1. Under the treaty of cession of Louisiana, made with France,
April 30, 1803, the United States Government always claimed to the
Perdido River on the east, although the Spanish authorities kept
possession of, and claimed sovereignty over, the territory between
that river and the
Page 78 U. S. 633
Mississippi (except the Island of New Orleans) until 1810, when
the United States took forcible possession of it.
2. Spain, in ceding the Floridas to the United States by the
Treaty of February 22, 1819, only ceded so much thereof as belonged
to her, and hence did not cede the above territory, lying between
the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers.
3. The stipulation in the eighth section of the treaty of 1819
to confirm all Spanish grants of land in the ceded territory did
not embrace grants made in the above territory after Spain ceded
Louisiana to France by the Treaty of St. Ildefonso in 1801, for
after that, it did not belong to Spain.
4. The Act of March 26, 1804, organizing territorial governments
for Louisiana, expressly declared void all grants made in the
territory above referred to after the Treaty of St. Ildefonso.
5. The foregoing points have been established by a long series
of decisions in this Court.
6. But by the Act of June 22, 1860, entitled "An act for the
final adjustment of private land claims in the States of Florida,
Louisiana, and Missouri and for other purposes," the grants made by
the Spanish government in the disputed territory whilst in
possession thereof and claiming sovereignty over it were
confirmed.
7. Such a grant, for 32,025 arpents, made by the Spanish
intendant Morales on the 12th day of July, 1806, to John Lynde, the
ancestor of the appellees, although rejected and declared void
under previous conditions of the laws, was held to be confirmed and
validated by the act of 1860.
The heirs of John Lynde filed a petition in the court below, the
object of the suit having been to obtain the recognition and
confirmation, as against the United States, of a claim for 32,025
arpents of land in Louisiana under the provisions of an Act of
Congress entitled, "An act for the final adjustment of Private Land
Claims in the states of Florida, Louisiana, and Missouri, and for
other purposes," approved June 22, 1860. [
Footnote 1]
The petitioners claimed title under a grant by Juan Ventura
Morales, Spanish intendant of West Florida, to John Lynde, their
ancestor, on the 12th day of July, 1806, in pursuance of an
application made by Lynde on the 26th day of September, 1803, and
regular surveys thereon. The lands
Page 78 U. S. 634
were situated east of the River Mississippi and south of the
31st parallel of latitude in a direction nearly north of Baton
Rouge, and were a part of the disputed territory which, after the
cession of Louisiana to the United States in 1803, was claimed by
them as part of Louisiana and by Spain as a part of West Florida.
The cause of this contention between the claimants under the
Spanish grant and the United States originated in the various
treaties of cession which had been made respecting these
territories.
The court below decided in favor of the claim, and the United
States brought the case here.
MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY stated the history and nature of the title
on both sides and delivered the opinion of the Court.
Louisiana, as possessed by the French prior to 1763, embraced
not only the entire territory west of the Mississippi, but also
extended east of that river, along the Gulf of Mexico, as far as
the Perdido, the present boundary between Alabama and Florida. By
the treaties of 1763, France ceded the latter portion, lying east
of the Mississippi, except the City and Island of New Orleans, to
Great Britain, and the residue to Spain. Subsequently (in 1783),
Spain acquired the part ceded to Great Britain, and thus became
possessed of the entire territory on our western and southern
borders. On the 1st of October, 1800, a secret treaty was made at
St. Ildefonso, between Spain and Bonaparte, then First Consul, by
which Spain agreed, on certain conditions to be performed, to
retrocede to the French republic
"the colony or province of Louisiana with the same extent that
it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France
possessed it, and such as it ought to be after the treaties
subsequently entered into between Spain and other states."
The ambiguity of this last expression was the cause of the
subsequent misunderstanding between Spain and the United States.
Did it mean that Spain was to retrocede to France
Page 78 U. S. 635
all the territory which the latter had formerly possessed under
the name of Louisiana, or only so much as remained after the
separation of West Florida therefrom and the cession thereof to
Great Britain? The United States contended the former, Spain the
latter.
The importance of this question arose from the fact that the
cession of Louisiana by Bonaparte to the United States included in
precise terms what had been retroceded by Spain to France. The
Treaty of April 30, 1803, after reciting the exact language of the
Treaty of St. Ildefonso, describing the colony or province of
Louisiana as above stated, ceded
"the said territory, with all its rights and appurtenances, as
fully and in the same manner as they had been acquired by the
French republic in virtue of the above-mentioned treaty with his
Catholic Majesty."
