The court rested its judgment in this case,
121 U. S. 121
U.S. 325, not upon the fact of the grant to Beaubien and Miranda
being an empresario grant, but upon the fact that Congress, having
confirmed it as made to Beaubien and Miranda, and as reported for
confirmation by the Surveyor General of New Mexico to Congress,
without qualification as to its extent, acted in that respect
entirely within its power, and that its action was conclusive upon
the Court.
The Court stated in its former opinion, and repeats now, its
conviction that the grant by Armijo to Beaubien and Miranda
described the boundaries in such a manner that Congress must have
known that the grant so largely exceeded twenty-two leagues that
there could be no question upon that subject, and it must have
decided that the grant should not be limited by the eleven leagues
of the Mexican law.
The Court repeats the conviction expressed in its former
opinion, with further reasons in support of it, that Beaubien, in
the petition which he presented against the intrusion of Martinez,
did not refer to his own grant as being only fifteen or eighteen
leagues, but to the grant under which Martinez was claiming.
The Court assumes that references in the petition to newly
discovered and material evidence touching the fraudulent character
of the grant are addressed to the Secretary of the Interior and the
Attorney General, as the rehearing in this Court can be had only on
the record before the court as it came from the circuit court.
The Court remains entirely satisfied that the grant, as
confirmed by Congress, is a valid grant; that the survey and the
patent issued upon it, as well as the original grant by Armijo, are
free from fraud on the part of the grantees or those claiming under
them, and that the decision could be no other than that made in the
circuit court and affirmed by this Court.
Page 122 U. S. 366
This was a petition for a rehearing of the case, the decision of
which was announced April 18, 1887, and is reported at
121 U. S. 121 U.S.
325. The petition and brief in support of it were as follows:
"
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES"
"
OCTOBER TERM, 1886"
"THE UNITED STATES, APPELLANT"
"vs. No. 974"
"THE MAXWELL LAND-GRANT COMPANY AND OTHERS"
"
MOTION"
"And now comes the United States, appellant, and moves the Court
to allow a rehearing of the cause above entitled upon the grounds
stated in a brief herewith filed."
"
BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF THE MOTION FOR A REHEARING"
"The urgency of the occasion makes it hardly practicable to do
more than submit the motion to rehear this cause upon the grounds
presented in a letter from the Acting Commissioner of the Land
Office to the Secretary of the Interior, which letter is approved
by the Secretary of the Interior and referred by him to the
Attorney General for action thereon. A copy of that letter is made
a part of this brief. (
Vide 122
U.S. 365app|>Appendix.)"
"In connection with so much of that letter as relates to
empresario grants, it is perhaps proper to refer the Court again to
the elements of that class of grants as given in the third article
of the Mexican colonization law of the 4th January, 1823, which is
in these words:"
"ART. 3. The empresarios, by whom is understood those who
introduce at least two hundred families, shall previously contract
with the executive, and inform it what branch of industry they
propose to follow, the property or resources they intend to
introduce for that purpose, and any other particulars they may deem
necessary, in order that with this
Page 122 U. S. 367
necessary information, the executive may designate the province
to which they must direct themselves, the lands which they can
occupy with the right of property, and the other circumstances
which may be considered necessary. (
Vide Hall's Mexican
Law, p. 103.)"
"It is to be regretted that the urgency of the matter has
prevented the Secretary of the Interior from furnishing some
representation of the character of the newly discovered evidence
referred to in the letter from the Acting Commissioner of the Land
Office. It is possible, however, that the Court, looking at the
magnitude of the public interests involved and the fact that this
motion has the sanction of the head of a great department of the
government and is made by his request, will allow the United States
an opportunity not only to make a satisfactory statement of the
evidence which, it is claimed, has been newly discovered, if it
appear possible that any such evidence could be taken into
consideration on this appeal, but also to present such additional
matters of law as may tend to support the said motion."
"WM. A. MAURI"
"
Assistant Attorney General"
|
122
U.S. 365app|
"
APPENDIX"
"DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR"
"GENERAL LAND OFFICE"
"Washington D.C. May __, 1887"
"Hon. L. Q. C. LAMAR"
"
Secretary of the Interior"
"SIR: I respectfully recommend that the honorable Attorney
General be requested to file a motion in the Supreme Court for
reargument of the
Maxwell Land Grant Case, in which the
decree of the Circuit Court for the District of Colorado was
affirmed April 18th last."
