Selections From The Splinters - Volume 14

THE NEW ORLEANS EXTENSION OF THE TEXAS AND PACIFIC

It will be remembered that the act of 1871 incorporating the Texas Pacific made a
donation of lands for the purpose of connecting New Orleans with Marshall, the eastern terminus of the line. The recipient of this grant, the New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Vicksburg, was a Louisiana corporation formed in 1869 to extend from any point on the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern to Vicksburg, and so lying east of the Mississippi.
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In the year of the grant and in 1873 maps were filed by this company and land
ordered withdrawn for it.

Now there is some doubt as to whether the New Orleans Baton Rouge and
Vicksburg - or the Backbone Company, as it was called - seriously intended to build the railway. In any case at the expiration of five years it had done nothing, and by the terms of the grant, it thereby forfeited its right to the lands. In 1877 Louisiana repealed its charter. It would seem that a railway company without rails, lands or charter was certainly a shadow.

The interests concerned, however, were not ready to give up the lands, and there
ensued as pretty a bit of wire - pulling, log - rolling and high finance as one could wish to see. It was first necessary to maintain a legal existence. To do so suit was brought against the backbone Company by a bondholder for $215,000. This was on June 4, 1877. On June 11, the company filed an exception alleging that the act of Louisiana repealing its charter was unconstitutional and void: On June 13, the exception was upheld by the court. A case of remarkable rapid justice.

The question involved complicated legal points. The state's charter had provided
that the grants and engagements it contained should be binding contract not to be modified or impaired without the company's petition and consent; while in her general law Louisiana reserved the right to repeal, and in her code (art. 447) was a provision that, for the public interest and upon abuse of privileges or refusal to accomplish its purposes, a corporation's charter might be revoked. The only exception made applied to a repeal which would violate contracts imported in the act and on faith of which money or property had been advanced. Upon this exception and the provision in the charter hung the validity of the court's decision.

Under other circumstances it is probable that the court would have ruled that the
charter itself was unconstitutional, in which case it would hardly seem that any contract imported in the charter was violated by the repeal. However that may be, the decision, though criticized, remained.

The question as to retaining the lands granted it by Congress also remained.
These had not been declared forfeited; but the time limit had expired. Accordingly in 1877 the Backbone railroad began vigorous pressure to have its time extended. Here it met Opposition as follows.

In 1875, a year before the Backbone Company's time expired, the New Orleans
and Pacific Railroad Company was chartered by Louisiana to construct a railway to Shreveport or Marshall, Texas, and in a few years actually built to Shreveport. This

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company's route lay west of the Mississippi. The new road almost at once-if,
indeed, it was not formed for that purpose- sought to have the Backbone Company's grant transferred to itself. Its president for several sessions between 1877 and 1880 vigorously denounced the Backbone Company'' claims; the above suit was a sham; it was illegal and the company property defunct.

Little progress was made by either company, and in 1881 came the inevitable- an
"agreement." The Backbone Company for a consideration of $1.00 sold its rights to the New Orleans and Pacific. President Wheelock of the New Orleans and Pacific got sufficient proxies from the other company's president to control a so-called meeting of its stockholders and ratified the sale, he himself voting the proxies which gave his company the lands. The deed was duly accepted by the grantee;

At this time it naturally occurs to one to inquire what was being done to validate
the expired land grants, and one wonders at the colossal nerve of the man who could one year give the lie to the claims of a rival company and the next year fight for the same claims. Shortly before the "sale" the commissioner had written the president of the New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Vicksburg, saying, "There can be no doubt that when the president of the New Orleans and Pacific accepts said transfer, the company will be fully invested with all the right, title and interests which the New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Vicksburg Company has in and to said grant," - a quit claim, that was all. It was not until 1883 that the interior department, after long delay and under considerable pressure, recognized the validity of the New Orleans and Pacific's claim to ownership of the Backbone grant.

Then the question of forfeiting the grant was raised in Congress. It was argued
that the line of the New Orleans and Pacific lay west of the Mississippi, whereas the grant had contemplated a road to the east of that river. Moreover it extended, in 1884, only to Shreveport, while Marshall was forty miles away. On these grounds it was maintained that the conditions of the grant had never been complied with. And the general rottenness and faithlessness of the whole deal favored the forfeiture.

On its part the New Orleans and Pacific came before Congress arguing (1) that
under the terms of the grant Congress had no power to forfeit, (2) that in any case the right had been waived, and (3) that it would be unjust and inexpedient. Chiefly on the last ground, as backed by inertia, Congress took no action to forfeit the grant till 1887. A majority of the numerous committee reports on the subject advised against the forfeiture.

While realizing that it may have been as well to allow the grant to stand on
grounds of expediency and leniency

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toward uninformed third parties, it can not be admitted that Congress had waived its right to forfeit. Mere silence can not in this case be constructed as such a waiver; and it is doubtful whether laches can be imputed to our government. The action of the department of the interior, too, was certainly not binding upon Congress.

In the last year of the period Congress finally took action in this matter and
forfeited a part of the grant,- the part lying east of the Mississippi and along so much of the New Orleans and Pacific as was completed in 1881. The title to the remaining portion was confirmed to the New Orleans and Pacific on condition that the titles of bona fide settlers were to hold.

<Underline center> R E S U M E<end underline>

Thus the southern route to the Pacific was occupied. In 1882 the Southern Pacific
joined the Texas and Pacific, and, the latter's New Orleans extension being completed, the second great transcontinental railroad line was formed. The following year the Southern Pacific secured a route of its own east from El Paso via Galveston. In 1883 the same Southern Pacific by constructing its Mojave branch met the tardy Atlantic and Pacific, the first of the roads to be aided by Congress, thus completing the northern fork of the southern route, i.e., the thirty-fifth parallel route desired by Memphis and other interests. This was the fourth transcontinental route.

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