In accordance with her construction of the Treaty of St.
Ildefonso, Spain refused to surrender the possession of the
territory east of the Mississippi and Iberville Rivers which she
had acquired from Great Britain, and which the English had named
West Florida, and she retained possession of it and exercised full
sovereignty over it for many years afterwards.
Notwithstanding this refusal of Spain to deliver up West
Florida, the United States, through the executive and legislative
departments of the government, always claimed that it was covered
by the two treaties of cession, and insisted that it rightfully
belonged to them, though no demonstrations were made to dispossess
the Spanish authorities until 1810, when President Madison issued a
proclamation directing that possession should be taken, but at the
same time declared that the right thereto should remain, as it had
continued, a subject for amicable negotiation with the Spanish
government. Possession was taken by the United States
accordingly.
During the period that Spain remained in possession, her
authorities continued to grant lands not only in small parcels to
actual settlers, under her colonization laws, but in large tracts
to speculators and favorites.
Page 78 U. S. 636
From 1803 to 1806, inclusive, the Spanish intendant, Morales,
made many such grants (of which the grant in question was one), and
which have ever since been the subject of much litigation and
dispute, never being recognized as valid by our authorities unless
so recognized by the act of 1860, hereafter referred to.
Immediately after acquiring possession of Louisiana in 1803,
Congress passed an act to organize temporary governments in the
newly acquired domain. This act, which was passed on the 26th day
of March, 1804, created two territories -- one, embracing all that
part of the ceded country lying south of Mississippi territory,
east of the Mississippi River and south of the 33d parallel of
latitude west of that river, to be called the Territory of Orleans,
the other, embracing all the residue of the ceded country -- namely
that portion lying west of the River Mississippi and north of the
33d parallel, to be called the District of Louisiana. By the 14th
section of this act, all grants of land within the ceded
territories, the title whereof was, at the date of the Treaty of
St. Ildefonso (October 1, 1800) in the Crown, government, or nation
of Spain
were declared void except
bona fide
grants made to actual settlers prior to December 20, 1803, not to
exceed one mile square to each settler, and the usual proportion
for his wife and family.
According to the views of our government, this act extended to
West Florida (so called), as well as to Louisiana, and as a part
thereof. President Madison, in 1810, in the proclamation referred
to, [
Footnote 2] commences with
these words:
"Whereas the territory south of the Mississippi territory and
eastward of the River Mississippi, and extending to the River
Perdido, of which possession was not delivered to the United States
in pursuance of the Treaty concluded at Paris on the 30 of April,
1803, has at all times, as is well known, been considered and
claimed by them as being within the colony of Louisiana conveyed by
the said treaty in the same extent that it had in the hands of
Spain and that it had when France originally possessed it,"
&c.
Page 78 U. S. 637
He then states that the United States had forborne to take
possession not from any distrust of their title, but from motives
of conciliation towards Spain, and shows why it was inexpedient to
delay taking possession any longer, and concludes by directing
Governor Claiborne,
"Governor of the Orleans territory, of which the said territory
is to be taken as part, to take possession of the same, and to
exercise over it the authorities and functions legally appertaining
to his office."
By the act of 25 April, 1812, after possession of West Florida
had been assumed by our government, commissioners were appointed to
investigate all the titles and claims to lands in that territory,
and the claim now before us was laid before the proper commissioner
and rejected on the ground that the territory was a part of
Louisiana ceded to the United States in 1803, and that the
authority of Spain over the same had ceased by the Treaty of St.
Ildefonso of October 1, 1800. Other claims belonging to the same
category met with a like fate. A list of these claims, rejected by
the commissioner for the district between the Mississippi and Pearl
Rivers may be found in the American State Papers. [
Footnote 3] The commissioner reports that in
his opinion these claims ought not to be confirmed, 1st, because
the government of the United States claims an absolute property in
the territory; 2d, because the Spanish government evidently
distrusted its own right to make these grants, as they were made in
a manner entirely different from the usages and customs always
before observed in granting lands. It was not the custom of Spain
to make sale and gain of her public lands, but to grant them to
actual settlers. Nevertheless, the commissioner suggests whether
the United States government, by permitting Spain to remain in
possession of the country, and thus to impose upon persons
purchasing lands in good faith, was not morally bound by
considerations of equity and policy to make these purchasers some
compensation.
Page 78 U. S. 638
These events happened prior to the Treaty between Spain and the
United States entered into February 22, 1819, by which his Catholic
Majesty ceded to the latter all the territories
belonging to
him situated to the eastward of the Mississippi known by the
name of East and West Florida.