"The grounds upon which I think rehearing should be had are that
the Court was fundamentally in error in treating the grant as an
empresario grant, since, 1st, that no contract was
Page 122 U. S. 368
entered into, as provided by the Mexican laws, for the
introduction of persons of the class, or upon the terms prescribed
in such cases; 2d, that an analysis of the grant to Beaubien and
Miranda will disclose that no empresario feature entered into said
grant; 3d, that said grant was specifically a private settlement
grant, made to two persons for eleven leagues, and that eleven
leagues only was applied for by, or granted to, said Beaubien and
Miranda, to be equally divided between them, and that the foregoing
propositions can be shown and demonstrated upon rehearing."
"The decision of the Court turned upon the error above alleged,
and the proposition that Congress intended to give these persons a
body of land vastly in excess of the quantity which the Mexican
governor had authority to grant, or which the United States was
bound by the law of nations or the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo to
confirm, rests primarily upon said error."
"The Court was also mistaken in conceiving that Beaubien's
statement to the Departmental Assembly that the grant claimed did
not exceed fifteen or eighteen leagues, referred to a grant made to
Martinez."
"It was error further to assume that the Surveyor General
reported to Congress upon the extent of the grant, or that Congress
knew or considered the question of quantity, since no survey has
been made and no statement of area, other than that made by
Beaubien to the Departmental Assembly, appears in the papers in the
case. The report of the Surveyor General was upon the question of
title only, and the confirmation by Congress should be held to
carry only what was granted under the laws of Mexico. The Surveyor
General's report was itself an imposition upon Congress, since it
declared that all proceedings had been regular and in accordance
with law and that the grant had been confirmed by the Departmental
Assembly, which declarations do not appear to be sustained by the
evidence."
"I am also advised that new and material evidence touching the
fraudulent character of this grant, and the alleged juridical
possession, has been discovered which may be indicated to
Page 122 U. S. 369
yourself and the Honorable Attorney General and made part of a
basis for a new trial in the lower court, or produced in the suit
which I have recommended should be brought in New Mexico. I
respectfully urge that the New Mexico suit be brought and pressed,
since the record now before the Supreme Court fails to disclose the
full case of the government. But in any event, I deem it essential
to the interests of the government to urge reargument in the
present case, as even with the imperfect record it is my opinion
that weighty and sufficient reasons can be brought to the notice of
the Court to justify a review of its decision or a remand for
rehearing upon the merits of the case."
"I am also assured that, if agreeable to yourself and the
Honorable Attorney General, the Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, with whom
Commissioner Sparks has conferred upon the legal points involved in
the case, can be engaged, upon terms satisfactory to the Department
of Justice, to file a brief in support of the motion for
reargument, and I respectfully suggest that General Butler's
services be availed of. If you so desire, General Butler will wait
upon you at any time you may indicate to consult you in the matter,
and will lay before you the newly discovered evidences referred to,
which are in his possession."
"In view of the importance of the case and the short time
remaining in which motions for rehearings may be filed (the last
day expiring, as I am informed, on the 12th instant, or, in view of
the public ceremonies on that day, possibly tomorrow), I would ask
your immediate consideration of the subject."
"The foregoing recommendations are made in accordance with my
understanding of the views and wishes of Commissioner Sparks as
communicated to me by him prior to his leaving the city."
"Very respectfully,"
"S. M. STOCKSLAGER"
"
Acting Commissioner"
"Approved."
"L. Q. C. LAMAR"
"
Secretary"
Page 122 U. S. 370
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
A petition for a rehearing has been filed in this case, and on
account of its importance, as well as the interest in it manifested
by the Department of the Interior, we have considered the petition
very fully, and, departing from our usual custom, make some
response to its suggestions.
The first ground on which a rehearing is asked is that this
Court was in error in treating the grant to Beaubien and Miranda as
an empresario grant, upon which alleged mistake it is asserted that
the decision of the Court turned. The error, however, is in the
assumption in the petition that the decision of the Court turned
upon that point. It is true that the assistant attorney general, in
his argument on behalf of the United States, rested the case almost
exclusively, so far as he was concerned, on the proposition that
the validity of the grant was governed by the limitation of the
decree of the Mexican Congress of 1824 to eleven square leagues for
each grantee in ordinary grants, and in response to that argument
we endeavored to show that while the land in controversy was not
strictly an empresario grant, there being no evidence of a contract
with any person to bring emigrants from abroad for the purpose of
settling them upon the land, yet that it partook very largely of
that character, and that Beaubien and Miranda, Gov. Armijo, the
departmental assembly, and the Surveyor General had all looked upon
it as partaking so much of that nature, in regard to the quantity
of land granted as well as the actual settlement of families upon
it, that the Congress of the Unites states was justified in
treating it likewise. But we stated distinctly that we did not rest
our judgment upon the fact of its being an empresario grant, but
upon the proposition that the Congress of the United States, having
confirmed this grant as made to Beaubien and Miranda, and reported
for confirmation by the Surveyor General of New Mexico to that
body, without qualification or limitation as to its extent, acted
in that respect within its power, and that its action was
conclusive upon the Court.
