MR. JUSTICE FIELD stated the case and delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an action of ejectment to recover possession of certain lands situated in section sixteen (16) of township thirty-four (34) in the county of Labette, State of Kansas, occupied and used by the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company as part of its right of way, to which it claims title under the act of Congress of July 26, 1866, granting lands to the State of Kansas to aid in the construction of a southern branch of the Union Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company from Fort Riley, Kansas, to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Act of July 26, 1866, c. 270, 14 Stat. 289.
The Union Pacific Railway Company, southern branch, the corporation designated in the act of Congress, was organized by the legislature of Kansas, and incorporated on the 25th day of September, 1865, under an act providing for the incorporation
Certain lands within the present State of Kansas were reserved whilst it was still a Territory, and long previously, by the United States, for the use and occupation of the Osage Indians. Such reservation was made by treaty between them and the United States concluded as far back as June 2, 1825, and proclaimed in December following. 7 Stat. (Indian Treaties) 240. From that time, and continuously thereafter, the reserved lands were occupied by those Indians until the treaty ceding the lands, or parts thereof, to the United States, concluded in 1866, and proclaimed in January, 1867, (14 Stat. 687,) except such portion thereof as was appropriated and used as a right of way by the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company for its road under the grant of July 26, 1866. Prior to June 6, 1870, that company located its railroad through these reserved lands in Kansas, with the approval of the President, and constructed its road in substantial conformity with the act of Congress. The right of way for its road, two hundred feet in width, was granted to the company unconditionally, subject only to such approval. The title to the land for the two hundred feet in width thus granted vested in the company either upon the passage of the act of Congress, July 26, 1866, or upon the construction of the road, and so far as the present case is concerned, it does not matter which date be taken.
The United States had the right to authorize the construction of the road of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company through the reservation of the Osage Indians, and to grant absolutely the fee of the two hundred feet as a right of way to the company. Though the lands of the Indians were reserved by treaty for their occupation, the fee was always under the control of the government; and when transferred, without reference to the possession of the lands and without designation of any use of them requiring the delivery of their possession, the transfer was subject
And the setting apart by statute or treaty with them of lands for their occupancy is held to be of itself a withdrawal of their character as public lands, and consequently of the lands from sale and preëmption.
The right and power of the government to dispose of the fee of the lands in controversy occupied by the Osage Indians, with their rights of occupancy, having been exercised, and a grant of both fee and possession having been made to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company, it follows that this company, the plaintiff in error, is entitled to a reversal of the judgment unless the claim of the plaintiff below, the defendant in error here, rests upon tenable grounds, and to them we will now turn our attention. Roberts, the plaintiff below, traces his title to the premises through a patent from the State of Kansas to his grantor, dated May 25, 1871, and by conveyance from him, claiming that they constituted a portion of the lands ceded to the State for school purposes prior to the grant of Congress to the railway company under the act of July 26, 1866.
On the 30th of May, 1854, Congress passed an act (c. 59, 10 Stat. 277, 289) to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. The sections of the act from the nineteenth to the thirty-seventh inclusive, relate to the Territory of Kansas. Section thirty-four (34) provided "that when the lands in the said Territory shall be surveyed under the direction of the government of the United States, preparatory to bringing the same into market, sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six
If the reservation named was intended as a grant of the sections sixteen (16) and thirty-six (36) to the Territory and to the States to be created out of them, or as a dedication of them for schools, it could only apply to such lands as were public lands, for no other lands in our land system are subdivided into sections, nor could it embrace lands which had been set apart and reserved by statute or treaty with them for the use of the Indians, as was the case with the lands involved in this controversy, as we have already shown. As early as 1839 it was held in Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 498: "That a tract lawfully appropriated to any purpose becomes thereafter severed from the mass of public lands, and that no subsequent law or proclamation will be construed to embrace or operate upon it, although no exception be made of it." The reservation referred to there was of land for military purposes; and in Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad v. United States, 92 U.S. 733, 745, it was said that this doctrine "applies with more force to Indian than to military reservations. The latter," the court observed, "are the absolute property of the government. In the former other rights are vested. Congress cannot be supposed to grant them in a subsequent law, general in its terms. Specific language, leaving no room for doubt as to the legislative will, is required for such a purpose."
The present constitution of Kansas was proposed by a convention of people in the then Territory, July 29, 1859, with specified boundaries. An ordinance of the convention, preceding it, recites that, "whereas the Government of the United States is the proprietor of a large portion of the lands included in the limits of the State of Kansas as defined by this constitution; and whereas the State will possess the right to tax said lands for purposes of government and for other purposes: Now therefore, be it ordained by the people of Kansas that the right of the State of Kansas to tax said lands is relinquished
Congress did not accept the proposed constitution with the conditions designated, but on the contrary, in its act for the admission of the State into the Union, passed on the 29th of January, 1861, c. 20, 12 Stat. 126, 127, after declaring that the State was admitted on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and, describing its boundary, added a clause, containing the following provisions among others: "Provided, That nothing contained in the said constitution respecting the boundary of said State shall be construed to impair the rights of person or property now pertaining to the Indians in said territory, so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty between the United States and such Indians, ... or to affect the authority of the Government of the United States to make any regulation respecting such Indians, their lands, property, or other rights, by treaty, law, or otherwise, which it would have been competent to make if this act had never been passed." By this provision Congress reserved to itself the right to make all needful regulations for the government of the Indians, and for the use and disposition of their lands and other property. The Indians continued thereafter as previously in possession of the lands, and their rights, whatever their nature and extent, were not extinguished by anything in the act of admission of the State into the Union, nor at the time of the grant of a right of way by the act of July 26, 1866.
One of these propositions declared "that sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in every township of public lands in said State, and where either of said sections or any part thereof has been sold or otherwise been disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to said State for the use of schools." And the several propositions were followed by the declaration that they were offered "on the condition that the people of Kansas shall provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without the consent of the United States, that said State shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil within the same by the United States or with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title in said soil to bona fide purchasers thereof."
These several provisions were accepted by the State of Kansas, by a joint resolution of its legislature, January 20, 1862, in this language: "That the propositions contained in the act of Congress entitled `An act for the admission of Kansas into the Union,' are hereby accepted, ratified, and confirmed, and shall remain irrevocable, without the consent of the United States; and it is hereby ordained that this State shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil within the same by the United States or with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title to said soil, to bona fide purchasers thereof; and no tax shall be imposed on lands belonging to the United States."
It is clear beyond any doubt from this statement of the
It follows, therefore, that the Supreme Court of the State, the court below, erred in sustaining the judgment of the inferior court of the State, in favor of the plaintiff in that court, the defendant in error here, and the judgment of the Supreme Court must therefore be
Reversed, and the cause remanded with directions to take further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
Comment
User Comments