sanderson, sw

webodec is main

uber23 | Sanderson SW atty

merri ok

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thom unequal bk

The Chief Legal Advisor for the Southern Pacific Railroad was again S. W. Sanderson, a former judge, huge, aristocratic bear of a man, over six feet tall, with neatly combed gray hair and an elegantly trimmed white goatee. For over two decades, Sanderson had become a rich man litigating for the nation's largest railroads: artist Thomas Hill included a portentous and dignified Sanderson in his famous painting The Last Spike about the 1869 meeting of the rail lines of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads at Promontory Summit, Utah.

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Silas Woodruff Sanderson (April 16, 1824–1886) was the 7th Chief Justice of California.

Born in Sandgate, Vermont, Sanderson attended Burr Seminary, Williams College, and Union College, graduating from the last in 1846; he was soon admitted to the bar in New York state. He then moved to Florida where he went into practice with his older brother John in Jacksonville. In 1850 he sailed to California via the Strait of Magellen and settled in Coloma.

As a Democrat, Sanderson was elected district attorney in El Dorado County. Dismayed at the secessionist sentiment in the Democratic party, he became a Republican and backed Leland Stanford for Governor of California in the next election. In 1862 he was elected to the state legislature; the following year he was elected to his first term on theSupreme Court of California,where he served until resigning in 1870 to become a legal advisor to the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Sanderson married Margaret Beatty Ormsby in 1858; they had four daughters, including Sibyl Sanderson, a notable operatic soprano.

References:

• The Sibyl Sanderson Story: Requiem for a Diva, Jack Winsor Hansen, 2005, Amadeus Press, p. 1-5.

. Likewise, Silas W. Sanderson, who became the head of the legal department of the Central Pacific after Edwin B. Crocker retired from business in 1869, was a former justice of the California Supreme Court

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thom bk

The Chief Legal Advisor for the Southern Pacific Railroad was again S. W. Sanderson, a former judge, huge, aristocratic bear of a man, over six feet tall, with neatly combed gray hair and an elegantly trimmed white goatee. For over two decades, Sanderson had become a rich man litigating for the nation's largest railroads: artist Thomas Hill included a portentous and dignified Sanderson in his famous painting The Last Spike about the 1869 meeting of the rail lines of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads at Promontory Summit, Utah.

http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/marchandslides.bak/8238.jpg

ident # http://cprr.org/Museum/Engravings/Last%20Spike+Key%20toPortraits.html

newspaer art? http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist11/hillslastspike.html cable anti theft? pting damaged

very detailled; http://cprr.org/Museum/Bowman_Last_Spike_CHS.html

Wiring for the Broadcasts.The reporters are in general agreement as to some sort of wiring of the hammer and the spike for broadcasting the blows over the Western Union system. Nothing has been learned as to who initiated the idea of a broadcast nor when the agreement was reached; the first notice found of such an arrangement is dated May 4 in Sacramento. The wiring work would take some time, and so must have been done, with a regular sledge and a regular spike, before the ceremony began.

The reporters indicate that the wiring was actually done by F. L. Vandenberg of the Union Pacific, with the help of the Central Pacific's telegraph operator H. Sigler. The sledge was to be handled by Stanford, who was to strike the initial blow for the broadcast and who would naturally stand on his side — the south side — of the tie; consequently it would be wired to the Central Pacific line, with the spike wired to the Union Pacific wires. The regular telegraph wires were also connected with the key of the operator who made the systemwide broadcast.

The lead lawyer for Santa Clara County, California was Delphin M. Delmas, a Democrat who later went into politics and by 1904 was known as 'the silver-tongued Orator of the West' when he was elected a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from California. While Waite and Sanderson had spent their lives serving the richest men in America, Delmas had always worked on behalf of local California governments and, later, as a criminal defense attorney. For example, he passionately and single-handedly argued before the California legislature for a law to protect the remaining redwood forests.

Fiercely defensive about the 'rights of natural persons,' Delmas was a fastidious, unimposing man, known to wear 'a frock coat, gray-striped trousers, a wing collar and an Ascot tie,' whose 'voice thrummed with emotion' and was nationally known as 'the master dramatist of America's courtrooms..' He had a substantial nose and a broad forehead only slightly covered in its center with a wispy bit of thinning hair. In the courtroom he was a brilliant dramatist, as the nation would learn in 1908 when he successfully defended Harry K. Thaw for murder in what was the most sensational case of the first half of the century, later made into the 1955 movie The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.