In the opinion, after discussion the history of this grant
Page 122 U. S. 371
and its conformity to the character of a colonization grant, it
was said, 121 U.S.
121 U. S.
363:
"The final confirmation of this grant by the Congress of the
United States in 1860 affords strong ground to believe that that
body viewed it as one of this character, and not one governed by
the limitation of eleven square leagues to each grantee."
Afterwards we added, p.
121 U. S. 365:
"But whether, as a matter of fact, this was a grant not limited
in quantity by the Mexican decree of 1824, or whether it was a
grant which in strict law would have been held by the Mexican
government, if it had continued in the ownership of the property,
to have been subject to that limitation, it is not necessary to
decide at this time. By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, under
which the United States acquired the right of property in all the
public lands of that portion of New Mexico which was ceded to this
country, it became it right, it had the authority, and it engaged
itself by that treaty, to confirm valid Mexican grants. If,
therefore, the great surplus which it is claimed was conveyed by
its patent to Beaubien and Miranda was the property of the United
States, and Congress, acting in its sovereign capacity upon the
question of the validity of the grant, chose to treat it as valid
for the boundaries given to it by the Mexican governor, it is not
for the judicial department of this government to controvert their
power to do so."
In support of this, we cited
Tameling v. United States
Freehold Co., 93 U. S. 644, in
which that proposition is emphatically laid down. And in the
concluding paragraph of the opinion, referring to the
constitutional provision that Congress shall have power to dispose
of the territory or other property belonging to the United States,
p.
121 U. S. 382,
we further said:
"At the time that Congress passed upon the grant to Beaubien and
Miranda, whatever interest there was in the land claimed which was
not legally or equitably their property was the property of the
United States, and Congress having the power to dispose of that
property, and having, as we understand it, confirmed this grant,
and thereby made such disposition of it, it is not easily to be
perceived how the Courts of the United States can set aside this
action of Congress. "
Page 122 U. S. 372
It is therefore quite clear that, as regards this question, the
Court rested its opinion upon the action of the Congress of the
United States.
In reference to this action of Congress, the petition says that
it was error on the part of the Court
"further to assume that the Surveyor General reported to
Congress upon the extent of the grant, or that Congress knew or
considered the question of quantity, since no survey had been made,
and no statement of area other than that made by Beaubien to the
departmental assembly appears in the papers in the case."
It is nowhere stated in the opinion of the Court that Congress
had before it any actual computation of the contents of this grant,
either of the number of acres or the number of square leagues; but
what the Court said upon that subject was in reply to the argument
of the counsel for the United States that the Surveyor General had
no
authority to determine upon the extent of the grant.
This was shown to be an error inasmuch as the statute under which
he acted required him to report upon the extent of the grant, as
well as upon its validity.
It is true that there was in the papers no report of the number
of leagues or the number of acres embraced within the grant. That
was probably not known with any degree of accuracy by anybody at
that time. But the grant by Armijo to Beaubien and Miranda
described the boundaries in a manner which could leave no doubt
upon the mind of Congress that the grant was an immense one, and so
largely exceeded twenty-two leagues that there could be no question
upon that subject. Besides this, there was among the papers in the
office of the Surveyor General the diseno or plat, made and
returned by the Alcalde Vigil, who delivered the juridical
possession to the grantees, which also made it plain that an
immense quantity of land beyond the twenty-two leagues was included
within the grant.
Other reasons given in the opinion, which we do not think it
necessary to repeat here, convince us that Congress knew that it
was dealing with an extraordinary grant, and must have decided
Page 122 U. S. 373
that it should not be limited by the eleven leagues of the
Mexican law.
It is said further in the petition that
"the Court was also mistaken in conceiving that Beaubien's
statement to the departmental assembly that the grant claimed did
not exceed fifteen or eighteen leagues referred to a grant made to
Martinez."
In the argument of the case before us, counsel made but a brief
allusion to the proposition that Beaubien, in the petition which he
presented against the intrusion of the priest Martinez, speaks of
his own grant as being only about 15 leagues, to which we
responded, p.
121 U. S.
373:
"We think a critical examination of that petition will show that
he is speaking of the claim of Martinez and his associates as
amounting in all to about fifteen leagues, and not of his own claim
under the grant."
As this is again presented to us as a reason for a rehearing in
this case, we will give a little more attention to it than its
importance deserves.
