At a sale of public lands in a territory, an agent who purchased
for another must account, as trustee, to his employer, although the
statutes of the territory have abolished all resulting trusts.
The United States, being the owner of the public lands within
the states and territories, have the right to say to whom, in what
mode, and by what title, they shall be conveyed.
It promotes the public sales that agents should be allowed to
attend and purchase under the usual responsibility of agents or
trustees.
The control, enjoyment, and disposal by the United States of
their own property is independent of the locality of such property,
whether it be situated in a state or territory; nor are the
contracts of the government with respect to subjects within its
constitutional competency, local, or confined in their effects and
operation strictly to the sites of the subjects to which they
relate.
Although a certificate may be the subject of bargain and sale,
yet the United States can take care that the conveyance shall be
made to him who is in good faith their vendee.
The jurisdiction of the courts of the United States as courts of
equity is ample to enforce the performance of trusts under both the
Constitution and laws.
The United States can declare by Congress what the law shall be
with respect to the public lands, and enforce that law through the
judiciary department.
Although the officers of the land department may in practice,
and as a rule of convenience, have received the certificate of
purchase as evidence of title, yet neither that practice nor the
certificate itself can control the power either of the United
States or of this Court to adjudge or to confirm the title to the
land to the true owner.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE DANIEL delivered the opinion of the Court.
The proceedings in this cause, though in form somewhat anomalous
and peculiar, may be regarded as presenting substantially the case
of a bill for the specific performance of a contract, a demurrer to
the relief sought by that bill, a decree or what in the proceedings
is called a judgment sustaining the demurrer, although there is no
express or formal direction or order for a dismission of the bill,
and a general affirmance, by what is styled the judgment of the
supreme court of the territory of the decision of the district
court.
The appellant, in his complaint in the district court of the
territory, alleges, that at a sale of public lands which occurred
on the 11th day of September in the year 1854 at the land office at
Stillwater, in the Territory of Minnesota, in pursuance
Page 61 U. S. 559
of the proclamation of the President of the United States, the
appellee, Marshall, as the agent, and with the funds and under the
authority of the complainant, and of the appellee, Barton,
purchased for them the southwest quarter of section number seven,
in township number twenty-eight north, of range twenty-three west,
in the County of Ramsey, containing one hundred and sixty acres, at
the price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, making an
aggregate of two hundred dollars for the entire purchase, the
certificate for which purchase was, with the assent of the
complainant and Barton, issued in the name of their said agent,
Marshall. That notwithstanding the equality of interest in the land
in the complainant and Barton, and the fact that the price was
furnished by them in equal portions,
viz., one hundred
dollars by each of these parties, the appellee, Barton, has claimed
the entire tract of land, and the agent, Marshall, in consequence,
or under the pretext of this pretension, refuses to convey to the
complainant his rightful portion,
viz., one full undivided
moiety of these lands.
The bill next charges that Marshall is about to convey the whole
of the land to Barton in fraud of the complainant's rights, and
concludes with a prayer that Marshall may be enjoined from
executing such a conveyance to Barton, and may be compelled to
convey to the complainant his full undivided half part of the land
in conformity with the terms and objects of the purchase; it
contains also a prayer for general relief. To this complaint there
was no answer, but the record of the district court discloses the
following entries:
"Territory of Minnesota, County of Ramsey. District Court,
Second District. John R. Irvine against William R. Marshall and
Thomas Barton. Then came the defendants, by their attorney, and
demur to the complaint of the plaintiff herein, and specify the
following grounds of demurrer:"
"First. The complaint does not state on its face facts
sufficient to constitute a cause of action."
"Second. The complaint alleges that the defendant, Marshall,
purchased the land mentioned therein, in trust for the plaintiff
and the defendant, Barton. No trust arises or can grow out of the
facts stated."
"Third. Admitting that a trust could arise upon the facts, the
complaint does not show the plaintiff entitled to the relief
sought, inasmuch as it does not specify the nature of the
trust."
