands above the fork, and reserved them to the United States for the purpose of aiding the improvement of the Des Moines River, were "competent authority," within the meaning of this act, then to whomsoever else they passed or did not pass, those lands did not pass to the State under this act of May 15th, 1856, for the benefit of its railroads. But herein, again, it is obvious was a field for controversy.

Whatever the reservation or proviso to the act might mean, the State of Iowa, by act of July 14th, 1856, accepted the act and, without describing any lands particularly, enacted that the lands grauted by the act "are hereby disposed

* 11 Stat. at Large, 9.