This Court again decides, as in
50 U. S. 9 How. 127
and
51 U. S. 10 How.
609, that by the act of 1824, a claimant of land in Louisiana must
aver and prove his residence in that province at the date of the
grant or on or before the 10th of March, 1804.
Also that the act was not intended to provide for perfect
grants. Over such the district court has no jurisdiction.
A decree of the court was erroneous authorizing the claimants to
enter public land,
Page 53 U. S. 438
upon the ground that the United States had sold what was covered
by the claim, when there was no evidence that the United States had
made any such sales.
The circumstances of the case are stated in the opinion of the
Court.
MR. JUSTICE DANIEL delivered the opinion of the Court.
The claim of the appellees in this case was preferred in virtue
of the provisions of the Act of Congress of May 26, 1824,
entitled
"An act enabling the claimants to lands within the limits of the
State of Missouri and the Territory of Arkansas to institute
proceedings to try the validity of their claims,"
vid. 4 Stat. 52, which provisions were revived by an
Act of Congress of 17 June, 1844, and extended to the States of
Louisiana and Arkansas and to so much of the States of Mississippi
and Alabama as is included in the district of country south of the
31st degree of north latitude and between the Mississippi and
Perdido Rivers. 5 Stat. 676.
The original petition, presented in the name of Jacob Brandegee,
sets forth that in pursuance of an order of Don Manuel Gayoso de
Lemos, Governor General of Louisiana and West Florida, Don Carlos
Laveau Trudeau the royal surveyor, did on 15 November, 1798,
deliver to Donna Maria Manetta Laveau Trudeau a tract of land,
containing five hundred superficial arpens, situated and bounded as
in the petition described, and as contained in a survey or
figurative plan accompanying the petition, and as said to have been
set forth in a survey alleged to have been previously made by
Pintado, Deputy Surveyor of Louisiana and West Florida. That
afterwards, on or about 12 November, 1798, the Governor General
Gayoso de Lemos made a regular concession or grant of this land to
Donna Maria Manetta Laveau Trudeau; that on 31 August, 1821, the
said Donna Maria conjointly with her husband, Josiah E. Kerr, sold
and conveyed the land granted as aforesaid to Brandegee, and the
deed to him is made an exhibit in this case. The petition further
states, referring to the metes and bounds of the grant as described
in the survey and evidences of title, that the claim had been
presented to the Board of Land commissioners, whose decision had
been adverse thereto; that the whole of said tract of land, or the
greater part
Page 53 U. S. 439
thereof, had either been sold by the United States or confirmed
to actual settlers. The petition then concludes with the prayer
that the title of the petitioner may be held good and that he may
be entitled to enter an equal quantity of land in lieu of that
which had been sold or confirmed to others. The petitioner Jacob
Brandegee having departed this life after the institution of these
proceedings, they were revived in the name of his widow in
community and of his children and heirs.
There is not exhibited with the petition or in any part of the
proceedings an original order from De Lemos to Trudeau directing
the latter to deliver to Donna Maria Manetta Trudeau the land
mentioned, but there is a certificate signed by Carlos Laveau
Trudean, as Royal Surveyor, stating that he had delivered
possession to Donna Maria Manetta Laveau Trudeau of the tract of
land of five hundred superficial arpens corresponding with the
figurative plan or survey, in which the boundaries are described
with great precision. This certificate is followed by an instrument
adopting and confirming it, signed by Gayoso De Lemos, styling
himself Brigadier of the Royal Armies, Governor General and Royal
Vice-Patron of the Provinces of Louisiana and West Florida, and
this instrument, after reciting the boundaries as contained in the
certificate, concludes in the following terms:
"And recognizing the same, approving them as we do hereby
approve them, availing ourselves of the faculty which the King has
given us, we grant in his royal name, to the aforesaid Donna Maria
Manetta Laveau Trudeau, the aforesaid five hundred superficial
acres of land, that she may use and dispose of them as her own
property in conformity with the aforesaid acts."
Upon the aforegoing petition and the documents above referred
to, constituting all the evidence in this cause, the district
court, on 8 June, 1849, ordered and decreed
"That the grant made by the Spanish government to Donna Maria
Manetta Laveau Trudeau was a perfect one; that therefore the
plaintiffs are entitled to the relief granted by the Act of
Congress approved 17 June, 1844, and the act of 1824, to which it
refers, and that it is therefore ordered and decreed that the grant
is valid against the United States and that the land described in
the said grant and survey thereof, as part of the exhibits,
containing five hundred superficial arpens, according to the metes
and bounds as described in the said grant and survey, belongs to
the petitioners holding under the original grantee."
The same court then proceeds to declare
"That whereas it is ascertained that a great part of the land is
now held by titles emanating from the United States, it is further
ordered, adjudged, and decreed that for all the land within the
limits so
Page 53 U. S. 440
held, which has been sold or otherwise disposed of by the United
States, the petitioners shall be and they are hereby authorized to
enter in any land office of the United States in the State of
Louisiana a like quantity of public land elsewhere, in conformity
with the provision of the 11th section of the Act of Congress
approved on 26 May, 1824."
