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Error to the District Court of the United States for the district of Minnesota.
Edmund Rice brought trespass in the county court of Dakota, Territory of Minnesota, against the Minnesota & Northwestern Railroad Company, for cutting timber on section 15 of township 114 north, of range 19 west. The defendants answered that the title to the section of land described in the plaintiff's complaint was in them, and set forth their title as follows:
The defendants were incorporated on the 4th of March, 1854, by the Legislative Assembly of Minnesota Territory, for the purpose of making a railroad from the northwest shore of Lake Superior to some point to be selected on the northern line of Iowa in the direction of Dubuque. This act of incorporation provided, among other things, that, 'for the purpose of aiding the said company in the construction and maintaining the said railroad, it is further enacted that any lands that may be granted to the said Territory to aid in the construction of the said railroad shall be, and the same are hereby, granted in fee simple, absolute, without any further act or deed; and the Governor of this Territory or future State of Minnesota is hereby authorized and directed, in the name and in behalf of said Territory or State, after the said grant of land shall have been made by the United States to said Territory, to execute and deliver to said company such further deed or assurance of the transfer of the said property as said company may require, to vest in them a perfect title to the same: provided, however, that such lands shall be taken upon such terms and conditions as may be prescribed by the act of Congress granting the same.' The books of subscription were opened at St. Paul and New York. Stock was subscribed to a large amount; the requisite proportion of it was paid in, and the company was organized agreeably to the terms of the charter. On the 29th of June, 1854, an act was passed by Congress granting to the Territory of Minnesota, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of a railroad along the route mentioned in the charter, every alternate section of land, designated by odd numbers, for six sections in width on each side of said road within the Territory. The act of Congress making the grant was as follows: