In 1824, Congress passed an act, 4 Stat. 52, entitled
"An act enabling the claimants to lands within the limits of the
State of Missouri and Territory of Arkansas to institute
proceedings to try the validity of their claims."
The second section provided that, in
"all cases, the party against whom the judgment or decree of the
said district court may be finally given, shall be entitled to an
appeal, within one year from the time of its rendition, to the
Supreme Court of the United States,"
and the fifth section enacted that any claim which shall not be
brought by petition before the said courts within two years from
the passing of the act, or which, after being brought before the
said courts, shall, on account of the neglect or delay of the
claimant, not be prosecuted to a final decision within three years,
shall be forever barred.
In 1844, Congress passed another act, 5 Stat. 676, entitled
"An act to provide for the adjustment of land claims within the
states of Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and in those parts of
the states of Mississippi and Alabama, south of the thirty-first
degree of north latitude, and between the Mississippi and Perdido
Rivers."
It enacted
"That so much of the expired act of 1824 as related to the State
of Missouri be, and is hereby, revived and reenacted, and continued
in force for the term of five years, and no longer, and the
provisions of that part of the aforesaid act hereby revived and
reenacted shall be, and hereby are, 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
thirty-first degree of north latitude, and between the Mississippi
and Perdido Rivers."
The act of 1824, revived and reenacted by the act of 1844, did
not expire in five years from the passage of the act of 1844, so
far as regards appeals from the district court to this Court. It
will continue in force until all the appeals regularly brought up
from the district courts shall be finally disposed of.
The first two of these cases were appeals from the District
Court of Mississippi. One of them,
viz., United States v. Heirs
of Boisdore, was the same case in which a motion to dismiss
was made at the preceding term, as reported in
48 U. S. 7 How.
658.
Page 49 U. S. 114
The third was an appeal from the District Court of
Louisiana.
A motion was now made to dismiss the whole three upon a ground
which was common to them all,
viz., that the act of 1844,
reviving and reenacting the act of 1824, continued it in force for
the term of five years, and no longer, and that, as the act was
passed on 17 June, 1844, it expired upon 17 June, 1849. By reason
of which expiration, it was alleged this Court had no longer any
jurisdiction over the case.
By an Act of June 17, 1844, 5 Stat. 676, entitled
"An act to provide for the adjustment of land claims within the
States of Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and in those parts of
the States of Mississippi and Alabama south of the thirty-first
degree of north latitude, and between the Mississippi and Perdido
Rivers,"
it is enacted,
"That so much of the expired act of 26 May, 1824, entitled 'An
act to enable claimants to land within the State of Missouri and
Territory of Arkansas to institute proceedings to try the validity
of their claims,' as related to the State of Missouri, . . . be and
is hereby revived and reenacted, and continued in force for the
term of five years, and no longer, and the provisions of that part
of the aforesaid act, hereby revived and reenacted, shall be and
hereby are extended,"
to the States of Louisiana, Mississippi &c.,
"in the same way, and with the same rights, powers, and
jurisdictions, to every extent they can be rendered applicable, as
if these states had been enumerated in the original act hereby
revived, and the enactments expressly applied to them, as to the
State of Missouri, and the district court and the judges thereof,
in each of these states, shall have and exercise the like
jurisdiction over the land claims in their respective states and
districts, originating with either the Spanish, French, or British
authorities, as by said act was given to the court and the judge
thereof in the State of Missouri."
The Act of 26 May, 1824, thus revived and reenacted, 4 Stat. 52,
after describing the classes of cases embraced within its
provisions, prescribes that the claimants shall present a petition
to the district court, setting forth their claims; that proper
parties, including the district attorney, shall be made; that the
proceedings shall be conducted according to the rules of a court of
equity; and that the said court shall have power to hear and
determine the questions arising in the cause, and to make a decree.
It then, in the latter part of the second section, enacts:
"And in all cases, the party against whom the judgment or decree
of the said district court may be finally given shall be entitled
to an appeal, within one
Page 49 U. S. 115
year from the time of its rendition, to the Supreme Court of the
United States, the decision of which court shall be final and
conclusive between the parties, and should no appeal be taken, the
judgment or decree of the said district court shall, in like
manner, be final and conclusive."
By the fifth section it is enacted
"That any claim to lands, tenements, or hereditaments, within
the purview of this act, which shall not be brought by petition
before the said courts within two years from the passing of this
act, or which, after being brought before the said courts, shall,
on account of the neglect or delay of the claimant, not be
prosecuted to a final decision within three years, shall be forever
barred, both at law and in equity, and no other action at common
law, or proceeding in equity, shall ever thereafter be sustained,
in any court whatever, in relation to said claims."
In the three cases above mentioned, petitions had been filed in
the respective courts, and the district judge confirmed the claims
to the several petitioners. The United States appealed to this
Court.
Page 49 U. S. 120
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY delivered the opinion of the Court.
A motion has been made to dismiss this case, for want of
jurisdiction in this Court to hear and decide it.
It appears that a petition was filed by the appellees in the
District Court of the United States for the Southern District of
Mississippi, pursuant to the Acts of Congress of May 26, 1824, and
of June 17, 1844, praying to have confirmed to them a large tract
of land, which they claimed under a concession or grant which they
alleged had been made to their ancestors, by the Spanish
authorities.
