Opinion of the Court. ings makes it, at least, a corporation de facto, and the legality of its constitution as a corporation will not be inquired into collaterally. It has, as we know, from the case of Ames V. Kansas, been called in question in a regular way by an information in the nature of a quo warranto, and until that, or some other case directly assailing the validity of the consolidation, is decided, the plaintiff in error must be regarded as a corporation organized under and by virtue of the laws of the United States. And the whole being, capacities, authority and obligations of the company thus consolidated are so based upon, permeated by and enveloped in the acts of Congress referred to, that it is impracticable, so far as the operations and transactions of the company are concerned, to disentangle those qualities and capacities, which have their source and foundation in these acts, from those which are derived from State or Territorial authority. With regard to transactions occurring in Nebraska, on the original line of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, it is not disputed that the present company derives all its corporate and other powers from the acts of Congress and is strictly and purely a United States corporation; and the Texas and Pacific Railway Company stands in the same predicament and occupies the same position in Texas, in relation to consolidation with State organizations, as the Union Pacific does in Kansas, and the same considerations apply to both. It was originally incorporated by the name of the Texas Pacific Railroad Company by act of Congress, approved March 3, 1871, 16 Stat. 573, with power to construct a railroad from Marshall, Texas, to San Diego on the Pacific Coast, and to purchase, or consolidate with, any railroad company, chartered by Congressional, State, or Territorial authority on the same route. Under this act, and by authority of the Legislature of Texas, a consolidation was effected with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and the Southern Transcontinental Railway Company, corporations of Texas, and by act of Congress of May 2, 1872, 17 Stat. 59, the name of the company was changed to the Texas and Pacific Railway Company. The powers, privileges and advantages given to the company, by Congress, and the duties imposed Opinion of the Court. upon it, are specified in the acts referred to. It comes clearly within the reason and conclusion applied to the Union Pacific Railway Company. If we are correct, therefore, in the conclusion to which we have come, that suits by and against such corporations are "suits arising under the laws of the United States," then they are, in terms, embraced in § 2 of the act of March 3, 1875, and the cases now under consideration were removable to the respective Circuit Courts of the United States, to which it was sought to remove them, unless any of them were obnoxious to some other objection peculiar to the individual cases. The point suggested by the Supreme Court of Texas in the case of McAlister, that the petition was not verified by oath, would not be tenable if it were raised by the defendant in error, since it was evidently waived by him at the time, having never been raised or mentioned in any way. The same may be said of the delay in filing the petition in the case of Murphy. See Ayers v. Watson, 113 U. S. 594. In the Kansas City case, of proceedings for widening a street running through the depot grounds of the company at that place, brought here by writ of error to the Circuit Court of the United States, for the Western District of Missouri, it is contended by the City of Kansas, the defendant in error, first, that the consolidated railway company must be regarded as having the same status as if it were still the Kansas Pacific Railway Company, a corporation of the State of Kansas; secondly, that the case had already been tried once before the Mayor and a jury, and an appeal had been taken to the Circuit Court of Jackson County before the petition for removal was filed, and, therefore, the application came too late; and, thirdly, that the proceeding was not a separate one against the railway company, but a joint one against that company and many other persons, and the appeal of the railway company and other parties carried the whole case to the Circuit Court of Jackson County to be retried in toto; and a removal of the case by the railway company to the Circuit Court of the United States must be a removal of the whole case, and not merely the case of the railway company, which would cast upon VOL. CXV-2 Opinion of the Court. the Federal Court an administrative function in local matters, for which it was incompetent and destitute of jurisdicton. The first of these points has already received consideration. But it may be added, as bearing on this particular case, that the original Kansas company was authorized by 9 of the Pacific Railroad act of July 1, 1862, to extend its road into the State of Missouri-that is, "to construct a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River, at the mouth of the Kansas River, on the south side thereof [which is in the State of Missouri], so as to connect with the Pacific Railroad of Missouri, to the aforesaid point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude," namely, the point where the Union Pacific was to commence. This provision looked to the establishment of a continuous line of railroad from the Mississippi River, at St. Louis (the eastern terminus of the Pacific Railroad of Missouri), to the Pacific Ocean. The power assumed by Congress in giving this authority to the Kansas company was, undoubtedly, assumed to be within the power "to regulate commerce among the several states;" and, although by an act of the Legislature