* shall succeed to, possess, and be entitled Acts of Congress Subsequent to 1864. By a further act, approved March 3, 1865 (13 Stat., 504), section 2, it was provided "that the assignment made by the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California to the Western Pacific Railroad Company of said state, of the right to construct all that portion of said railroad and telegraph from the city of San José to the city of Sacramento, is hereby ratified and confirmed to the said Western Pacific Railroad Company, with all the privileges and benefits of the several acts of Congress relating thereto, and subject to all the conditions thereof." * * * Although no further amendments to the Act of 1862 were passed before the issue of subsidy bonds was begun, the subsequent acts of Congress, amending the Act of 1862, give much information in regard to the relations of the Government to the companies, and assist in the construction of the acts already cited. By the Act of July 3, 1866 (14 Stat., 79), it was provided that the Union Pacific might— "continue their road from Omaha, in Nebraska Territory, westward, according to the best and most practicable route, and without reference to the initial point on the one hundredth meridian of west longitude, as now provided by law, in a continuous completed line, "-- until they should meet and connect with the Central Pacific Railroad of California; and the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California was authorized to continue their road eastward in a continuous, completed line until they should meet and connect with the Union Pacific Railroad. By the Appropriation Act of March 2, 1867 (14 Stat., 457: ch. 166, sec. 3), the whole line was recognized as "The Pacific Railroad" in directing "a geological and topographical exploration of the territory between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including the route or routes of the Pacific railroad." The Act of March 6, 1868 (15 Stat., 39), restores to homestead settlement "all the even-numbered sections of land belonging to the government, and now withdrawn from the market, on both sides of the Pacific railroad and branches, wherever said roads and branches have been definitely located." The joint resolution passed April 10, 1869 (16 Stat., 56), entitled, “Joint Resolution for the Protection of the Interests of the United States in the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and for other Purposes," fixed the common terminus of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads at or near Ogden, and required the Union Pacific to build, and the Central Pacific to pay for and own the railroad, from the terminus aforesaid to Promontory summit, at which point the rails should meet and connect and form one continuous line. The President was authorized to ap point a commission of eminent citizens to examine and report, among other things, upon the condition of the two companies. He was ordered to withhold from each of the companies an amount of subsidy bonds authorized to be issued by the United States, sufficient to secure the full completion, as a firstclass road, of all sections of such road upon which bonds had already been issued. In lieu of such bonds he was permitted to receive as such security an equal amount of the first mortgage bonds of such company. If it should appear to him that the amount of subsidy bonds yet to be issued to either of the companies was insufficient to insure the full completion of such road, he was authorized to make requisition upon such company for a sufficient amount of bonds already issued to said company, or, in his discretion, of their first mortgage bonds, to secure the full completion of the same. The Attor ney-General was authorized to prosecute all necessary proceedings to compel the giving of such security, and thereby, or in any manner otherwise, to protect the interests of the United States in said road, and to insure the full completion thereof as a first-class road. The Attorney-General was further "authorized and directed to investigate whether or not the charter and all the franchises of the Union Pacific Railroad Company and of the Central Pacific Railroad Company have not been forfeited, and to institute all necessary and proper legal proceedings." The Act of May 6, 1870 (16 Stat., 121). fixes the common terminus and point of junction of the two companies; and grants them certain sections of land at and about the terminus "in equal shares, with the same rights, privileges, and obligations now by law provided with reference to other lands granted to said railroads." The "Thurman Act," so called, of May 7, 1878 (20 Stat., 56), sheds a flood of light upon the question now under consideration. After reciting the issue of bonds to the two railroads and the issue of their own bonds as a prior and paramount lien to the same amounts, this act contains the following recitals: "Whereas the United States, in view of the indebtedness and operations of said several railroad companies respectively, and of the disposition of their respective incomes, are not and cannot, without further legislation, be secure in their interests in and concerning said respective railroads and corporations, either as mentioned in said acts or otherwise; and Whereas a due regard to the rights of said several companies respectively, as mentioned in said act of eighteen hundred and sixty-two, as well as just security to the United States in the premises, and in respect of all the matters set forth in said act, require that the said act of eighteen hundred and sixty-two be altered and amended as hereinafter enacted; and Whereas, by reason of the premises also, as well as for other causes of public good and justice, the powers provided and reserved in said act of eighteen hundred and sixty-four for the amendment and alteration thereof ought also to be exercised as hereinafter enacted." It proceeds to provide in section 2 "That the whole amount of compensation which may, from time to time, be due to said several railroad companies respectively for services rendered for the Government shall be retained by the United States, one-half thereof to be presently applied to the liquidation of the interest paid and to be paid by the United States upon the bonds so issued by it as aforesaid, to each of said corporations severally, and the other half thereof to be turned into the sinking-fund hereinafter provided, for the uses therein mentioned." Section 3 then provides for the establishment in the Treasury of the United States of a sinking-fund, which shall be invested by the Secretary of the Treasury, in bonds of the United States; and the semi-annual income thereof shall be in like manner from time to time invested, and the same shall accumulate and be disposed of as hereinafter mentioned. And in making such investments, the Secretary shall prefer the five per centum bonds of the United States, unless, for good reasons appearing to him, and which he shall report to Congress, he shall at any time deem it advisable to invest in other bonds of the United States." * * * Section 4 requires "that there shall be carried to the credit of the said fund, on the first day of February in each year, the one-half of the compensation for services hereinbefore named, rendered for the Government by said Central Pacific Railroad Company, not applied in liquidation of interest; and in addition thereto, the said company shall, on said day in each year, pay into the Treasury, to the credit of said sinkingfund, the sum of one million two hundred thousand dollars, or so much thereof as shall be necessary to make the five per centum of the net earnings of its said road payable to the United States under the act of eighteen hundred and sixty-two, and the whole sum earned by it as compensation for services rendered for the United States, together with the sum by this section required to be paid, amounting in the aggregate to twenty-five per centum of the whole net earnings of said |