"Fourth. There is a defect of the parties defendants; it does
not appear that the defendant Barton has any interest in the event
of the action. It does not appear that the defendant
Page 61 U. S. 560
Barton, has any interest 'in the event of the suit adverse to
the plaintiff.'"
Next follows the decision, judgment, or decree, by whichsoever
of these titles it may be appropriately designated, in these
words:
"There is no allegation in the complaint that the conveyance was
taken without the knowledge or consent of the complainant, nor that
the purchase was made in violation of some trust. The complainant
does not therefore bring himself within the provisions of Sec. 9,
p. 202, of the revised statutes, and the demurrer must be
sustained.
See also Sec. 5 of the same chapter. do not
discover any defect of parties. The plaintiff has twenty days to
amend so as to bring his complaint within the provisions of Sec. 9
referred to, if he shall be advised that the facts will warrant
it."
There having been no amendment of the pleadings in the district
court, either proposed or allowed, the decision of that court must
be regarded as final between the parties upon the case, as
disclosed on the face of the record, and that decision having been
taken by appeal to the supreme court of the territory, the
following transcript is certified as containing the proceedings of
the latter tribunal in this cause:
"July 15, 1856.
John R. Irvine, appellant v. Marshall and
Barton, respondents. This cause having been argued and
submitted, after due consideration of the matters at issue herein,
it appears to the court that in the order and judgment thereon in
the court below, there is no error. It is therefore ordered that
said judgment be in all things affirmed, with costs to
respondents."
The omission in this latter decision of any statement of the
particular grounds on which it has been placed, and the general
reference made by it to the opinion of the district court, not
showing the principles and the authority on which the judgment of
affirmance has been rested, lead necessarily to an examination of
the opinion of the district court as the true test of conclusions,
adopting that opinion and relying upon it for their support. In
such an examination, it would be unnecessary, and even irregular,
to consider any points not ruled by the inferior court, as whatever
has not been adjudged or passed upon by an inferior tribunal cannot
be embraced in a general judgment either of affirmance or reversal
upon an appeal from its opinion.
The points intended to be ruled by the district court and
affirmed by the supreme court of Minnesota, if sought for solely
upon the face of the judgments of those courts or even with the aid
of the references to the territorial statute furnished by the
former judgment it might be difficult to discover.
Page 61 U. S. 561
Connecting those references, however, with the seventh and
eighth sections of the statutes of Minnesota, Rev.Stat. 202, 203,
we may perceive in the decisions of these territorial courts the
design to assert and establish the following positions,
viz., that in every instance of a grant or purchase, or of
an agreement for the purchase of lands for a valuable
consideration, in which the price or consideration shall be paid by
one person and the conveyance or the contract for title shall be to
another, no use or trust shall result in favor of the person by
whom such payment shall be made, but the title and possession shall
vest exclusively in the person named as the alienee in such
conveyance or agreement. The position asserted by the court of
Minnesota in interpreting their statute must be understood as
broadly as it has just been stated, or it has no application to the
case before us. It is a denunciation of everything like an
equitable title or lien, or a resulting trust, with the exceptions
contained in the eighth and ninth sections of the statute, of the
interests of creditors of the equitable claimant, of instances in
which the alienee or agent shall, without the knowledge and consent
of him who paid the consideration, have taken the conveyance in his
own name; or shall, in violation of some trust, have purchased the
lands with moneys belonging to another person.