By the 8th article of that treaty it is stipulated as
follows:
"All the grants of land made before the 24th of January, 1818,
by his Catholic Majesty, or by his lawful authorities
in the
said territories ceded by his Majesty to the United States,
shall be ratified and confirmed to the persons in possession of the
lands to the same extent that the same grants would be valid if the
territories had remained under the dominion of his Catholic
Majesty."
When this treaty came before the courts, it was held that it
furnished no aid to the disputed claims, since it only guaranteed
grants made by the King of Spain in the territory ceded by that
treaty, and the territory ceded only embraced such territory as
belonged to the King of Spain, and as the United States
held that the disputed territory did not belong to him, no grants
made by him therein were confirmed by the treaty.
In 1829, the case of
Foster and Elam v. Neilson came
before this Court on a claim for 40,000 arpents of land under one
of the grants of Morales, precisely like the claim now before the
Court. The case is reported in 2 Peters, [
Footnote 4] and contains, in the arguments of counsel
and the opinion of the Court, a complete history of the
controversy. Chief Justice Marshall ably reviews the argument of
our government in favor of its claim under the Treaties of St.
Ildefonso and of April 30, 1803. He admits that the former is
susceptible of a twofold construction, but he concludes, and that
was the judgment of the Court, that the judicial department is
bound by the construction adopted by its own government. He says:
[
Footnote 5]
"If those departments which are entrusted with the foreign
intercourse of the nation, which assert and maintain its
interests
Page 78 U. S. 639
against foreign powers, have unequivocally asserted its rights
of dominion over a country of which it is in possession, and which
is claims under a treaty; if the legislature has acted on the
construction thus asserted, it is not in its own courts that the
construction is to be denied. A question like this respecting the
boundaries of nations is, as has been truly said, more a political
than a legal question, and in its discussion the courts of every
country must respect the pronounced will of the legislature."
The Chief Justice then turns to the question whether the treaty
of 1819 had effected any change in the position of these grants
before the courts. After quoting the eighth article of the treaty,
which stipulates that
"all the grants of land made before the 24th of January, 1818,
by his Catholic Majesty, or by his lawful authorities, in the said
territories ceded &c., should be ratified and
confirmed,"
he inquires what territories were
ceded, and observes
that the cession did not embrace
all territories situated
to the eastward of the Mississippi, but all the territories
which belonged to him (the King of Spain) thus situated.
If, according to the position assumed by our government, the United
States had already acquired a full title to West Florida as far to
the eastward as the Perdido River, then Spain had no title, and
ceded nothing therein, and, by consequence, the stipulation in the
eighth article of the treaty in favor of grants made by his
Catholic Majesty "in the territories ceded" would not apply to the
grant then before the Court. Another difficulty in the case, as
viewed by the Court, was in the form of the stipulation. It was
that all grants "
shall be ratified and confirmed," not
"are ratified and confirmed" -- a form of expression which the
Court held required the intermediate action of the legislature
confirmatory of the grants before the courts could act upon them.
For these reasons, the Court decided against the claim.
In the subsequent case of
Arredondo, [
Footnote 6] on an examination of the Spanish
side of the treaty, the Court held that the last
Page 78 U. S. 640
point made in
Foster v. Neilson was untenable, and that
the treaty
was a present confirmation of the grants
referred to in it, [
Footnote 7]
and the same was decided in
United States v. Percheman.
[
Footnote 8] But this did not
affect the question at issue. The main objection still
remained.
Meantime, attempts were made in Congress to secure the
recognition of these Spanish grants, but without success. In
February, 1832, a resolution was passed by the House of
Representatives calling on the Secretary of State for his opinion
of the justice and validity of the claims arising upon those grants
and of the expediency of providing by law for their final
adjustment. Mr. Edward Livingston, the then Secretary of State, who
had been counsel for the claimants, made a lengthy and able report,
[
Footnote 9] stating the
history of the grants and the questions arising thereon and
strongly urging their justice and the expediency of providing for
their settlement. He contended that this was called for in the
exercise of good faith towards the Spanish government, which,
whatever views we might have entertained with regard to our own
title, had always considered us pledged by the treaty of 1819 to
recognize and validate her grants and had expressed very decided
complaints at our failure to do so.
