Minnesota weekly times. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1859, 1854-12-12
KEEP 1T BEFORE THE PEOPLE.

bill that passed the Senate was not the bill
that passed the House, and Congress, therefore
repealed said bill. ,...l ......
Keep it before the people, that in the month Of
November, 1854, in the County of Goodhue, and
Territory of Minnesota, said Railroad Company
procured sham suit to be brought against them
there said Company came into open court and
plead their own forgery for their own benefit, and
the Attorney of the government did not plead
said forgery in bar to their fraudulent claim.
Keep it before the people that on the 9th day of
December, 1854, said suit came up before the
highest tribunal in our territory, the Supreme
Court, and that then and there the District At
torney, though repeatedly warned, obstinately re-
fused to perfect the record by pleading the for
gerry of defendants, thereby putting in jeopardy
the rights and interests of the United States, as
well as of the Territory of Minnesota.
THE DEMOCRAT ON LAW.
The Democrat of Dec. 5, has rich diquisition
on the law as connected with the railroad fraud.
The first point the writer endcavors to make is as
follows:
Now, to this we say, the Act granting the lands
to the Territory was law, or it was not a law
AS published in the official paper it appeared to
be a law, and the act as signed by the President,
appeared to be law also. Indeed the Pioneer
admits all this. If then it was law, and Con-
gress considered that it ought not to con-
tinue such, and desired to abolish it, the most
tional course would be to repeal it. Congress,
therefore did not consider it void by the alteration
which was made in the bill, but as a law in full
force and effect, the title of the repeating act be-
ing ''An act for the relief of Thomas Bronaugh,
and for the repeal of the Act to aid the Territory
of Minnesota in the construction of Railroad
therein," approved the 29th of June, 1854. Who
is to ,ve the judge whether it was law the Ed
itor of the Pioneer or Congress? If it was not a
law it could not be repealed. AS well might q
man kill another already dead.
Now does not the writer know that a fraud sno,a
as was pcrpetratcd in this case must Ct necessity
vitiate any act so far as affects it at all; and con-
sequcntly that portion of the Act in question would
have been declared void by any judicial tribunal
having Jurisdiction in the case. But this forgery
would not of necessity have rendered the whole
act invalid, Congress, however, well knowing that
| the men who had resorted to forgery, merely to
obtain ground to stand upon in contest for the
lands, would not fail to avail themselves of the adj
vantage thus gained to bring the matter before the
courts, therby causing much litigation, determined
to avail themselves of the power granted them by
the constitutions and inherent in all sovereignties,
to repeal the bill entirely.
That Congress has such power cannot be sue
cessfully dcnied and if the doctrine of the Dem
ocrat is correct, that the repeal of, an invalid law
renders it valid then the repeal of an unconsttu-
tional law would render it constitutional-a sage
conclusion truly.
| The Democrat says:
The United States do not admit that there was
any fraud they repudiate that by treating the act
as valid and subsisting law, by appointing
| through the lower House of Congress, a commit
tee of investigation, which reported that there was
none; and by repeating the act afterwards as a
valid and suhsisting law of the land. But sup
pose there was fraud, who committed it?
OF course Congress regarded the law as valid
when they appointed the committee to investigate
the charge made, for that committee was appoin-
ted to examine into and discover the very fact up
on which the validity invaldty of the law rest
ed.
Now we say the committee did report that a
fraud had been committed. The majority report
that the bill had been altered in material point,
and the minority report the same and say that the
bill that passed the Senate not the btu UKici
passed the House. Can bill thus be altered with
a view to transfer property from the control of
the Territory where Congress intended to place
it, to the hands of a company to whose benefit
congress had said it should not inure, without
fraud? According to the theory of the Schuyler
Organs it can-we hold differently.
The Democrat says that to plead that the for
gerry was committed by defendants or their agents
is too vague, and says:
This allegation it would not do to make in a
pleading; it is too vague, so it seems to us, though
not much versed in the law. 1t should not be sta
ted in the alternative but positively set forth the
name of the guilty person. Can the Editor of the
Pioneer do this, and thus aid the law officers of
the Government? and having done so, how would
he prove it? BY referring the whole subject to
himself and the Times, we suppose.
Now we would inform the editor that he must
certainly be wrong in this point, and we think
after stating it he might have spared the trouble
of telling us he was not versed in the law. If the
prosecution for forgery, then his proposition
would be correct, and the prisoner must be charg-
Ell by name; but in plea of forgery to void a
claim, no such particularly is necessary. fit be
proved that the instrument upon which the claim
is based is forgery, then it must fall to the
ground, no matter by whom that forgery was
committed; but this case is SO much stronger as it
is susceptible of proof that the fraud was commit
ted by the parties claiming under the forged in
| strument.
AS to the repeated assertion of the Democrat
and its co-laborers that the fraud could not be
plead in courts it is scarcely necessary to re-
flute claim so void Of truth. If not here, where
can it be plead. The law establishing the U. s.
Court in the Territory, Sec 9, Organic Act,
says:
| ssAnd each of said District Courts shall have
and exercise the same jurisdiction in all cases
arising under the constitution and laws of the
United States as is vested in the Circuit aud Dis
trict Courts of the United States"
Indeed the defendants in their answer admit
this, for if the court can declare the repeal of the
act invalid, they certainly have the same power in
regard to the original act when the case sproper
ly presented, and the fraud proven. .,
Trains are now running from Buffalo to
Detroit in eight hours. Seventeen hours was .
quick passage from one city to the other year
ago. sfr