The authority and effect of the territorial laws of Minnesota
upon subjects within the legitimate bounds or cognizance of that
territorial government no person, it is presumed, will be disposed
to question, but it seems equally clear that to respect the rights
and interests which come not within the scope of that authority,
but which are created by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, imposes a duty as sacred as any which enjoins upon a state
or territory the obligation to protect and maintain whatever of
power may justly belong to it. And it cannot without extravagance
be supposed, that to secure these proper and necessary ends, the
territory should assume the power to control the acquisition or
transmission of property never belonging to and not acquired from
herself, to which, therefore, she could annex no conditions, much
less conditions which might impair the interests of the citizens of
every state, and of every state collectively in the Confederacy and
even of the United States, and render utterly worthless, and
incapable of being disposed of, subjects in which the territory has
no legal right or property whatsoever. It cannot be denied that all
the lands in the territories not appropriated by competent
authority before they were acquired are in the first instance the
exclusive property of the United States, to be disposed of to such
persons, at such times, and in such modes,
Page 61 U. S. 562
and by such titles as the government may deem most advantageous
to the public fisc or in other respects most politic. This right
has been uniformly reserved by solemn compacts upon the admission
of new states, and has heretofore been recognized and scrupulously
respected by sovereign states within which large portions of the
public lands have been comprised and within which much of those
lands is still remaining. Can this right coexist with a power in a
territory itself the property of the United States to interpose and
to dictate to the United States to whom, and in what mode, and by
what title, the public lands shall be conveyed? If a person
desirous of purchasing shall depute an agent to attend a sale of
public lands, and if at such sale payment be made by the agent with
the funds of his principal, and both agent and principal shall
present themselves at the General Land Office and mutually request
a patent to be issued to the true owner, can it possibly be thought
within the competency of a territorial legislature, either upon the
suggestion or upon proof of the fact that a certificate of purchase
was given to the agent in his own name, to interpose, and say to
the federal government,
you shall not make a title to this
person whom you know, upon the acknowledgment of all concerned, is
the true and bona fide
purchaser of the land, and if you
do we will vacate that title? Is it not for the increase of
the revenue that the sales of the public lands should be as
extensive as possible, and is it not obviously promotive of this
end, that persons who can attend and bid at those sales by agent or
attorney only, as well as those who can attend them in person,
should have the power to purchase; and would not an inhibition of
this privilege operate to restrict the sales of the public lands,
and thereby injure the revenue of the government? And
cui
bono should this mischief be permitted? Simply to favor a
visionary innovation for the destruction of resulting trusts and
equitable titles, a class of titles resting upon the essential
elements of all honest titles,
truth and
justice,
and coeval with the very rudiments of equity law. And this
innovation, too, to be extended not merely to cases which from
contestation or from defective proof might be uncertain or
hazardous, but to instances which shall forbid to persons willing
and proffering the fulfillment of their duty, the power to do so.
The power of being honest, a power surely not so often exerted as
to merit being repulsed as obtrusive and ungracious.
1st. It has been argued that the subject of this controversy is
situated within the limits of the territory.
2d. That it is
property, and may pass as such by devise
or inheritance.
Page 61 U. S. 563
3d. That in some of the states and territories, actions at law
may be maintained on these certificates.
4th. It is asked under what head of jurisdiction, in the absence
of express and particular statutory provision, the courts of the
United States can recognize or enforce a resulting trust like that
in the present case. The fallacy of the conclusion attempted from
the first of the positions just stated consists in the supposition
that the control of the United States over property admitted to be
their own is dependent upon locality, as to the point within the
limits of a state or territory within which that property may be
situated. But as the control, enjoyment, or disposal of that
property must be exclusively in the United States, anywhere and
everywhere within their own limits, and within the powers delegated
by the Constitution, no state, and much less can a territory, yet
remaining under the authority of the federal government, interfere
with the regular, the just, and necessary powers of the latter.
Another error inherent in the same position is seen in the
supposition that the contracts of the government with respect to
subjects within its constitutional competency are also local,
confined in their effect and operation strictly to the situs of the
subjects to which they relate. The true principle applicable to the
objection just noted, and by which that objection is at once
obviated, we hold to be this: that within the provisions prescribed
by the Constitution, and by the laws enacted in accordance with the
Constitution, the acts and powers of the government are to be
interpreted and applied so as to create and maintain a system,
general, equal, and beneficial as a whole. By this rule, the acts
and the contracts of the government must be understood as referring
to and sustaining the rights and interests of all the members of
this Confederacy, and as neither emanating from, nor intended for
the promotion of, any policy peculiarly local, nor in any respect
dependent upon such policy. The system adopted for the disposition
of the public lands embraces the interests of all the states, and
proposes the equal participation therein of all the people of all
the states. This system is therefore peculiarly and exclusively the
exercise of a federal power. The theater of its accomplishment is
the seat of the federal government. The mode of that
accomplishment, the evidences or muniments of right it bestows, are
all the work of federal functionaries alone. Are these things in
any degree compatible with the claim to prescribe to the United
States the modes or the extent in which they may dispose of their
own property, or with a denunciation of a forfeiture as the
consequence of a departure from such a pretension?