Mr. Wickliffe, from the Committee on Public Lands in the House,
to whom the Secretary's communication was referred, made a report
combating its conclusions with great energy:
"Are we to be told [says the report [
Footnote 10]] at this time of day that our title to
the territory between the Mississippi and Perdido was not valid
until the treaty of 1819, and that by that treaty we
purchased that part of Louisiana by the name of 'all the
territories which belong to him (his Catholic Majesty), situated to
the eastward of the Mississippi, known by the name of East and West
Florida?' What was East and West Florida in 1819? Did it include
any part of the territory between the
Page 78 U. S. 641
Mississippi and the Perdido? Had not the United States, under
and by virtue of the treaty between France and Spain, and between
the United States and France, long prior to 1819, taken possession
of the same by expelling the Spanish power therefrom? And who
doubted in 1819 her right both of jurisdiction and soil? And who,
till now, ever supposed that the United States, by the treaty of
1819, imposed upon herself the obligation to confirm these grants
made by Spain in violation of her solemn treaty stipulations? . . .
The committee will not do the then administration so much injustice
as to suppose they would negotiate a treaty with Spain for the
avowed purpose of the acquisition of East and West Florida, in
terms designed to conceal the important fact from the Congress of
the United States that by said treaty they were bound to confirm
claims to near 600,000 acres of land which had, by an act of solemn
legislation, been declared null and void, and which originated in a
violation of the Treaty of St. Ildefonso and of that with France in
1803."
This extract serves to show the temper with which these claims
were viewed at that day by many of our leading statesmen. Of course
no advance was made in their favor on this occasion.
The next case in this Court in which grants of land between the
Mississippi and Perdido Rivers came in question was
Garcia v.
Lee, in 1838. [
Footnote
11] The Court in that case reaffirmed
Foster v.
Neilson and held that as this territory did not belong to
Spain after the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, but belonged to the United
States according to its construction of the treaty, the Spanish
grants therein made after 1800 were invalid, and were not confirmed
by the eighth article of the treaty of 1819. Chief Justice Taney,
delivering the opinion of the Court, [
Footnote 12] said:
"Indeed, when it is once admitted that the boundary line,
according to the American construction of the treaty, is to be
treated as the true one in the courts of the United States, it
would seem to follow as a necessary consequence that the
Page 78 U. S. 642
grant now before the Court, which was made by the Spanish
authorities within the limits of the territory which then belonged
to the United States, must be null and void unless it has been
confirmed by the United States by treaty or otherwise. It is
obvious that one nation cannot grant away the territory of
another."
Again:
"In the case before us, the grant is invalid from an intrinsic
defect in the title of Spain. It is true she still claimed the
country, and refused to deliver it to the United States. But her
conduct was in this respect a violation of the rights of the United
States and of the obligation of treaties."
The court relied on the act of 1804 as giving notice of the
determination of the United States to claim the territory and to
ignore any grants made therein, except to actual settlers.
In this state of the decisions, it was in vain for claimants
under these grants to think of resorting longer to the courts of
the United States. They accordingly again applied to Congress, and
on June 17, 1844, procured a law by which the Act of May 26, 1824,
relating to land titles in Missouri, was extended to Louisiana and
Arkansas and the district between the Mississippi and Perdido
Rivers, and the district courts were invested with jurisdiction
over land claims originating with either French, Spanish, or
British authorities. [
Footnote
13] This act authorized any person claiming land by virtue of
any French or Spanish grant, concession, warrant, or order of
survey legally made or issued before the 10th of March, 1804, which
was protected or secured by the treaty with France of April 30,
1803, and which might have been perfected into a complete title had
not the sovereignty been changed, to present a petition to the
district court stating the case and have the claim adjudicated upon
and settled according to the law of nations, the stipulations of
any treaty, the acts of Congress, and the laws of the former
government,
Page 78 U. S. 643
subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.
A number of suits for lands in the disputed district were soon
after commenced in the district court -- amongst others, one by the
heirs of John Lynde for the tract in question in this case. But the
claimants were still unsuccessful in this Court.
The first case reported is that of
United States v.
Reynes. [
Footnote 14]
It was a case precisely like the one now before the Court, and was
rejected on the ground that the Act of May 26, 1824, related to
inchoate and incomplete titles and was intended to give a means of
completing them. The Court reaffirmed
Foster v. Neilson
and held that Spain could not make any valid grant in the disputed
territory after the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, and that the Act of
March 26, 1804, which had never been repealed, had pronounced all
such grants void. The Court adhered to the same views in
United
States v. D'Auterive, [
Footnote 15]
United States v. Philadelphia and New
Orleans, [
Footnote 16]
Montault v. United States, [
Footnote 17]
United States v. Castant, [
Footnote 18] and a number of other
cases in the same term, including the case now before the Court.
