Stephen Johnson Field

“ The estate of the company was, therefore, a purely 'executory inheritance.' Even if the rule could be held to apply to a grant by a State, its application is entirely superseded by the provisions of the constitutional amendment. They were designed to secure the completion of the road, or specified portions, within the time prescribed, by enabling the State, in case of default, to resume the franchises and lands pertaining to the uncompleted portion, or the whole if twenty miles had not been completed, and to seek other agencies or means for accomplishing the end in view. ”

“ But that mode is not essential to the divestiture of the interest where the grant is for the accomplishment of an object in which the public is concerned, and is made by a law which expressly provides for the forfeiture when that object is not accomplished. Where land and franchises are thus held, any public assertion by legislative act of the ownership of the State, after default of the grantee,- such as an act resuming control of them and appropriating them to particular uses, or granting them to others to carry out the original object,-will be equally effectual and operative. ”

“ The act of March 10, 1862, is a clear assertion of forfeiture of the estate, rights, privileges, and franchises of the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad Company. It grants all of them in express terms to the new company, and makes them in its possession subject to be forfeited to the State if the conditions annexed are not performed. And the failure of the original company to complete any portion of the road, as provided in the amendment of 1858, is not questioned by the complainants. ”