Melville Fuller

“ The judgment of the court of civil appeals may have been rested in part on the view that the constitution of 1869 repealed all laws granting lands to railroad companies, regardless of the acceptance of such laws and the construction of the lines of road thereunder.
The supreme court proceeded on the ground that the road from Brenham to Austin was not authorized until after 1869, and fell into the category of a new line, and therefore the company had no right to the land grant. ”

“ And the right to construct the Austin line had been specifically conferred by the special act of February 7, 1853. The general branching privileges which the company possessed under its original act of incorporation it had been required to surrender by the act of 1856, except such as were 'expressly granted by the provisions of its charter to certain points,' and Austin was a point to which the company was expressly authorized to build. So that the Austin branch was one of the lines covered by the charter when the act of September 21, 1866, was passed, and the grant thereby made applied to it ”

“ Of course, the company was not entitled to land grant for the 25 miles from Hempstead to Brenham, nor is any such claim made, but that 25 miles became by the purchase a part of the branch with like effect as if originally part of it; and to treat the completion of the branch as a new and independent enterprise we cannot but regard as inadmissible in view of the facts, for this 25 miles had been purchased, was controlled and operated, and existed as a part of the company's Austin branch in fact. ”