These cases were decided in 1852.
In view of this long course of decisions, all to the same
purport, it must be considered as judicially settled in this Court
that Louisiana, as ceded to the United States in 1803, embraced the
territory between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers, and that our
government had a perfect legal right, whatever may have been its
moral or honorary obligations, to ignore all grants made by the
Spanish authorities after the Treaty of St. Ildefonso went into
effect. It must also be regarded as judicially settled that the
treaty of 1819 confirmed grants of land made in the Floridas, east
of the Perdido, but not those made to the west of that river,
unless made to actual settlers or made before the Treaty of St.
Ildefonso went into effect. If the political departments of the
government felt bound, from considerations of honor and
Page 78 U. S. 644
good faith, or from motives of conciliation and policy, to give
effect to any other grants, it was for them to do so.
This is what the claimants insist has been done.
But that the government of the United States has always
continued to insist upon its own construction of the treaties,
whenever they are referred to as matter of right or historic
derivation of title, is manifest, among other things, from the act
admitting Florida into the Union as a state, passed so late as
March 3, 1845, by which the boundaries are fixed as follows:
"Said State of Florida shall embrace the territories of East and
West Florida, which, by the treaty of amity, settlement, and limits
between the United States and Spain, on the 22d day of February,
1819, were ceded to the United States. [
Footnote 19]"
It is well known that Florida, as thus limited, extended only to
the Perdido River, all the territory west of which had long
previously been assigned to the States of Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Alabama, which were respectively admitted into the Union with
their present boundaries in 1812, 1817, and 1819.
It is evident therefore that the case of the claimants, if it
can stand at all, must stand on the voluntary bounty of our
government, exerted through its legislative department. And the
question in this case is whether that bounty has in fact been
exerted.
After the unsuccessful attempt made in the courts, as last
referred to, under the Missouri act of 1824, the subject was again
brought to the attention of Congress in May, 1858. Mr. Benjamin,
who had been counsel for the claimants in the last cases, made a
report to the Senate as chairman of the Committee on Private Land
Claims, and submitted a bill for the relief of the claimants. This
report contained a very full history of the treaties and
litigation, giving a favorable view of the Spanish side of the
question. Suffice it to say, in consequence of this report,
Congress passed the Act of June 22, 1860, entitled "An act for the
final adjustment of private
Page 78 U. S. 645
land claims in the States of Florida, Louisiana, and Missouri,
and for other purposes." This act provides that any person claiming
lands in Florida, Louisiana, or Missouri, by virtue of grant,
concession, or warrant of survey emanating from any foreign
government prior to the cession of the territory to the United
States,
or during the period when any such government claimed
sovereignty, or had the actual possession of the district or
territory in which the lands claimed are situated, shall be
authorized to make application for the
confirmation of his
title in the manner pointed out in the act, which appoints
commissioners to hear and determine the applications, and to make
report to the commissioner of the land office. This officer, if he
approves, is to report the same to Congress for its action and
final decision thereon, and it is provided that if the lands, or
any of them, have been sold by the government or cannot be surveyed
and located, the claimant, if his title be confirmed, shall have
the right to enter a quantity equal in extent to the lands thus
sold, upon any of the public lands of the United States, subject to
private entry at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.
By the eleventh section, it is provided that where the lands
claimed have not been in possession of and cultivated by the
claimant for the period of twenty years, and where the lands are
claimed by complete grant or concession &c., made prior to the
cession of the territory to the United States,
or where such
title was created and perfected during the period while the foreign
government from which it emanated claimed sovereignty over or had
the actual possession of such territory, the claimant may, at
his option, instead of submitting his claim to the commissioners,
proceed by petition in the proper district court of the United
States, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court, whose decision is
to be final; and if the claim be sustained, a patent is thereupon
to issue for so much of the lands claimed as remained unsold, and
for so much as may have been sold the claimant is to have the right
to enter an equal quantity upon the public lands, as before
stated.