of Missouri, passed in February, 1865, the consent of that State was also given to the extension of the road into its territory, and to its connection with the Missouri road, the fact remains that the company claimed and assumed to exercise its powers under the act of Congress, as well as by the consent of the Legislature of Missouri. So that the right of appropriating the very property in question in this case was claimed under authority of an act of Congress. This circumstance adds strength to the claim of the plaintiff in error that the case was one "arising under the laws of the United States." The second ground of objection, that the cause had been once tried before the mayor by a jury, and an appeal taken, before a petition for removal was filed, and therefore the application was too late, is answered by the reasoning of this court in the case of The Boom Company v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403, which was a case very similar in this respect to the present. It was there held that the preliminary proceedings were in the nature of an inquest to ascertain the value of the prop Opinion of the Court. erty condemned, or sought to be condemned by the right of eminent domain, and was "not a suit at law in the ordinary sense of those terms," consequently not a "a suit" within the meaning of the removal acts; but that "when it was transferred to the District Court by appeal from the award of the commissioners, it took, under the statute of the State, the form of a suit at law, and was thenceforth subject to its ordinary rules and incidents." In that case, "the point in issue on the appeal was the compensation to be made to the owner of the land; in other words, the value of the property taken. No other question was open to contestation in the district court." The court, therefore, considered the case to be within the rule laid down in Gaines v. Fuentes, 92 U. S. 10, 20, in which it was held that a controversy between citizens of different States is involved in a suit whenever any property or claim of the parties, capable of pecuniary estimation, is the subject of litigation and is presented by the pleadings for judicial determination." And, in this view, the case of Boom Co. v. Patterson was held to be removable to the federal court. That case, we think, governs the present, so far, at least, as relates to the trial before the mayor, which was in its nature an inquest of valuations and assessments, not having the character of a suit. A more embarrassing question arises under the third objection raised by the defendant in error, to wit, that the whole case relating to the widening of the street was carried before the Circuit Court of Jackson County by the appeal, and must also be carried to the Circuit Court of the United States in the same condition if the application for a removal is sustained, whereby the latter court will be called upon to exercise administrative functions of a local character to which it is incompetent. To understand the bearing of this objection, it is necessary to inquire, first, the condition of the case in the Circuit Court of Jackson County on the appeal; and, secondly, the rules which must govern the case on its removal to the federal court, if such a removal should be effected. The condition of the case in the Circuit Court of Jackson County on the appeal depends upon the statute of Missouri Opinion of the Court. under which the proceedings were had for widening the street. This statute was an amendment to the city charter of the City of Kansas, passed in 1875. We have carefully examined its provisions. After giving very full directions as to the preliminary proceedings, such as the ordinance for opening or widening a street, the notices to be given, the summoning of jurors, and the duties to be performed by them, the recording of their verdict, &c., § 6 declares: "In case the city, or any defendant to such proceedings, shall feel aggrieved by the verdict of the jury, such party so aggrieved may, within twenty days from the time the verdict of the jury is confirmed by the common council, appeal to the circuit court in and for the County of Jackson in this State. If the appeal is taken by either party, the same shall be taken and perfected by the filing with the clerk of the city, within the time aforesaid, such an affidavit as is required by law, in appealing from the judgment of a justice of the peace. If any appeal is so taken, the clerk of the said city shall, within six days from the taking of such appeal, file a complete transcript of the proceedings, and all papers filed and used in the trial, certified by him, with the clerk of the circuit court; and said circuit court shall thereupon become possessed of the cause, and said cause, unless dismissed, shall be tried de novo in said court, and the parties thereto shall have a speedy trial thereof, and to that end said causes shall have precedence over all other causes, and if necessary to a full determination of any question arising in the said cause, the circuit court shall have power to make and bring in other parties to such proceedings, on service of notice upon them for six days, or by publishing a notice to them for the same length of time, in any daily newspaper printed in said City of Kansas; and the parties so made by either kind of notice, and all persons claiming under them, shall be bound by such proceedings; and the judge of said circuit court shall have power, and it shall be his duty to hold a sitting of his court for the speedy trial thereof, at the court house in said city, at any time in vacation, and summon a jury before him (unless a jury is waived) for the trial of such appeals only, such trials to be had in all respects, and subject to the same rules and the same law as |