conformity with the provisions of the Act aforesaid (1850) as soon as may be practicable after the passage of this law."

There is not a word in all this provision, which has any reference or relation to swamp lands which may have been purchased by private individuals or located by warrant on scrip, prior to the date of the Act or to any right, claim, or demand of the States, to, upon, or in respect to such lands, or the proceeds thereof, or other equivalent land. It provides only for the issuing of patents to the States; and the land for which patents are directed to be issued, are swamp lands which are vacant, unappropriated, and unsettled, and which were selected and reported to the Government as of the character of lands granted by the Act of 1850, prior to the 3d of March, 1857. Under this provision, the State would maintain no claim to the moneys realized on sales of swamp lands, made before or after that date, whether the lands sold were selected, and reported as being of that description, prior thereto, or not.

We come now to the proviso. It declares that the Act of March 2, 1855, is hereby continued in force and extended to all entries and locations of lands claimed as swamp lands made since its passage." I think that no greater effect should be given to the words hereby continued in force, than if the provision had been, that the Act of 1855 is "hereby re-enacted;" but that the same effect must be given to them as if that had been the language of the proviso.

What then would have been the construction of this proviso, if it had declared the Act of 1855 to be re-enacted? It is a general rule of construction that the clauses of reference, incorporating the provisions of former statutes, take effect as fully as if they had been repeated and re-enacted in the body of the latter Act, with relation thereto. (Dwarris on Statutes, 602.)

If we give, then, the same effect to the Act of March 2, 1855, as if it had been in terms repeated and re-enacted on the 3d of March, 1857 we find that the cases of sales and locations of lands, claimed as swamp lands, which had occurred prior to March 3, 1857, and subsequent to March 2, 1855, are fully comprehended, and that we have a substantive provision made on the 3d of March, 1857, that the purchase money of any of the lands sold, which the States may

prove to be swamp lands within the meaning of the Act of 1850, shall be paid over to the State and that indemnity, in other equivalent land, shall be given for those lands, of the character mentioned, which were located by warrant or scrip. The grant was not exclusively of the purchase moneys of these swamp lands which had been. selected and reported before March 3, 1857. Patents were directed to be issued for these, if they were unappropriated and unsettled. But the grant, by effect of the proviso, was of the purchase money of all lands claimed as swamp lands, which had been sold by the Government prior to March 3, 1857, and which the States could prove were of the character of lands granted by the original Act of 1850.

We have no more right to import into the proviso from the purview of the Act, the words of limitation that are found there, than we would have to incorporate into the Act of 1855, a provision that the lands purchased or located for which the States, under that Act, were entitled to indemnity, shall have been selected and reported as swamp lands to the Government before March 2, 1855.

It is fully implied in what I have said, that the provisions of the Act of 1855 thus in effect re-enacted on March 3, 1857, must be held to be strictly retrospective as of that date, according to the view which I have expressed in regard to the statute of 1855.

While I affirm, therefore, the validity of the claim of the State of Iowa, under this legislation, to the purchase moneys of public lands within her limits sold between March 2, 1855, and March 3, 1857, and which you may determine were swamp lands within the meaning of the Act of 1850, and to indemnity in land for the lands located with warrants or scrip, during that period, which you may likewise determine were swamp lands according to the true intent of that statute I dismiss as without legal merit, under the legislation referred to, any claim for indemnity for lands within that designation, which were, sold or located subsequently to March 3, 1857. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

[Signed.]

JAMES SPEED,

Attorney General.

B.

STATEMENT

Showing the whole area of the grant to the State of Lowa under the Act of the 12th of July, 1862, and the amount sold and otherwise disposed of by the United States prior to the passage of said Act; and showing, also, the area contained in the old "River Lists," and the vacant lands within the limits of said grant above the mouth of the Raccoon Fork of the Des Moines River:

Whole area of the River Grant, from the Raccoon Fork

to the northern boundary line of the State......... 558,004.06

Lands sold and patented and in process of

Selected and embraced in the old river lists.. 58,817.30
Vacant sections and parts of sections in
place, within the limits of the river
grant..

