The decision of this Court in the case of the
United
States v. King and Coxe, 3 How. 773, and
48 U. S. 7 How.
833, again affirmed,
viz., that the contract between the
Baron de Carondelet and the Marquis de Maison Rouge conveyed no
interest in the land to Maison Rouge, but was merely intended to
mark out by certain and definite boundaries the limits of the
establishment which he was authorized to form.
The contract must be judged of according to the laws of Spain,
but under those laws, whenever there was an intention to grant
private property, words were always used which severed the property
from the public domain.
The absence in this case of the royal order of 1795, and of all
testimony respecting the genuineness of the certificate of survey
by Trudeau makes no difference in the decision of the Court. The
construction of the grant was the main point of that case, and is
also of this.
Whether or not the instrument was a perfect and complete grant
by the laws of Spain was a question for the court and not for the
jury.
The case of the
United States v. King and Coxe
explained.
This was a petition filed in the district court by the
appellees, who claimed a tract of land under the Maison Rouge
grant.
Page 52 U. S. 664
The district court decided in favor of the petitioners, and the
United States appealed to this Court.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from the decree of the District Court of the
United States for the District of Louisiana. The proceedings were
instituted by the appellees against the United States according to
the Acts of Congress of May 26, 1824, and June 17, 1844, and they
claim title to a parcel of land in the State of Louisiana under an
instrument of writing executed by the Baron de Carondelet on 20
June, 1797, in favor of the Marquis de Maison Rouge. The
conveyances by which they deduce title to themselves from him are
set forth in the petition. The case turned altogether, in the
district court, upon the construction and effect of the document
above mentioned, and this is the only question arising on this
appeal.
The appellees insist that this instrument of writing conveyed to
the Marquis de Maison Rouge either the legal or equitable title to
the thirty superficial leagues of land described in the plan of
Trudeau annexed to the instrument. But the question which they
propose to raise has already been decided. The instrument under
which they claim title came under the consideration of this Court
in the case of
United States v. King and Coxe, reported in
44 U. S. 3 How.
773, and
48 U. S. 7 How.
833. And in the last-mentioned report it will be seen that the
construction and effect of this instrument was at that time
directly before the court, and the decision of the case depended
upon it. The question was then fully and carefully examined and
considered, and the court held that this instrument of writing
conveyed no interest in the land to Maison Rouge, as his private
property; and that it was intended merely to mark out by certain
and definite boundaries the limits of the establishment he was
authorized to form, according to the stipulations of a previous
contract which he had entered into with the Spanish government, in
1795. And as regarded that previous contract, the Court said:
"It will be observed that this contract contains no stipulation
in favor of Maison Rouge. All the engagements on the part of the
government are in favor of the emigrants who should accept the
conditions. Indeed, it seems to have been no part of the purposes
of this agreement to regulate the compensation which he was to
receive for his services. Its only object, as appears by the
concluding sentence, was to
Page 52 U. S. 665
make known the offers made by the Spanish government to those
who were disposed to come. It was therefore to be shown by the
Marquis to those whom he invited to remove to this establishment,
and it does not appear to have been thought necessary, and perhaps
was not desirable, that his compensation or his interest in forming
the colony should be made public. That was a matter between him and
the Spanish authorities, which doubtless was understood on both
sides. And whether it was to be in money or in a future grant of
land does not appear. Certainly it was not to be in the land on
which this establishment was to be formed, because the government
was pledged to grant it to the colonists."
The question which this appeal brings up is therefore
res
judicata. Nor does the Court perceive any ground for doubting
the correctness of the opinion heretofore pronounced. And in the
case arising under the claim of the Baron de Bastrop in which the
judgment of the Court has just been delivered, the principles
decided in the case of
United States v. King and Coxe have
again been affirmed, after full argument by counsel and
reconsideration by the Court. The De Bastrop claim was upon an
instrument of writing similar to that in favor of Maison Rouge, and
executed on the same day by the Baron de Carondelet, for a still
larger tract of country than that destined and appropriated for the
establishment of the Marquis de Maison Rouge. Undoubtedly the
validity and effect of both of these instruments depend altogether
upon the laws, ordinances, and usages of the Spanish government
prevailing in the Province of Louisiana at the time they were made,
and it is the duty of the Court to expound them accordingly. And
they are both strikingly unlike the grants for colonization
authorized by the Laws of the Indies, and equally unlike the grants
usually made by the Spanish authorities to persons undertaking to
introduce into the province a certain number of colonists. In
grants of this description authorized by the Laws of the Indies and
usually made by the provincial authorities, the colonists were
introduced by the grantee free of expense to the government and the
grant was the equivalent for the service performed, and depended
upon the number thus brought in. And in such cases, the intention
to grant as private property was always indicated in clear and
appropriate words which severed the land at once from the royal
domain and converted it into private property.
But in the cases of De Bastrop and Maison Rouge, the colonists
are to be brought in at the expense of the government itself and
supported for some time afterwards, and they are to receive their
grants for the land allotted to them from the
Page 52 U. S. 666
public authorities, and not from De Bastrop or Maison Rouge.
There would seem, therefore, to be no equivalent or consideration
for these extensive grants, and certainly there are no words in
either of the instruments that indicate an intention to convey to
them as private property the land delineated for their respective
establishments. On the contrary, as the colonists were to receive
their titles and grants from the government, it follows necessarily
that the entire title, legal and equitable, must have remained in
the government and have been so understood by the parties. For
otherwise this stipulation could not have been performed. And if
the land designated for the establishment remained national
property and was not severed by these instruments from the national
domain, it passed to the United States as public property by the
treaty of cession.
It is true that the contract of 1795, and the royal order which
sanctioned it, and which are referred to in the instrument relied
on by the petitioners, were not offered in evidence in this case
and are not in the record before us. And in the opinion of the
Court reported in 7 How.