The case about to be decided in the Old Senate Chamber before Justice Waite's Supreme Court was about the way Santa Clara County had been taxing land and rights-of-way of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Claiming the taxation was improper, the railroad had refused for six years to pay taxes levied by Santa Clara County, and the case had ended up before the Supreme Court, with Delmas and Sanderson making the main arguments before the court.

...

That year Sanderson decided to again sue a government agency that was trying to regulate his railroad's activity. This time he went after Santa Clara County, California. His claim, in part, was that because a railroad was a 'person' under the constitution, local governments couldn't 'discriminate' against it by having different laws and taxes in different places. In 1885, the case came before the Supreme Court.

In arguments before the court in January, 1885, Sanderson asserted that 'corporate persons' should be treated the same as 'natural (or human) persons.'

He said, 'I believe that the clause [of the Fourteenth Amendment] in relation to equal protection means the same thing as the plain and simple yet sublime words found in our Declaration of Independence, 'all men are created equal.' Not equal in physical or mental power, not equal in fortune or social position, but equal before the law.'

Sanderson's fellow lawyer for the railroads, George F. Edmunds, added his opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment leveled the field between artificial persons (corporations) and natural persons (humans) by a 'broad and catholic provision for universal security, resting upon citizenship as it regarded political rights, and resting upon humanity as it regarded private rights.'

But that wasn't actually what the case was about - that was just a minor point....

At this point, Delmas cut right to the heart of the issue. Sanderson had before made his claim of the 'secret committee' of Congress that helped write the fourteenth amendment and meant for it to equalize corporate persons and human persons [Conkling waved his journal in san mateo case 3 yrs earlier 1882?] .Delmas, if his performance before the Supreme Court was consistent with his later well-documented performances in criminal courtrooms, would have been trembling in righteous indignation as he said:

Could Congress have by any possibility meant to confer upon artificial persons the same rights in the respects enumerated as were enjoyed by white citizens? Could it, for instance, have meant that a corporation should have the same right to 'give evidence' as a white citizen? And as to contracts, may not the state, which creates corporations, impose certain limitations upon their right or power to make contracts? ' Under this leveling statute was it intended to abolish the right of a state to impose terms and limits upon its own creatures? '

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https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/116/138/case.html

San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific R. Co. 

116 U.S. 138 (1885)

U.S. Supreme Court

San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 116 U.S. 138 (1885)

San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company

Submitted December 17, 1885

Decided December 21, 1885

116 U.S. 138

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED

STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Syllabus

The Court hears a motion by counsel for plaintiff in error, specially appointed for the purpose, to dismiss the writ of error, which motion is opposed by counsel of record for plaintiff in error. The Court dismisses the writ on the ground that there is no longer an existing cause of action.

This was a motion to dismiss the writ of error in this case. The facts which make the case are stated in the opinion of the Court.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

This motion was made on the 18th of November last by Mr. John W. Ross, who had been specially appointed by the board of supervisors of the county as counsel for that purpose. Upon suggestion that counsel of record desired to oppose the motion, an order was made that notice be given them to appear and show cause against it if they desired to be so. This they have done, and it now appears that the suit was begun in a state court April 22, 1882. An answer was filed by the railroad company May 25, 1882. On the 30th of June, the suit was removed to the circuit court of the United States. An amended answer was filed August 16, 1882, and on the same day a demurrer was filed to the answer. On the 6th of September the counsel for the county executed to the railroad company a receipt, of which the following is a copy:

"County of San Mateo, Plaintiff"

"v."

"Southern Pacific Railroad Company,"

"Defendant"

"In U.S. Circuit Court, Ninth Circuit. No. 2807"

"Received, San Francisco, September 6, 1882, of the Southern

Page 116 U. S. 139

Pacific Railroad Company, the sum of seven thousand two hundred and forty-seven 63/100 dollars ($7,247.63), and the sum of $724.76 dollars, attorneys' fees, all to be credited upon any judgment that may be obtained by the plaintiff in the above-entitled action."

"In case judgment shall be rendered in said action in favor of said defendant, then said sum of money, less our fees agreed to be paid by said county, shall be paid into the treasury of the said County of San Mateo as a donation by said defendant in lieu of taxes for the fiscal year 1881-82, declared invalid. But in the event that a law shall be hereafter passed providing for a reassessment of property in said complaint in said action in said county for said year, then said sum of money is to be treated as a part payment for taxes for said fiscal year."

