The Federal Reporter. Volume 4: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States. October-December, 1880. Page: 283
xiv, 928 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
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BTEBBINS P. COMMISSIONER OF PUEBLO COUNTY. 288
road called the Pueblo & Salt Lake Railroad, 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 act 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-
strue 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 internal 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 so, 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 affect any contracts or
transactions prior to its passage, it is sufficient 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 coloration
filed its certificate of organization in 1873; it therefore was
organized after the declaratory act, and, so far as that is__
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Boyle, Peyton. The Federal Reporter. Volume 4: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States. October-December, 1880., legislative document, 1881; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc36333/m1/297/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.