1. The meander lines run in surveying fractional portions of the
public lands bordering upon navigable rivers, are run, not as
boundaries of the tract, but for the purpose of defining the
sinuosities of the banks of the stream, and as the means of
ascertaining the quantity of the land in the fraction, and which is
to be paid for by the purchaser.
2. Congress, in providing, as it does, in one or more acts
relating to the survey and sale of public lands bordering upon
rivers -- that navigable rivers, within the territory to be
surveyed should be deemed to be public highways, and that where the
opposite banks of any stream, not navigable, should belong to
different persons, the stream and the bed thereof should become
common to both -- meant to enact that the common law rules of
riparian ownership should apply in the latter case, but that the
title, to lands bordering on navigable streams should stop at the
stream, and not come to the
medium filum.
3. But such riparian proprietors have the same right to
construct suitable landings and wharves for the convenience of
commerce and navigation as riparian proprietors on navigable waters
affected by the ebb and flow of the tide.
4. A government grant of land in Minnesota (9.28 acres), bounded
on one side by the Mississippi, was held to include a parcel (2.78
acres) four feet lower than the main body, and which, at very low
water, was separated from it by a slough or channel twenty-eight
feet wide, through which no water flowed, but in which water
remained in pools; where, at medium water, it flowed through the
depression, making an island of the parcel, and where, at high
water, the parcel was submerged, the whole place
Page 74 U. S. 273
having, previous to the controversy, been laid out as a city and
the municipal authorities having graded and filled up the place to
the river edge of the parcel.
5. If, by the laws in force in Minnesota in 1859, the recording
of a town of city plot, indicating a dedication, for a public
purpose, of certain parts of the land laid out, operated as a
conveyance in fee to the town or city, yet it could operate only as
a conveyance of the fee subject to the purpose indicated by the
dedication, and subject to that it must be held by any future
claimant.
Schurmeir filed a bill in one of the inferior courts of
Minnesota to enjoin the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company
from taking possession and building its railroad upon certain
ground in the City of St. Paul, Minnesota, bordering on the
Mississippi, and originally a fractional section of the public
lands. The place was alleged by Schurmeir to be a public street and
landing.
The railroad company justified their entry as owner in fee of
the
locus in quo. The issues between the parties were
tried by a referee, who found both facts and law in favor of
Schurmeir. The facts so found, being undisputed the case was
removed for decision on them to the supreme court of the state.
That court affirming the referee's judgment, the case was here for
review.
The case -- to understand which well it is necessary to refer,
in a preliminary way, to certain statutes of the United States
governing the surveys and descriptions of public lands -- was
thus:
Certain statutes enact [
Footnote
1] that the public lands shall be subdivided into townships,
sections, and quarter sections and that these subdivisions shall be
bounded by north and south and east and west lines unless where
this is rendered impracticable
by meeting a navigable
watercourse &c. The boundaries, and contents of the
several sections and quarter sections, are to be ascertained in
conformity to the following principles:
Page 74 U. S. 274
"The boundary line actually run and marked in the surveys
returned shall be established as the proper boundary lines of the
sections or subdivisions for which they were intended, and the
length of such lines as returned shall be held and considered as
the true length thereof, and the boundary lines which shall not
have been actually run and marked as aforesaid shall be ascertained
by running straight lines from the established corners to the
opposite corresponding corners; but in those portions of the
fractional townships where no such opposite corresponding corners
have been or can be fixed, the said boundary lines shall be
ascertained by running from the established corners, due north and
south or east and west lines (as the case may be)
to the
watercourse . . . or other external boundary of such fractional
township."
There is apparently no law which requires what is hereafter
spoken of, and called the "meandering" of watercourses, but the
acts of Congress above referred to do require the
contents
of each subdivision to be returned to, and a
plat of the land
surveyed, to be made by the surveyor general, and this makes
necessary an accurate survey of the meanderings of the watercourse
where a watercourse is the external boundary; the line showing the
place of the watercourse and its sinuosities, courses, and
distances is called the "meander line." [
Footnote 2]
The original Act of 17 May, 1796, providing for the sale of
these lands, enacts
"That all navigable rivers within the territory to be disposed
of shall be deemed to be and remain public highways, and in all
cases where the opposite banks of any stream, not navigable, shall
belong to different persons, the stream and the bed thereof shall
be common to both. [
Footnote
3]"
The premises on which the railroad company sought to enter were
situated upon a fractional section, duly surveyed by the government
surveyor, in October, 1847, the survey
Page 74 U. S. 275
duly approved in March, 1848, and returned to the General Land
Office. This fractional section was designated by this survey as
lot 1, in section 5, township 28, north of range 22, west of the
fourth principal meridian. It was represented by the plat thereof,
as bounded on the north by the east and west sectional line, on the
west by the north and south sectional line, and on the only other
remaining side by the Mississippi River. It was this river that
interposed and made this section a fractional one.