"[Signed]"

"RHODES & BARSTOW"

"Attorneys for San Mateo Co. in said action"

On the 20th of September, the following stipulation was filed in the cause:

"The County of San Mateo"

"v."

"The Southern Pacific Railroad Company"

"No. 2807"

"It is stipulated in the above-entitled actions that each of them be, and hereby is, submitted upon the plaintiff's demurrer to the first affirmative defense (second defense) in the defendant's answer. And it is further stipulated that judgment final in the action may be rendered upon the demurrer, it being agreed that for the purpose of this proceeding the other defenses are withdrawn from the consideration of the court."

"[Signed]"

"RHODES & BARSTOW"

"Attys. for Plaintiff"

"L. D. McKISICK"

"Atty. for Defendant"

On the 25th of September, a judgment was rendered upon the demurrer in favor of the defendant, and the suit dismissed. The next day a writ of error was brought to this Court, and docketed here October 13, 1882. The case was elaborately

Page 116 U. S. 140

argued before us December 19, 1882, but before a decision was reached, a stipulation was entered into between the parties, as follows:

"IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. (No. 1063.)"

"The County of San Mateo"

"v. No. 1063"

"Southern Pacific Railroad Company"

"Whereas certain actions brought by the People of the State of California, or by certain counties of said state, against said defendant, and other railroad companies operating railroads in said state for the recovery of taxes assessed against said companies for state and county purposes were, during the month of August last, tried before and submitted to the Circuit Court of the United States, Ninth Circuit, for the District of California, which actions have since been decided against the plaintiffs;"

"And whereas the attorneys for the respective parties to said actions against whom judgments have been rendered intend to sue out a writ or writs of error in one or more of said actions and to prosecute the same with as much diligence as possible and to move the Supreme Court that the same be advanced on the calendar for argument:"

"It is hereby stipulated by and between the parties to the first-mentioned action that the further consideration of the said action by the Supreme Court may be deferred until the argument of one or more of the last-mentioned cases."

"San Francisco, September 18, 1883."

"[Signed]"

"A. L. RHODES"

"Atty. for Plff. in Error"

"S. W. SANDERSON"

"Atty. for Defendant"

And thereupon the following order was made:

"The County of San Mateo, Plaintiff in Error"

"v."

"The Southern Pacific Railroad Company"

"The parties having stipulated that the further consideration

Page 116 U. S. 141

of this cause may be postponed until certain other cases are disposed of, this cause is restored to its original position on the docket, there to await the further action of the Court."

It now appears that, according to the claim of the counsel of record, there is due on account of the taxes sued for, including penalty, attorneys' fees and interest at the rate of two percent per month, from the time of delinquency until now, the sum of $14,399.07. It also appears that on the 11th of the present month, the railroad company paid into the treasury of the county the sum of $7,613.30. The county has also had the use of the $7,247.63 paid on the 6th of September, 1882, from the time of such payment until now. The only condition attached to the payment made on the 11th of this month is that if when the account is finally settled between the county and Rhodes & Barstow upon the basis of the assessment roll, principal, interest, delinquency, and attorneys' fees, it shall appear that the payments, including that to Rhodes & Barstow, are more than the actual amount due, the excess shall be returned to the railroad company. The payments have been:

To Rhodes and Barstow, taxes . . . . $ 7,247.63

Attorneys' fees. . . . . . . . . . . 724.76

To the county. . . . . . . . . . . . 7,613.30

----------

In all . . . . . . . . . . . . $15,585.69

As this is more than the entire sum estimated by the counsel for the plaintiff to be due, it is clear that the debt for which the suit was brought has been unconditionally paid and satisfied.

As to the objection that this was by agreement of parties made a test case, and many others are depending on its adjudication, it is sufficient to say that both sides agree that the suit of the County Santa Clara against the same company presents all the questions that are in this case, and that the parties have stipulated this need not be taken up for decision until that is heard. The interests of the state therefore will be as

Page 116 U. S. 142

well protected by the determination of that case as of this. For the reason that there is no longer an existing cause of action in favor of the county against the railroad company,

:{:{:{*This writ of error is dismissed, each party to pay its own costs.

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