Page 61 U. S. 564
With regard to the positions that the right acquired by a
purchase of a certificate,
bona fide made, is property in
the vendee, even before the emanation of the patent, and that some
of the states have permitted suits at law to be instituted on
certificates of purchase, as several have permitted such suits on
other equitable titles, it is not perceived that the concession of
either or both of these positions can in any degree impair the
right of the United States to contract upon their own terms for the
sale of their own property, or diminish their obligation in the
fulfillment of their contract in good faith, to convey to their
vendee the subject for which he has paid them. There certainly can
exist nowhere a power to compel them to convey to any person, and
much less to require of them the perpetration of a fraud in behalf
of one in whom no shadow of a valid title is shown and who, by the
pleadings in this cause it is admitted, has acted dishonestly --
whose admitted dishonesty indeed is the alleged and the sole
foundation of the claim of the defendants.
When the engagements or undertaking of the United States with
respect to property exclusively and confessedly their own, from a
period anterior to the existence of the territorial government,
shall have been consummated; when the subject, and all control over
it, shall have passed from the United States, and have become
vested in a citizen or resident of the territory, then indeed the
territorial regulations may operate upon it; but whilst these
remain in the United States or are affected by their rights, or
powers, or duties, those rights, duties, or powers can in no wise
be influenced by an inferior and subordinate authority.
With regard to the fourth objection, of a want of jurisdiction
in the courts of the United States, in the absence of express
statutory provisions to recognize and enforce a resulting trust
like that presented by the present case, it is a sufficient
response to say that the jurisdiction of the courts of the United
States is properly commensurate with every right and duty created,
declared, or necessarily implied by and under the Constitution and
laws of the United States. Those courts are created courts of
common law and equity, and under whichsoever of these classes of
jurisprudence such rights or duties may fall or be appropriately
ranged, they are to be taken cognizance of and adjudicated
according to the settled and known principles of that division to
which they belong.
By the language of the Constitution it is expressly declared,
Art. III, Sec. 2, Clause 1, that the judicial power of the United
States shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under
the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties
Page 61 U. S. 565
made under their authority. By the statute which organized the
judiciary of the United States, it is provided that the circuit
courts shall have jurisdiction of suits of a civil nature "at
common law or in equity."
Vide 1 Stat. 78, section 11. In
the interpretation of these clauses of the Constitution and the
statute, this Court has repeatedly ruled that by cases at common
law are to be understood suits in which legal rights are to be
ascertained and determined, in contradistinction to those where
equitable rights alone are recognized and equitable remedies are
administered.
Vide 28 U. S.
Bedford, 3 Pet. 447, and
Robinson v.
Campbell, 3 Wheat. 212. That by cases in equity are
to be understood suits in which relief is sought according to the
principles and practice of the equity jurisdiction, as established
in English jurisprudence.
Vide the case of
Robinson v.
Campbell just cited, and
United States v.
Howland, 4 Wheat. 108. Here, then, is an exposition
both of the Constitution and laws of the United States with
reference both to the jurisdiction and powers of their courts, and
to the instances in which it is their duty to exercise those
powers, and the inquiry forces itself upon us who shall or can have
the authority to deprive them of those powers and that
jurisdiction?, or can those courts, consistently with their duty,
refuse to exert those powers and that jurisdiction for the
protection of rights arising under the Constitution and laws, in
the acceptation in which both have been interpreted and
sanctioned?
