Soon after the decision of the supreme court in the Litchfield case in 1859, a suit was brought in the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of Iowa, asking an injunction against the local United States land officers at Fort Dodge and at Des Moines, to prevent them from receiving and recognizing any location or purchase of these reserved lands. The reservation of the land affected not only the lands within the railroad grant, but affected the right of any person to locate upon or purchase these lands from the United States, as they were not lands subject to settlement or entry. Justice Miller heard this application for an injunction, and an argument was filed by the authorities in Washington claiming that the proper officers of the land department had the sole authority to determine the question as to whether or not these lands were subject to location and entry, and that the question of the effect of such location and entry could only be decided by the courts, after entries were made and patents granted; that if the lands were not legally subject to entry as to any person claiming them, the action of the land officers would be void, and a court, if called upon by the owner, could cancel any patent or other evidence of title illegally issued. Justice Miller, after the full argument of the case, sustained this view of the case and held that the only remedy for parties claiming these lands under the act of 1846, and the subsequent act of 1861-2, was to apply to the court for the cancellation of any titles wrongfully issued by the land department or by the President. In accordance with this view of the case a number of suits were brought by the grantees of the Des Moines Navigation Company, who received their titles from the company in consideration of the moneys they had advanced as stockholders, and the supreme court of the United States, upon appeal to that court, cancelled a number of entries and patents that had been wrongfully issued. An attempt was made to make a distinction between the Des Moines Navigation Company and individuals who had purchased the lands from the state of Iowa, and settled thereon.