United States v. Des Moines Navigation and Railway Company‪.‬

Prior to the decision of this court in Dubuque &c. Railroad Co. v. Litchfield, 23 How. 66, which decision was announced in 1860, it was a disputed question whether the grant extended above the Raccoon Fork. The opinions and rulings of the executive officers of the government were conflicting; and it is not strange that many settled upon these lands in the belief that they were public lands of the United States, and open to settlement. But if they were not in fact open to settlement -- if the title legally and fairly passed to the navigation company -- no relief from the hardships occasioned by their mistake can be furnished by the courts, whose functions are limited to declaring where, in the face of conflicting claims, the title really rests. We pass, therefore, to the consideration of the matter of title.