With respect to resulting trusts, and the jurisdiction and duty
of the courts of the United States to enforce them, the opinion of
this Court has been emphatically declared, and so declared in a
case of peculiar force and appositeness, because it related to the
acts of an agent in the entry and survey of lands, and is in its
principal features essentially the same with the cause now under
consideration. We allude to the case of
Massie
v. Watts, 6 Cranch 143. This was a suit in equity
in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of
Kentucky to compel the conveyance of land from an agent to his
principal upon the ground that the agent had withdrawn an entry on
lands made in the name of his principal, had caused an entry and
survey to be made in his own name, and had thereby obtained a legal
title to this land. In decreeing the relief sought by the
complainant, this Court, expounding the law by the Chief Justice,
pp.
10 U. S.
169-170, said:
"If Massie (
i.e., the agent) really believed that the
entry of O'Neal, his principal, as made, could not be surveyed, it
was his duty to amend it or to place it elsewhere. But if in this
he was mistaken, it would be dangerous in the extreme --
Page 61 U. S. 566
it would be a cover for fraud which could seldom be removed if a
locator alleging difficulties respecting a location might withdraw
it and take the land for himself. But Massie, the agent of O'Neal,
has entered the land for himself, and obtained a patent in his own
name. According to
the clearest and best established principles
of equity, the agent who so acts becomes a trustee for his
principal. He cannot hold the land under an entry for himself
otherwise
than as a trustee for his principal."
This exposition of the equity powers of the courts of the United
States as applicable to resulting trusts -- a power inseparable
from the cognizance over frauds, one great province of equity
jurisprudence -- is conclusive.
With respect to the power of the federal government to assert,
through the instrumentality of its appropriate organs, the
administration of its constitutional rights and duties, and with
regard to such an assertion as exemplified in the management and
disposition of the public lands and the titles thereto, the
interpretation of this Court has been settled too conclusively to
admit of controversy.
In the case of
Wilcox v.
Jackson, 13 Pet. 498, which presents an instance of
an attempt to control, by the authority of the laws of the State of
Illinois, the effect and operation of a right or title derivable
from the United States to a portion of the public lands, this Court
thus emphatically declare the law:
"It has been said that the State of Illinois has a right to
declare by law that a title derived from the United States, which
by their laws is only inchoate and imperfect, shall be deemed as
perfect a title as if a patent had issued from the United States,
and the construction of her own courts seems to give that effect to
her statute. That state has an undoubted right to legislate as she
may please in regard to the remedies to be prosecuted in her
courts, and to regulate the disposition of the property of her
citizens, by descent, devise, or alienation. But the property in
question was a part of the public domain of the United States.
Congress is invested by the Constitution with the power of
disposing of and making needful rules and regulations respecting
it. Congress has declared, as we have said, by its legislation that
in such a case as this a patent is necessary to complete the title.
But in this case no patent has issued, and therefore, by the laws
of the United States, the legal title has not passed, but remains
in the United States. Now if it were competent for a state
legislature to say, that notwithstanding this, the title shall be
deemed to have passed, the effect would be not that Congress had
the power of disposing of the public lands and prescribing the
rules and regulations concerning that disposition, but that
Page 61 U. S. 567
Illinois possessed it. That would be to make the laws of
Illinois paramount to those of Congress in relation to a subject
confided by the Constitution to Congress only, and the practical
result in this very case would be by force of state legislation to
take from the United States their own lands against their own will
and against their own laws. We hold the true principle to be this:
that whenever the question in any court, state or federal, is
whether a title to land which was once the property of the United
States has passed, that question must be resolved by the laws of
the United States, but that whenever, according to those laws, the
title shall have passed, then the property, like all other property
in the state, is subject to state legislation so far as that
legislation is consistent with the admission that the title passed
and vested according to the laws of the United States."
