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meeting of the stockholders of the companies separately, except such as may be implied from the certified copy of the articles of agreement of consolidation duly filed in the secretary's office. Is the absence of any evidence of these meetings and of the passage of the resolutions to accept the provisions of the act by the respective companies fatal to the creation of the new consolidated company, when all other requirements of the statute shall have been complied with? It will be observed that this is the last provision in the statute, though the thing ordered to be done is one of the first steps required in the process. It is also a provision which may well be held to be directory, and designed to secure evidence that each of the companies intending to consolidate recognized the statute as the sole authority for such consolidation, and their obligation to be governed by its provisions. If the other essential provisions of the act were complied with, it does not necessarily follow that the whole proceeding would be void for a failure to comply with this direction of the act. It is argued, however, that by the express language of the statute it is declared that, 'in case any such railroad companies shall consolidate or attempt to consolidate their roads contrary to the provisions of this act, such consolidation shall be void, and any person or party aggrieved, whether stockholders or not, may bring action against them in the circuit court of any county through which such road may pass, which court shall have jurisdiction in the case and power to restrain by injunction or otherwise.' This sentence does not come after but before the provision concerning the resolution accepting the law under which consolidation is made. In the orderly succession of ideas, this concerning the accepting the provisions of the statute was not in the mind of the draftsman when the provision making the consolidation void was penned. On the other hand, the limitation that the companies which are authorized to consolidate are only those whose roads when united will form in the whole or in the main one continuous line of railroad,' and that this authority 'shall not be construed to authorize the consolidation of any railroad companies or roads, except when by such consolida

Opinion of the Court.

tion a continuous line of road is secured, running in the whole or in the main in the same general direction,' and 'it shall not be lawful for said roads to consolidate in the whole or in part, when by doing so it will deprive the public of the benefit of competition between said roads,' immediately precedes the declaration that any attempt to consolidate contrary to the provisions of the act shall be void. It is the consolidation of such roads as do not form when so consolidated one continuous line, but may be made up of parallel and competing lines, which is forbidden and declared to be void. The language of the remedy prescribed by the statute indicates that it is for the violation of this principle that it is given. The court of the county in which the road lies or through which it passes, not that where the company has its organization or offices, shall have jurisdiction, and the remedy shall be to restrain the company by injunction or otherwise. It is the continuity or parallelism of the roads, the benefit of competition by roads between the same points, which is to be secured. And it is clear that the legislature was not so much interested about the companies and their amalgamation into one company as they were that rival roads and competing roads should not be consolidated and brought under the same control. I doubt very much whether the legislature intended to declare that even for a violation of this principle, much less of any of the other mere details of the mode of accomplishing this consolidation, it should be absolutely void, void ab initio, void anywhere and under all circumstances, but only, as the word 'void' is so often used in legislation and in written agreements, that it should be voidable; that if on investigation the roads were of that character which the statute forbids to be consolidated, the proper court could so declare and annul and avoid the consolidation. This is the more reasonable, as the parallelism or competing character of the two roads, if it were disputed, could only be satisfactorily ascertained by a judicial investigation, and it could not be permitted that any man who wished to do so could assume for himself that the consolidation was void and act accordingly. Without the aid of the statute, if the legislature or the governor or the attorney-gen

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eral of the State believed the roads were not such as the law permitted to be consolidated, they could, by the institution of proper proceedings in a court of justice, have the act of consolidation annulled, if they were correct in their views. This statute confers the right on any person aggrieved by such improper consolidation to have relief by application to the proper court, which would not otherwise exist.

