Henry Billings Brown

“ It is especially objectionable that a construction of a statute favorable to the individual citizen should be changed in such manner as to become retroactive, and to require from him the repayment of moneys to which he had supposed himself entitled, and upon the expectation of which he had made his contracts with the government. ”

“ In this case the language would be confined to the linear parts of such roads as received the aid of the land grants,-in the case under consideration, only that part of the road lying in Alabama or Mississippi; or they may mean that railroads, any linear part of which received the aid of a land grant of congress in its construction, should be bound to carry the mails at a reduced rate over the entire line. This-which is doubtless the literal reading of the statute-supports the contention of the government in this case. ”

“ There was no error in the judgment of the court of claims, and it is therefore affirmed.
Notes
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105) . ”