It has been argued that it is the practice of the officers of
the land office to receive the certificate of purchase, as
presenting upon its face the only evidence of title, and that those
officers will recognize no other evidence of title but this
certificate. Of the practice or the opinion of the officers of the
land department no evidence is exhibited upon this record. But
supposing these to be in accordance with the above suggestion, they
could by no means control the action or the opinion of this Court
in expounding the law with reference to the rights of parties
litigant before them, and this they must do in accordance with
their own convictions, uninfluenced by the opinions of any and
every other department of the government. The reception of the
certificate of purchase as evidence of title may be regular and
convenient as a rule of business, but it has not been anywhere
established as conclusive evidence, much less has it been adjudged
to forbid or exclude proofs of the real and just rights of
claimants. It is mere justice to the officers of the land
department to presume that they would respect the interpretation of
the Constitution and laws promulgated by those who are appointed to
be their expositors, but upon a supposition, or even upon a
conviction of the converse of this, the path of duty here is plain
and direct, and must be followed without hesitancy or
deviation.
The judgment of the supreme court of Minnesota is reversed
with costs, and this cause is remanded to that court with
instructions that it be remitted to the district court with
permission to the defendant to answer over to the complaint of the
plaintiff, and in the event of a refusal or failure of the
defendant so to do, with direction to the district court to render
a judgment in favor of the plaintiff in conformity with the law as
ruled by this Court in this cause.
Page 61 U. S. 568
MR. JUSTICE CATRON, MR. JUSTICE GRIER, and MR. JUSTICE CAMPBELL,
dissented, and concurred with MR. JUSTICE NELSON in the following
dissenting opinion:
MR. JUSTICE NELSON:
In this case, Marshall bought at the request of Irvine and
Barton a quarter section of land, at a land sale in Minnesota
Territory, for which two hundred dollars was paid and a patent
certificate given to him in his name. One hundred dollars of the
money was furnished by Irvine and one hundred by Barton, and the
land according to the arrangement was to be held in trust by
Marshall, for their benefit. Barton, for some reason not explained,
afterwards claimed the whole instead of an undivided half of the
section, and demanded a conveyance of the same from Marshall, the
trustee. Irvine afterwards applied to the trustee for a conveyance
of his undivided half, which was refused in consequence of the
previous claim of Barton to the whole section. This suit is brought
by Irvine against Marshall, the trustee, to compel him to make the
above conveyance.
The court below, on a demurrer to the complaint which contained
the facts substantially as above stated, gave judgment for the
defendant, refusing to compel the execution of the conveyance.
The question presented would be a very plain one at common or
equity law upon the doctrine of trusts as administered by courts
unaffected with any local legislation. The facts would present the
case of a resulting trust for the benefit of the persons who had
furnished the purchase money, and the trustee compelled to convey
accordingly the interest belonging to the respective parties.
But the Legislature of Minnesota have passed a law modifying the
doctrine of uses and trusts, and especially in respect to resulting
trusts of the character in question. It has provided that when a
grant is made for a valuable consideration to one person and the
consideration paid by another, no trust shall result in favor of
the person paying the consideration, but the title shall vest in
the person named as grantee, subject only to two exceptions: 1. in
favor of the creditors of the person paying the consideration
money, and 2. when the person taking the conveyance in his own name
shall have taken it without the knowledge or consent of the party
paying the consideration, or when the trustee shall have purchased,
in violation of his trust, with moneys belonging to another person.
R.S. of Minnesota, 202, 203, secs. 7-9.
It is admitted that the present case does not fall within
either
Page 61 U. S. 569
of the exceptions, and on this ground the relief in the court
below was denied.
This provision in the laws of Minnesota will be found adopted in
several of the states. This precise modification of a resulting
trust was incorporated into the laws of the State of New York as
early as 1830, and from which, as is said, it was taken and
engrafted in the statutes of this territory.
The object of the change is to prevent secret and fraudulent
conveyance of property, with the view of defrauding creditors. A
common and successful contrivance for this purpose, is by placing
the title of the property in the name of a third person, while the
whole of the beneficial interest is in another, thereby concealing
it from the creditor, and embarrassing his remedy against the
property of the debtor.