170,116.95

558,004.06

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 28, 1865.

SIR: The authorized agents of the State of Iowa have taken exceptions to certain items charged by you to the State, in setting apart the indemnity to be selected pursuant to the Act of Congress approved July 12, 1862, (Stat., vol. 12, p. 543), for aid in improving the navigation of the Des Moines river.

From your report of the 14th March last, it appears that the entire quantity of lands inuring to the State, as determined under the opinion of my immediate predecessor, dated November 3, 1862, is 558,001.16 acres. You have decided that against said amount, the State is chargeable

1st, with lands found in place as heretofore

listed......

2nd, with lands confirmed to the State by Joint Resolution of March 2, 1861, though not within five miles of the river.

3rd, with an excess of land that has been listed to the State of Iowa under the grant by Act of Sept. 4, 1841.....

224,961.17 acres.

11,661.80 acres.

19,308.17 acres.

4th, with the amount of a special certificate

issued...

300,000.00 acres.

Total acres.

555,931.04 acres.

Leaving a balance due of........ 2,070.12 acres.

The agents of the State, having taken an appeal from your action, claim that there is improperly included in the 1st item, 12,813.51 acres of land that has heretofore been certified to the State under the grant of 500,000 acres, by the Act of Congress approved Sept. 4, 1841, and that the second and third items, as above, have been erroneously charged, and should not enter into the account.

They also claim that you erred in refusing to sanction the selection of even numbered sections along the Des Moines river, which are alternate to the odd numbered sections granted.

Having examined the subject, I am of the opinion that the 12,813.51 acres should not be charged in this account. These lands were approved to the State on the 17th February, 1851, under the grant of 500,000 acres, by the Act of Sept. 4, 1841, and it is to be inferred from other facts stated, that they have been sold by the State during the time intervening since the approval. They lie above the Raccoon Fork of the Des Moines river, and hence were not a part of the original grant by the Act of August 8, 1846; nor

did the confirmatory Act of 1861 create a title superior to that which was confirmed and recognized by this Department on the 17th of February, 1851.

Indemnity for the tracts set apart for railroads within the five miles limits of the Des Moines river grant, has been allowed by the decisions of the Department, dated November 3, 1862, and April 7, 1863, and I am of the opinion that these 12,813.51 acres stand in the same category as the railroad tracts, and that indemnity for them should likewise be allowed.

In regard to the item of 11,661.80, I am of opinion that it is a proper charge against the State in this account, although the lands do not lie within five miles of the Des Moines river as now determined and delineated by geographers, and the public surveys.

These lands, lying adjacent to the stream now known as the East Fork of the Des Moines river, but then known as the Des Moines river itself, were included in approved lists prepared under the Act of Congress of August 8, 1846, and have been regarded as confirmed to the State by the Joint Resolution of March 2, 1861.

Though the words of that resolution and of the law of 1862 admit of a strong argument in favor of the claim that these lands are granted to the State, as well as those which can be brought within the description given in the last mentioned law, it is the opinion of this Department that under the Act of 186, they are to be charged to the State in adjusting the quantity of indemnity. They have been obtained for the object of the grants, and though entertaining some doubt upon the subject, I deem it to be the safer conclusion, that it was not the intention of Congress that the quantity of the grant and selections should exceed the aggregate quantity of the odd numbered sections, lying within five miles of the Des Moines river, from its mouth to the Northern boundary of the State of Iowa.

The proposal to offset a part of the lands inuring to Iowa under the Des Moines grant, against a quantity she had received in excess of the grant of 500,000 acres by Act of September 4, 1841, will be sanctioned, if it can be done with the assent and under the proper authority of the State; and Messrs. Kilbourne and Mason in behalf of this State, now, by letters of 17th of February, undertake to complete an arrangement for a settlement.