Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/297

 6TEBBINS r. GOUMISSIOKEBS 07 FDEBLO OOUNTT. 283 �road called the Pueblo & Sait Lake Eailroad, or some such name as that, that were issued in 187^. The defence to them is that the county had no authority to subscribe to stock in any railroad at that time. An aot of the territorial legisla- ture of 1868 does authorize counties to take stock in railroad companies, but the argument is, and the plea is, that at that time there existed no law by which any railroad company could be organized in the manner that this company has been organized; that the act of congress of March 2, 1867, im-' pliedly forbade such organization ; and probably that is a fair construction of that act. But, by a subsequent act of 1872, congress, as the defendant alleges, undertook to con- Btrue that act, and in their construction of it they declare that it should be held to extend to the right to organize rail- road companies. It is denied that congress has any right to give a construction to the statute which will bind the court, and therefore that act of 1867 remains, and this railroad has no competent organization which will enable it to take subscriptions to stock. But, in a case which came up con- cerning taxation under the internai revenue law, which I decided myself in the supreme court, a very similar statute, construing a former statute, is made the subject of considera- tion, and in that case the court held that, while it might not be true that rights existing prior to the explanatory or declar- atory statute will be affected by that declaratory statute, yet, inasmuch as congress or any legislative body has a right to pass a law for the future that such a statute shall be held to mean so and bo, while it may not affect past transactions, it is equivalent to the passage of a statute of that character for the future; and, while it is not necessary for us to decide here whether that declaratory statute would aJïect any contracta or transactions prior to its passage, it is suflScient to say that after its passage it became a part of the law of 1867, and it was a declaration by congress that railroad companies might be organized in the manner that this was organized, after that period. That waS passed in 1872, and this oor-^oration filed its certificate of organization in 1873; it thereiore was organized after the declaratory act, and, so far as that is ����