These are two writs of error to the circuit court of the United States for the Eastern district of Pennsylvania. They involve the same questions.
By the act of congress approved August 1, 1888 (chapter 728), entitled 'An act to authorize condemnation of land for sites of public buildings and for other purposes,' it is provided 'that in every case in which the secretary of the treasury, or any other officer of the government, has been or hereafter shall be authorized to procure real estate for the erection of a public building or for any other public uses, he shall be and hereby is authorized to acquire the same for the United States by condemnation, under judicial process, whenever in his opinion it is necessary or advantageous to the government to do so.'
By the act of congress approved March 3, 1893, generally called the 'Sundry Civil Appropriation Act,' it was provided, among other things, as follows: 'Monuments and Tablets at Gettysburg. For the purpose of preserving the lines of battle at Gettysburg, Pa., and for properly marking with tablets the positions occupied by the various commands of the armies of the Potomac and of Northern Virginia on that field, and for the opening and improving avenues along the positions occupied by troops upon those lines, and for fencing the same, and for determining the leading tactical positions of batteries, regiments, brigades, divisions, corps and other organizations, with reference to the study and correct understanding of the battle, and to mark the same with suitable tablets, each bearing a brief historical legend, compiled without praise and without censure, the sum of $25,000 to be expended under the direction of the secretary of war.'
Subsequently to the passage of that act, and on the 6th of June, 1894, a joint resolution of congress was approved by the president, which, after reciting the passage of the act of 1893, and the appropriation of the sum of $25,000 thereby, contained the further recital that the sum of $50,000 was then under consideration by congress as an additional appropriation for the same purposes, and that it had been recently decided by the United States court, sitting in Pennsylvania, that authority had not been distinctly given necessary to enable the war department to necessary to enable the war departmetn to execute the purposes declared in the act of 1893, and that there was imminent danger that portions of the battlefield might be irreparably defaced by the construction of a railroad over the same, thereby making impracticable the execution of the provisions of the act of March 3, 1893. It was, therefore, 'Resolved, by the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, that the secretary of war is authorized to acquire by purchase (or by condemnation) pursuant to the act of August 1, 1888, such lands, or interest in lands, upon or in the vicinity of said battlefield, as in the judgment of the secretary of war may be necessary for the complete execution of the act of March 3, 1893: provided, That no obligation or liability upon the part of the government shall be incurred under this resolution, nor any expenditure made except out of the appropriations already made and to be made during the present session of this congress.' A further appropriation of $50,000 was made for this purpose by the act of August 18, 1894, the same session of congress.
Acting under the authority of these various statutes and joint resolution, the United States district attorney for the Eastern district of Pennsylvania, by direction of the attorney general, filed a petition in the name of the United States for the purpose of condemning certain lands therein described for the objects mentioned in the acts of congress.