This decision of the district judge is palpably inconsistent
with the repeated adjudications of this Court upon the language and
objects of the Act of Congress of 1824 and of the reviving act of
1844, and is indeed contradictory and inconsistent with itself in
the different grounds it assumes for its support. Before proceeding
to a more particular examination of the decision of the district
court, it seems proper to advert to the true position of the
petitioner -- or rather of the grantee, from whom his title is
deduced, as described in the petition -- and to inquire whether
that position as there described, apart from the question of the
completeness or incompleteness of the grant, be one on which the
jurisdiction of the district court could attach. Thus it must be
remembered that in the enumeration in the act of 1824 of the
qualifications requisite for claiming the benefit of that act is
the residence of the grantee within the Province of Louisiana at
the date of the grant or on or before 19 March, 1804. This
requisite of residence at one of the periods prescribed can in
nowise be received as a matter of form. It is of the essence of the
right to invoke the aid of the act of Congress, which was designed
to confer a benefit on actual occupants or settlers. Such being its
character, it should therefore, in every instance in which that act
is appealed to, be both averred and proved. In the case before us,
the petition is wholly silent as to this qualification, and no
proof is adduced as to its existence. For this omission alone,
then, to aver a material -- nay, the most material -- ingredient in
the right to invoke the aid of the act of 1824, the petition
presented no case upon which the jurisdiction of the district court
could attach. This point has been ruled in the cases of
United States v.
Reynes, 9 How. 127, and of
United
States v. D'Auterive, 10h How. 609, and in other
cases decided during the present term of this Court. But let us
view this case in other aspects of it, as exhibited upon the face
of the petition and documents adduced to sustain it and as it is
characterized in the decree of the district court in order to
determine whether it be one within either the mischiefs or the
remedies described or provided by the Act of Congress of May 26,
1824. By recurrence to the certificate of Trudeau and to the
figurative plan accompanying it dated November 15, 1798, the
quantity of the land and the boundaries thereof will be seen to
have been
Page 53 U. S. 441
fixed and described with the utmost precision, so as to leave no
room for mistake or uncertainty. Turning next to the grant or
concession by Gayoso on 12 December, 1798, it will be seen that the
certificate of survey by Trudeau and the figurative plan are
directly referred to, and all the lines and boundaries, the
quantity of land, and, indeed, every indicium by which it had been
described are adopted by the grantor in the very language of the
certificate; and after such reference and adoption, the grant
concludes in the following terms:
"Approving them as we do hereby approve them, availing ourselves
of the faculty which the King has given us, we grant in his royal
name, to the aforesaid Donna Maria Manetta Laveau Trudeau, the
aforesaid five hundred superficial acres of land, that she may use
and dispose of them as her own property, in conformity with the
aforesaid acts."
The effect of these proceedings on the part of the Spanish
governor was to vest in the grantee a perfect legal estate in the
subject granted the
titulo in forma. The district court,
upon the strength of there proceedings, declares what was
unquestionably true --
viz., that the title vested in the
grantee by the Spanish authorities was a perfect one; but the court
goes on to deduce from this truth a consequence which it did not
warrant, but which it entirely excluded,
viz., that
"therefore the plaintiffs are entitled to the relief granted by the
act of Congress, entitled &c." The legitimate deduction from
the facts above ascertained and admitted by the court would have
been to this effect, and therefore the district court could have no
jurisdiction of the plaintiff's petition, and that the same be
accordingly dismissed. It is in this respect that the inconsistency
of the decree of the district court with the facts on which it
professes to be founded and with the acts of 1824 and 1844 and with
itself is made manifest. It first asserts the completeness of the
title of the petitioner, and then declares it to be dependent on
aids provided by statute, provided for the purpose of perfecting
titles avowedly incomplete, which must continue forever incomplete
except for the means so provided for perfecting them. That
interpretation of the acts of Congress of 1824 and 1844 which
declares them to be inapplicable to perfect legal titles can no
longer be questioned.
It has been expressly ruled in the cases already cited of
United States v.
Reynes, 9 How. 127, and in
United
States v. D'Auterive, 10 How. 609, and upon the
same interpretation of the statutes above-mentioned have numerous
cases been decided during the present term. The decree of the
district court in this case is marked by other peculiarities which
must deprive it of any validity whatsoever. The decree first
decides that the title of Donna Maria to the land in question
is
Page 53 U. S. 442
good and complete as against the United States, and that
therefore the land belongs to the petitioners, as deducing title
from her. The decree then proceeds to declare and order
"That whereas it is ascertained that a great part of the said
land is now held by titles emanating from the United States, it is
further ordered, adjudged, and decreed, that for all the land
within the limits so held, which has been sold or otherwise
disposed of by the United States, the petitioners shall be and they
are hereby authorized to enter in any land office of the United
States in the State of Louisiana a like quantity of public land
elsewhere in conformity with the provisions of the eleventh section
of the Act of Congress approved on 26 May, 1824."
Now it is to be observed in the first place that there is in
this case, on the part of the United States, a general denial of
every fact contained in the petition; nothing is admitted directly
or by implication. In the next place, there is not in this record
to be found even an attempt to show a grant or confirmation of any
portion of this land by the United States to any person whomsoever,
nor the possession of it nor of any portion of it by any person at
any time, not even by the petitioners or those from whom their
title is deduced. Indeed, none but the government of the United
States is made a party defendant in this case. Upon what proof, or
on what surmise even, the district court could conclude that the
lands had been granted or confirmed by the United States this Court
cannot conjecture. Even if the opinion of the court could import
intrinsically any proof upon this point, the inquiries would remain
as to what portion of the lands had been granted, by whom and to
whom. Without information upon these heads, it seems difficult to
imagine, if the fact of grants having been made were to be
conceded, what should be the extent of the equivalent to be
substituted for them. The mere assertion of the one or the other
can invest no right and impose no duty. It is too vague and
indefinite to be comprehended, much less to be enforced with due
regard to the rights of the parties to the cause.
It is therefore, for the several reasons before assigned, the
opinion of this Court that the decree of the district court be
Reversed and the petition dismissed.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Louisiana, and was argued by counsel. On consideration
whereof it is now here ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this Court
that the decree of the said district court in this
Page 53 U. S. 443
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.