48 U. S.
849-850, it will be seen that this contract was regarded
as furnishing a key to the construction of the instrument
subsequently executed. But the Court also held that the instrument
of 1797, if construed by itself, conveyed to Maison Rouge no right
of property in the land, and indeed that it was not intelligible
unless taken in connection with the prior one. The omission,
therefore, of the contract and royal order of 1795 in this record
will not distinguish this case from that of the
United States
v. King and Coxe.
It is proper also to say that a question of fact which was very
much discussed when the case of
United States v. King and
Coxe was first before the Court, and upon which the Court at
that time expressed an opinion, is not in controversy upon the
evidence in this record. In the case referred to, a great mass of
testimony was offered on behalf of the United States tending to
show that the plan of Trudeau annexed to the instrument of 1797 was
not the one to which it intended to refer; that it referred to
another, which designated land at a different place and higher up
the Ouachita River; that the survey annexed was not made until the
latter end of 1802 or the beginning of 1803, when negotiations were
actually pending for the cession of the territory, and was then
made in expectation of the cession to the United States, and the
certificate antedated to cover the land now claimed.
But as the case of
United States v. King and Coxe was
an action at law and brought up to this Court by writ of error, the
questions of fact arising upon the evidence in the record
Page 52 U. S. 667
were not open to revision in the appellate court. The question
above mentioned had been decided against the United States by the
district court, according to the Louisiana practice, without the
intervention of a jury, and his decision, like the verdict of a
jury, was conclusive as to the fact where the case was brought up
by writ of error. And this Court, when their attention was called
to the subject, set aside the judgment and reinstated the case, to
be heard and determined on the questions of law, assuming the facts
to be true as decided by the district court.
In the present case, however, the proceeding is according to the
rules and principles of a court of equity, and the facts as well as
the law are brought here for revision by the appeal. The
genuineness of the certificate of Trudeau would therefore be open
to inquiry if the evidence in the former case was in this
record.
But none of the evidence offered on behalf of the United States,
of any description, in the case against King and Coxe, is contained
in the record before us. The case appears to have been tried and
determined in the district court altogether upon testimony adduced
by the appellees. They examined several witnesses to prove that
Trudeau's certificate was genuine and not antedated. And as there
was no opposing evidence, the opinion of the district court upon
this part of the case was undoubtedly correct.
As relates to the order itself of the Baron de Carondelet, to
which this plan was annexed, it appears that the original in the
Spanish language was produced and proved, and a copy is contained
in the record, and with it what purports to be a translation into
the English language. By whom this translation was made does not
appear; nor does the record show that it was proved by the
testimony of any witness. It differs in material respects from that
produced in the case of
United States v. King and Coxe,
which will be found in the report in 3 Howard and also from that
contained in the report of the committee of the House of
Representatives in Vol. III of American State Papers, 410 Public
Lands. The two last-mentioned translations are substantially, if
not precisely, the same, and conform to the original. But the one
sent up in this record is evidently incorrect.
There is likewise a translation set out by the appellees in
their petition differing from the one offered in evidence and
approaching very nearly to the two translations of which we have
spoken. But this also is inaccurate, and omits the word
"conditions," when speaking of the contract under which Maison
Rouge was to form his establishment. But these
Page 52 U. S. 668
erroneous translations are not entitled to consideration in
expounding this instrument, since the original is in evidence, and
must speak for itself.
Witnesses, it appears, were examined in the district court to
prove that this instrument was a perfect and complete grant by the
laws of Spain then in force in the province of Louisiana in
relation to grants of land, and the counsel for the appellees moved
for an issue upon this point, to be tried by the jury. This motion
was properly refused by the court, and the issues which the court
directed were confined to questions of fact. The Spanish laws which
formerly prevailed in Louisiana, and upon which the titles to land
in that state depend, must be judicially noticed and expounded by
the court, like the laws affecting titles to real property in any
other state. They are questions of law and not questions of fact,
and are always so regarded and treated in the courts of Louisiana.
And it can never be maintained in the courts of the United States
that the laws of any state of this Union are to be treated as the
laws of a foreign nation and ascertained and determined as a matter
of fact, by a jury, upon the testimony of witnesses. And if the
Spanish laws prevailing in Louisiana before the cession to the
United States were to be regarded as foreign laws which the courts
could not judicially notice, the titles to land in that state would
become unstable and insecure, and their validity or invalidity
would in many instances depend upon the varying opinions of
witnesses and the fluctuating verdicts of juries deciding upon
questions of law which they could not, from the nature of their
pursuits and studies, be supposed to comprehend.
The testimony offered on this subject was objected to by the
district attorney, but would seem to have been received by the
court. It is not material, however, to inquire whether it was
received or not. For the only question before us is whether the
instrument of writing of 1797, under which the petitioners claimed
title, was or was not correctly expounded by the district court.
And whether he arrived at his conclusion from the language of the
instrument itself or was influenced by the oral testimony is not
important. In either case, the decision that this instrument was a
grant to the Marquis de Maison Rouge of the thirty square leagues
of land therein mentioned as his private property is, in the
judgment of this Court, erroneous. And as the title of the
appellees rests entirely upon this supposed grant, the decree in
their favor must be
Reversed and the petition dismissed.
MR. JUSTICE McLEAN, MR. JUSTICE WAYNE, MR. JUSTICE McKINLEY, and
MR. JUSTICE GRIER dissented.
Page 52 U. S. 669
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the District Court of the United States for the District of
Louisiana, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof it
is ordered and decreed by this Court that the decree of the said
district court in this cause be and the same is hereby reversed and
annulled, and that this cause be and the same is hereby remanded to
the said district court with directions to dismiss the petition of
the claimants.