That the object of this act was to confirm the grants in
question seems hardly to admit of a doubt. It is true, that
Page 78 U. S. 646
in prescribing the powers and duties of the special
commissioners and the courts to whose decision the applications
were to be referred, it is provided that they shall decide thereon
according to
equity and justice. [
Footnote 20] But it can hardly be contended,
especially in view of what has already been said, that Congress
meant by this language to authorize the said commissioners and
courts to review the entire subject, and to decide what our
government ought to have done with regard to these grants. It could
not have been the intention to throw the whole discussion open,
from the Treaty of St. Ildefonso down to the present time, and to
confer upon the tribunals named in the act the power which properly
belonged to the political department of the government, and to
impose upon them the duty of declaring what the policy of the
government should be; or to leave it to their perhaps varying
judgments what was the true intent and meaning of the original
treaties. That could not have been the design of Congress. The act
authorizes the claimants to present their claims for
confirmation, and although it does not in so many words
say that grants made by foreign governments, while in possession of
the territory and claiming sovereignty over it, if complete,
regular, and fair, shall be sustained, yet that is the unavoidable
inference to be derived from its language and from the events and
course of decisions out of which it arose. And although it does not
expressly repeal that part of the Act of March 26, 1804, which
declared void all grants of land within the ceded territories made
after the date of the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, yet its provisions,
in order to have any effect at all, must be regarded as
irreconcilable with that clause of the act of 1804, and
consequently as repealing it by implication.
We cannot avoid the conclusion, therefore, that the Act of June
22, 1860, was intended to validate all grants which were made by
the Spanish government to
bona fide grantees of lands in
the disputed territory whilst the government remained in possession
of the territory and claimed sovereignty
Page 78 U. S. 647
over it, subject, of course, to the express exceptions of the
treaty of 1819, and the supplementary declaration of the King of
Spain finally annexed thereto.
What range of discretion was intended to be conferred upon the
special commissioners and the courts by authorizing them to decide
according to the principles of equity and justice is perhaps not
entirely clear. The probable meaning is that these principles are
to be applied to each particular case. If it should appear that a
grant was obtained by fraud, or was affected by any other special
vice, it would be the duty of the tribunals to reject it. Or, if it
should appear that a claim was honest and meritorious, but
defective in point of form or completeness, it might be the duty of
the tribunals to sustain it as an equitable, if not a strictly
legal, title.
This view of the subject relieves us from the ungracious task of
construing treaties and reviewing the conduct and policy of the
government. Congress, by the act of 1860, has declared its own
policy and has left us simply the office of judicially carrying out
its enactments in individual cases as they come before us. Congress
has laid down the general rule by placing the grants in question on
a platform of equality with grants made by our own government, and
has left to the tribunals the duty of examining the merits of
particular applications.
An examination of the case before us shows that the grant to
John Lynde was made in due form and after regular surveys, and that
the consideration was duly paid to the Spanish government. Nothing
has been developed in the case which goes to assail to
bona
fides of the transaction unless it be the fact of obtaining
the grant from Morales (who was Lynde's father-in-law) after the
treaty of cession, and when it was known that the United States
claimed the territory. But as this can be said of all these grants,
and was one of the considerations that must have been patent to the
mind of Congress when it enacted the law of 1860, we must presume
that it was waived by that body, and has ceased to be a valid
ground of objection.
Decree affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD dissented from the decree, upon the ground
that the act of Congress in question did not confirm any claim
previously adjudged void by the federal courts in pursuance of a
prior act of Congress conferring jurisdiction to hear and determine
the controversy.
[
Footnote 1]
12 Stat. at Large 85.
[
Footnote 2]
11 Stat. at Large 761.
[
Footnote 3]
Title Public Lands, vol. vi, p. 501.
[
Footnote 4]
Page
27 U. S. 253.
[
Footnote 5]
Page
27 U. S.
309.
[
Footnote 6]
31 U. S. 6 Pet.
691.
[
Footnote 7]
31 U. S. 6 Pet.
737-743.
[
Footnote 8]
32 U. S. 7 Pet.
51.
[
Footnote 9]
See it, American Archives, Public Lands, vol. vi, p.
495.
[
Footnote 10]
Ib., Public Lands, vol. vi, pp. 507-508.
[
Footnote 11]
37 U. S. 12 Pet.
511
[
Footnote 12]
Page
37 U. S.
521.
[
Footnote 13]
5 Stat. at Large 676.
[
Footnote 14]
50 U. S. 9 How.
127.
[
Footnote 15]
51 U. S. 10 How.
609.
[
Footnote 16]
52 U. S. 11 How.
609.
[
Footnote 17]
53 U. S. 12 How.
47.
[
Footnote 18]
53 U. S. 12 How.
437.
[
Footnote 19]
5 Stat. at Large 743.
[
Footnote 20]
See ยงยง 2 and 11.