Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/279

 roads. It was further provided that if any of the public lands had been sold, or preëmpted by settlers within the six miles limits on each side “then the nearest public lands within the distance of fifteen miles from said roads shall be appropriated to make good the amount of land intended to be granted to the State for the construction of the four lines of railroad.” The agents of the State proceeded under this act to select the land embraced in these grants, and as it had been decided by the officers of the Land Department of the General Government that the grant to aid in the improvement of the navigation of the Des Moines River did not extend above the Raccoon Fork, the public lands within five miles of the Des Moines River were selected under the grant of 1856. Two powerful corporations were deeply interested in having this decision circumvented and, as their claims had been declared void, the Des Moines Valley Railroad Company and the old Navigation Company now organized a powerful lobby to secure an empire of valuable lands to which they had neither title nor an equitable claim. Strange as it will appear to the present generation, they succeeded in a scheme that not only nullified in effect the late equitable decision of the Supreme Court but also ejected the settlers on Government lands who held their homes by the highest and hast title the Nation could give to its citizens.

On the 3d of November, 1860, the Secretary of the Interior notified Governor Kirkwood that the land which had been in dispute in the upper Des Moines valley, by virtue of conflicting opinions of Government officials, could now be preëmpted or entered and that such settlers would receive from the Government valid titles for the lands thus entered, preëmpted or settled upon.

On the 2d of March, 1861, in order to avoid the hardships that might arise from the late decision of the Supreme Court as to the extent of the original land grant, Congress passed the following joint resolution: