This case presents another phase of the Des Moines River land litigation.
The main question involved in this case is the question of title to the Des Moines River lands, which was settled several years ago by the decision in the cases of Wolcott and Burr, and in the subsequent and unreported case of Riley v. Wells, adversely to the title set up by the appellants. At the present term of this court, the principles involved in these decisions have been reconsidered and reaffirmed. It is therefore no longer an open question 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 that the joint resolution of 2d of March, 1861, and act of 12th of July, 1862, transferred the title from the United States and vested it in the State of Iowa for the use of its grantees under the river grant. If so, the claim of title by the appellants, who are grantees under one of these railroad companies, to the lands certified to the State of Iowa, under the act of August 8th, 1846, above the Raccoon Fork of the Des Moines River, has no foundation to rest upon.
But the appellants insist if they cannot recover these lands they are cestui que trusts for a portion of the indemnity lands obtained by the State under the act of July 12th, 1862. Congress by this act extended the grant originally made to the State in 1846, for the improvement of the Des Moines River, so as to include the alternate sections of land (designated by odd numbers) between the Raccoon Fork and the northern boundary of the State, and consented that a portion of these lands should be applied to the construction of a railroad, which, by change of name, is called the Des Moines Valley Road.
This legislation was intended to put the State in exactly the position it would have been, if there had been no dispute as to the extent of the grant in 1846, and accordingly the Secretary of the Interior was directed if any of the lands within the granted limits should have been sold or otherwise disposed of by the United States before the passage of the act, to set apart an equal quantity elsewhere in the State in lieu thereof.
In case the State also had sold and conveyed any of these lands, the title to which had proved invalid, the act directed that the land set apart by the Secretary of the Interior should be held in trust for the benefit of those persons whose titles had thus failed. This latter provision was rendered necessary by the conflict in opinion which had for a series of years existed concerning this river grant. The State had always maintained that the original grant, properly construed, extended above the Raccoon Fork, while on the contrary, the United States had at different times both denied and admitted the claim of the State. It was to be expected in this condition of the dispute that both the State and General Government had disposed of a portion of these lands. If so, and the title of the grantees of the State had proved invalid, it was eminently proper that they should be protected, and there was no better way to do this than to require the State, in the first instance, to use the indemnity lands for this purpose.
It is admitted in the record that the State has conveyed to the Des Moines Valley Railroad Company, one of the defendants in this suit, for good and valuable considerations performed by the company, all the lands received by the State under the act in question, except those only which had been conveyed by the State under the act of August 8th, 1846, and the legislation pursuant thereto.