"In regard to the acceptance of the provisions of the consolidation act to be filed with the secretary of State, this is eminently a matter between the State and the corporations whose rights are affected, and if, on a failure to file such acceptance, the consolidation is to become void, it is the privilege of the State to enforce the forfeiture or annulment, and not of every private person who shows an injustice or injury done to himself. But if this was more doubtful than it is, it appears to me that the proposition here insisted on is concluded by this language of the act: A certified copy of such articles of agreement [for consolidation], with the corporate name to be assumed by the new company, shall be filed with the secretary of State, when the consolidation shall be considered duly consummated, and a certified copy from the office of the secretary of State shall be deemed conclusive evidence thereof.' This certified copy from the secretary's office is to be considered evidence of something. Let us consider what and its effect as evidence. 1. Of what is it to be a copy? Of the articles of agreement for consolidation made by the companies to be consolidated; not of all the requirements of the statute, preliminary or otherwise. 2. What shall it prove? That thereafter the consolidation shall be considered duly consummated. There is no ambiguity in this. It shall be evidence that the consolidation has been perfected, and has resulted in the creation of a new corporation, whose name is to be found in this certified copy. 3. What is the effect of this evidence? The statute says it shall be conclusive. It is not necessary here to hold that, in a direct proceeding on the part of the State to have a declaration of the nullity of such a consolidation, no evidence can be received to impeach the validity of the original act of consolidation. It is my opinion that in such case

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the certified copy from the secretary's office would not be conclusive, but prima facie, evidence.

"But what is meant and what is reasonable is, that when a corporation so organized comes into a court of justice, either as plaintiff or defendant in a contest with individuals or other corporations in regard to any matter affecting its rights, its powers, its authority to make contracts, to sue or to be sued, the production of the paper mentioned shall end all inquiry into its existence as a corporation, with such powers as the law confers on it. It would be burdensome in the extreme, a hardship altogether unnecessary to any proper purpose, to require of a corporation doing an immense business to prove, in every controversy it may have growing out of that business, that all the steps which the law directs for the consolidation proceedings have been strictly complied with. The hardship would be as great on those who sue it for violated duty of contract, or otherwise, to be required to prove in the same manner the existence of the corporation which they bring into court.

"The question of the existence of this corporation arises incidentally in this effort of the county of Leavenworth to assert the rights of another company, and, though the bill prays that the consolidation be held void, it is not the State which makes this request or institutes or controls this proceeding, nor is the proceeding itself of the character of a direct suit for the purpose of procuring such a decree, which would bind the company in any other case.

"I am of the opinion that the consolidation of August, 1871, was valid, and that this corporation thus formed succeeded to the rights, the property, and the obligations of the Chicago and Southwestern Company created by the consolidation of September, 1869, and that it was the proper party to be sued and to represent all the interests of all the stockholders in all the corporations of which it was composed, including the county of Leavenworth as one of these stockholders."

We have carefully considered the views urged on the part of the appellant, in regard to the propositions thus laid down

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by the Circuit Court, and are of opinion that those propositions are sound; and it is sufficient for us to express our concurrence in them, without adding more.

The Circuit Court, in its opinion, next discusses the question of the validity of the proceedings in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Iowa, under which the road of the Southwestern Company was sold, and afterwards became a part of the new system of consolidated roads held by the Rock Island Company, and says: "The matter is much simplified by the fact that that court had jurisdiction of the case, jurisdiction of the parties plaintiff and defendant, of all the necessary parties to the relief sought, and of the subject matter of the suit. For any mere error of that court in its decision on matters of law or fact, the proper remedy was by appeal, and one of the parties did, as to its own interest, take such appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which affirmed the decree. Another remedy was by bill of review asking the same court to reconsider and reverse or modify its decree on the same or on newly discovered evidence. This course has not been adopted, and it admits of very serious. doubt whether any proceeding can be sustained in any other court the purpose of which is to set aside the decree of that court in the matter, of which it had jurisdiction. I know of no reason why the suit to have a decree declaring null and void the foreclosure proceedings of that court, by reason of any fraud in its procurement, whether it be legal fraud implied from the relations of the parties, or actual fraud practised in the progress of the case, should not have been brought in the court where these proceedings were had.

"Conceding, however, the jurisdiction of this court - the Circuit Court for the Western District of Missouri- to grant some form of relief inconsistent with the binding efficacy of the decrees of the Circuit Court for the District of Iowa, let us inquire on what grounds the efficacy of those decrees is denied. Although in the more enlarged use of the word it may be said the grounds are all founded on fraud, they present in reality two distinct propositions, namely:

"(1) That such were the relations of the trustees in the