The petition was filed on February 1, 1845, and on 12 November,
1847, the district judge passed his decree confirming the
concession, and on the same day the United States appealed to this
Court. The motion is made to dismiss
Page 49 U. S. 121
upon the ground that the act of 1844, which extended to the
State of Mississippi the act of 1824, and reenacted it as to claims
in that state, limited the duration of both acts to five years and
no longer, and that both of these acts, so far as concerns such
claims, expired on 17 June, 1849, and this Court having no
appellate jurisdiction unless conferred on it by act of Congress,
and having derived the jurisdiction it heretofore exercised in
cases of this description altogether from the laws above mentioned,
its power in this respect ceased when the laws expired; and, there
being no act of Congress now in force authorizing it to review the
decree of the district court for the Southern District of
Mississippi, the appeal of the United States ought to be dismissed
for want of jurisdiction.
It is true that this Court can exercise no appellate power over
this case, unless it is conferred upon it by act of Congress. And
if the laws which gave it jurisdiction in such cases have expired,
so far as regards claims in the State of Mississippi, its
jurisdiction over them has ceased, although this appeal was
actually pending in this Court when they expired.
But the Court is of opinion that the act of 1824, reenacted by
the act of 1844 for the State of Mississippi and the other states
mentioned in that law, has not expired so far as regards appeals
from the district courts to this Court; that it is still in full
force, and unless repealed by Congress will continue in force until
all the appeals regularly brought up from the district courts shall
be finally disposed of.
The act of 1824 originally extended only to the Spanish and
French grants in the State of Missouri and the then Territory of
Arkansas. It contains no clause limiting generally the duration of
the law. The fifth section limits the time within which the
claimants may file their petitions to two years, and gives the
petitioner three years from the time his petition is brought before
the district court, to prosecute it to a final decision in that
court; but by the second section either party may appeal to this
Court, within twelve months from the time of the final decree in
the district court. And as many of the cases might and most
probably would be decided in the latter period of the five years
within which the party is required to present his claim and
prosecute it to a final decision, it is evident that the
jurisdiction of this Court to hear and determine the appeal was not
intended to be limited to the same period. And as there is no
clause of limitation applying to the whole act, nor as to the time
within which this Court shall exercise the appellate power
conferred on it, the act of 1824, in this respect, is a perpetual
one, and if any appeal were at this day depending, which had
Page 49 U. S. 122
been regularly brought up from the State of Missouri or the
Territory of Arkansas, the court would have jurisdiction to hear
and decide it.
This construction of the original act of 1824 is, indeed, not
disputed. But it is insisted that it is otherwise when taken in
connection with the act of 1844, which reenacted it for the states
therein mentioned, in one of which this case has arisen. And it is
contended that the duration of the whole act of 1824, as thus
reenacted, including the appellate jurisdiction of this Court, is
restricted to five years from the enactment of the law.
This construction cannot be maintained. In expounding a statute,
we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence,
but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and
policy. And it was evidently the intention of the act of 1844 to
place the claims under Spanish and French grants in the states
therein mentioned upon precisely the same footing with the claims
in Missouri and the Territory of Arkansas, and to give the
claimants the same rights and remedies, including the right to
appeal to this Court. For it declares in express terms that the act
of 1824 shall be extended to them,
"in the same way, and with the same rights, and powers, and
jurisdictions to every extent they can be rendered applicable, as
if these states had been enumerated in the original act thereby
revived, and the enactments expressly applied to them, as to the
State of Missouri."
Now if they had been included in the original act, and the
enactments applied to them as to the State of Missouri, it is
admitted that the appellate jurisdiction of this Court would not be
limited to five years. And if it would not, it necessarily follows
that it is not limited y the act when reenacted and extended by the
law of 1844. For if it were to be so limited, and the jurisdiction
of this Court ceased in five years, the rights and powers and
jurisdictions in relation to the claimants in these states would be
different from what they would have been if they had been included
in the original law. Such a construction would in effect take away
the jurisdiction of this Court, and deprive each party of the right
to appeal within twelve months in the cases decided in the last
year of the five, and would make the appeal in almost every case
inefficient and nugatory. Certainly, there could be no reason of
policy or justice for making such a difference in the jurisdiction
of this Court in different classes of similar cases; nor could such
have been intended. The error of the appellees appears to have
arisen from what is evidently an inaccuracy of language in the act
of 1844, when it speaks, in the beginning of the enacting clause,
of "so much of the expired act
Page 49 U. S. 123
of 1824" as related to the State of Missouri. Now the act of
1824, as we have already said, had not expired, and is still in
force. But the fifth section of the act, which gave the claimant
two years from the date of the law to file his petition, and three
more to bring it to a final decision, had expired. And the whole
context and provisions of the act of 1844 show that it was the
intention of the legislature to revive this portion of the act of
1824, and to give to the claimants in the states there mentioned,
as it had given to those in the State of Missouri, five years to
establish their claims, and to subject them in other respects also
to the same regulations and jurisdictions in prosecuting them in
the courts of the United States. And the expression, "so much of
the expired act of 1824," should have been, "so much of the act of
1824 as had then expired," in order to make this clause consistent
with the residue of the act. This evident inaccuracy ought not,
however, to embarrass the court in expounding the act, which, taken
altogether, is sufficiently plain in its objects and intention, as
well as in its language.
The motion to dismiss this appeal must therefore be
overruled.
The cases of
United States v. Heirs of Powers and
United States v. Heirs of Turner stand upon the same
grounds, and the motions to dismiss them must therefore be disposed
of in like manner.
Order
On consideration of the motion made by Mr. Henderson, of counsel
for the appellees, on a prior day of the present term of this
Court, to-wit, on Friday the 14th instant, to dismiss this cause
for the want of jurisdiction, and of the arguments of counsel
thereupon had, as well against as in support of the said motion, it
is now here ordered by this Court, that the said motion be, and the
same is hereby, overruled.