The provision is designed to deter parties from engaging in this
contrivance, by subjecting the property, thus concealed in the name
of another, to the peril of being claimed and held by him as his
own. The question is one of state policy, in regulating the terms
and conditions of holding and disposing of the property within the
state, so as to encourage open and frank dealing with the same, and
to prevent concealed and covenous trusts as a cover for defrauding
creditors. It may be wise or unwise; that we suppose is a question
with which courts have nothing to do, as the power of a state to
regulate the subject is unquestionable, and in this respect the
power in the territory is the same.
It is insisted, however, that the nature or character of the
property in question, impressed upon it by the law of Congress
providing for and regulating the sales of the public lands, takes
it out of the system of municipal law which, it must be admitted,
governs and controls parties in dealing with property in general in
the states and territories. If this be so, it constitutes certainly
a very important exception; for it is, perhaps, not hazarding too
much in saying that in the new states, and in the territories for
many years after their organization, the largest portion of the
real property owned and cultivated by the inhabitants is held and
enjoyed under a title similar to that in question, namely, a patent
certificate. And we may, I think, in respect to property in this
predicament, ask, under what system of laws is it to be held and
regulated, if the municipal laws of the state are to be set aside?
It is true, the laws of Congress provide for and regulate the sale
of the public lands, and, in doing so, provide for this inchoate
title to be given to the purchaser, on paying the purchase money.
And, if anyone undertakes to question this title, the law of
Congress is called in as the highest evidence of it. Thus far the
law of
Page 61 U. S. 570
Congress operates, of whatever nature or character that may be.
But beyond this whether A or B owns this inchoate title, whether A
has made a good sale and transfer of it to another, or such a one
as the municipal law will give effect to, are questions which do
not concern the law of Congress or the federal authorities. They
are questions arising purely under the municipal laws. Whether the
original purchaser who has received the certificate has himself
settled on the section under it, or whether he has transferred it
to another settler, are questions in which the federal government
has no interest. They being to the state within which the lands are
situate. Indeed, the land department so determined at an early day,
and in case of a dispute as to the ownership of the certificate, it
gives the patent to the person named in it, leaving the parties to
settle their disputes in the courts of law. The question in this
case is not whether a title has been derived from the federal
government under the act of Congress -- that title is admitted,
indeed it is that which gives value to the right in dispute -- the
question is, who has acquired the right to the property, after the
title has been acquired from the government; in other words, who
owns this inchoate title secured by the patent certificate? That is
a question depending upon local law. The point was well put by
judge Barbour in delivering the opinion of the court in
Wilcox v.
Jackson, 13 Pet. 517. "We hold," he observed,
"the true principle to be this: that whenever the question in
any court, state or federal, is whether the title to land which had
been once the property of the United States has passed, that
question must be resolved by the laws of the United States; but
that, whenever according to those laws the title shall have passed,
then that property, like all other property in the state, is
subject to state legislation, so far as that legislation is
consistent with the admission that the title passed according to
the laws of the United States."
Now it is upon this principle that the lands held under the
patent certificate have become property in the state, and subject
to its legislation, that they are subject to judgment and execution
against the owner; to conveyance by deed or devise; to descend to
his heirs at law on his decease, or to sale by a court of probate
to pay his debts. And it may well be asked if the title is thus
subject to the municipal laws concerning judgments and executions,
deeds of conveyance, devises, of descent, and of administration in
the probate court, how the title can be exempt from the law of
trusts? The general principles of equity can no more be invoked in
respect to them than in respect to either of the other matters
referred to, when they have been the subject of regulations by the
local law.
Page 61 U. S. 571
That law then becomes the rule of property to govern them, the
same as it governs the inheritance, or any other lawful disposition
made of it. We do not see the reason or propriety of setting aside
the local law in respect to this class of property as to trusts,
while it is admitted to regulate every other legal disposition made
of it; and I must therefore, for the reasons given, dissent from
the opinion of the majority of the court.