After the grant was made to Beaubien and Miranda on January 11,
1841, Cornelio Vigil, on the 22d day of February, 1843, as justice
of the peace, delivered the juridical possession, of which we have
already spoken, to the grantees. The petition of Charles Beaubien
to the then Governor of New Mexico, who appears to have been some
person other than Armijo, the original grantor, is dated April 13,
1844. It was designed to obtain a revocation of an order made by
the then governor February 27, 1844, permitting Martinez to use and
occupy a part of the land included within the grant by Armijo to
Beaubien and Miranda. The whole matter is very imperfectly stated,
but it would seem that Martinez, in his petition asking for this
order, asserted that the grant to Mr. Charles Bent, which was prior
in time to that to Beaubien and Miranda, included the land which he
and his associates desired to use, and which he had purchased of
Bent. It will be readily seen by anyone, even through the bad
translation of the language of Beaubien, that he is endeavoring to
show that the grant to Bent could not include any of the land
within his own grant. He says on that subject:
"I have been prevented
Page 122 U. S. 374
from carrying those projects into effect [meaning the making of
settlements upon his grant] on account of the decree of the 27th of
February last issued by your Excellency, and which, through your
secretary, was communicated to the prefecture of the First
District, in order that paying attention to the petition addressed
to your Excellency by the curate Martinez and others, in reference
to the grant of lands made to the citizen of the United States, Mr.
Charles Bent, and that all use made of them be suspended, I have to
state to your Excellency, in defense of those lands which are in
our possession, according to the titles thereto, which are in our
possession, that the petition addressed to your Excellency by the
curate Martinez and others is founded upon an erroneous principle,
as the aforesaid Mr. Bent has not acquired any right to the said
lands. It is therefore very strange that the curate Martinez and
others pretend to involve our property, as it has no connection
with that of that individual. Therefore it is to be presumed the
necessary consequence must be that the curate Martinez and his
associates do not know to whom those lands belong nor their extent,
as he states that a large number of leagues were granted, when the
grant does not exceed fifteen or eighteen, which will be seen by
the accompanying judicial certificates."
He then goes on to show other errors and mistakes in the claim
of Martinez and his associates, on account of which he appeals to
the governor, who referred the matter to the departmental assembly,
and that body recommended the revocation of the order in favor of
Martinez, to which the governor conformed.
We think it impossible for anybody, after reading this
statement, with any just conception of the facts to which it
related, to believe that Beaubien, in referring to the fifteen or
eighteen leagues, meant his own grant, and not the grant to Charles
Bent, under which the curate Martinez was claiming. It would be an
absurdity to suppose that Beaubien, claiming a grant whose
boundaries, described by rivers, mountains, and uplands, must have
contained more than a million of acres, to whom juridical
possession had been delivered, and the report
Page 122 U. S. 375
of it made about a year before these proceedings, could have
intended to make to any public authority a statement, which must be
referred to the departmental assembly composed of the
representatives of the territory, that his grant only included
fifteen or eighteen leagues. This fact, concurring with the
grammatical construction of the language used, the meaning of which
can be plainly perceived through what is perhaps a very imperfect
translation, leaves no doubt now in our minds, after a thorough
examination, that the statement of the opinion was correct.
There is a reference in the part of the petition for a rehearing
which was prepared in the office of the Commissioner of the General
Land Office to the existence of new and material evidence touching
the fraudulent character of the grant, which we must suppose to
have been addressed to the Secretary of the Interior and the
Attorney General as reasons for obtaining a new trial if they
could, and not addressed to this Court as any legal foundation for
reconsidering its decision. If this Court should grant a rehearing,
it could only be had, according to the uniform course of the Court
during its whole existence, upon the record now before the Court as
it came from the Circuit Court for the District of Colorado.
We have thus considered all the points suggested in the petition
as grounds for rehearing with the utmost care. The case itself has
been pending in the Courts of the United States since August, 1882,
and on account of its importance, was advanced out of its order for
hearing in this Court. The arguments on both sides of the case were
unrestricted in point of time, and were wanting in no element of
ability, industrious research, or clear apprehension of the
principles involved in it. The Court was thoroughly impressed with
the importance of the case, not only as regarded the extent of the
grant and its value, but also on account of its involving
principles which will become precedents in cases of a similar
nature, now rapidly increasing in number. It was therefore given a
most careful examination, and this petition for a rehearing has had
a similar attentive consideration. The result is that we are
entirely satisfied that the grant, as confirmed by the action
of
Page 122 U. S. 376
Congress, is a valid grant; that the survey, and the patent
issued upon it, as well as the original grant by Armijo, are
entirely free from any fraud on the part of the grantees or those
claiming under them, and that the decision could be no other than
that which the learned judge of the circuit court below made, and
which this Court affirmed.
The petition for rehearing is therefore denied.