image:a
At the time of the survey, there was a parcel of land (called by
the counsel on one side a sand-bar, reef, or "tow-head," and by the
counsel on the other, an island) lying along the shore of the
river, about four feet lower than the main land of the fraction,
and with a channel or slough between it and the main land. This
depression was about 28 feet wide, and the bar or island, in its
extreme width, was about 90 feet. Its extreme length was about 160
feet. The main body contained 9.28 acres; this parcel, 2.78
acres.
In high water this parcel of land outside was completely under
water; in medium water it was exposed to view, and the water flowed
through the depression; but, at very low water there was no
flow of water through the depression.
Page 74 U. S. 276
It lay in pools in the depression. Very low water mark was thus
the exterior part of the bar or island, and the landing place for
boats plying on the Mississippi had always been the south or river
side of island.
In the government survey, no mention of or reference to this bar
or island was in any way made in the field notes, plat, or map. The
fractional parcel, as already said, was represented as lying
immediately upon and bounded by the Mississippi River.
The surveyor, however, in meandering the course of the river
along the fraction, ran the "meander lines" along the main land of
the shore, and not along the southerly line of this bar or island,
and thus did not include the space occupied by this depression, and
bar or island, in his estimate of the quantity of land contained in
the fraction. The field notes showed that the line running 12.83
south, from corner sections 5 and 6, intersected the bank of the
Mississippi River, and that a meander post was there set; also,
that at a point 16.90 east of said section corner, the township
line intersected the left bank of the Mississippi River, and
image:b
that a meander post was there also set. The meander line was
run, beginning at last-mentioned meander post,
"
thence
Page 74 U. S. 277
upstream, south 61, west 6.50; south 54, west 6.00;
south 46, west 5.00; south 40, west 3.96, to line of sections 5 and
6, at lower end of St. Paul."
In March, 1849, the United States sold and conveyed the land to
one Roberts; the patent describing the lot (along with another
fractional section, styled No. 2, not connected with this case) as
containing so many acres, "according to the official
plat
of the survey," a plat which, as already said, did not present the
bar or island in any way, nor the channel or slough between, but
presented the river as the boundary, much as in the map on the page
opposite (page <|74 U.S. 276|>276).
In the same spring, Roberts surveyed, laid out, and platted the
whole of this fractional parcel (including the bar or island, and
intervening depression, in his plat, and as a part of the grant of
his patent) into towns, blocks, lots, streets &c., constituting
a part of the Town of St. Paul, and caused said plat to be duly
recorded, an act which, by the laws of Wisconsin (at that time in
force in Minnesota), operated to vest the fee simple of every
donation or grant to the public or any corporation or body politic
in it for the uses therein named, and no other, and which declared
that
"land
intended to be for
streets, alleys,
ways, commons, or
other public use, . . . or for
any addition thereto, shall be held in the corporate name, in trust
to and for the uses and purposes set forth and expressed or
intended."
Roberts subsequently sold to Schurmeir two lots, designated on
the plan as lots Nos. 11 and 12, in block 29. All the space in
front of this block and between this block and the river was
designated as
"Landing," and as soon as St. Paul was
organized into a city, it exercised municipal control over the
space, established a grade, and caused the place to be more or less
graded, maintaining it as a landing. Schurmeir's two lots and the
whole of the so-called "landing" were situated upon what had been
the slough or channel.
In 1856, and after this depression had been filled and the whole
space between the lots and the river, including the depression, and
the bar or island had been graded by the city, and traces of both
had been effaced, the space originally
Page 74 U. S. 278
occupied by this bar or island was surveyed by a government
surveyor and platted and mapped as "Island No 11" in said section
5.
By virtue of this survey, the railroad company claimed the title
under a Congressional land grant of May 22, 1857.
The important question in the case was therefore this: by what
exact line was the grant bounded on the river side? Was it:
1. By either the
medium filum of the Mississippi or the
outside of the sand-bar or island? Or was it:
2. By the meander lines run by the surveyor?
If by either of the former, the railroad company had no
right.
If by the latter, Schurmeir had none.
A minor question was whether -- supposing Roberts to have owned
the parcel originally -- he had or had not, under the statutes then
in force in Minnesota, divested himself of such right by recording
his town plot?
Page 74 U. S. 280
MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
Complainant alleged that he was the owner in fee, and in the
actual possession of the real estate described in the bill of
complaint, together with the stone warehouse thereon erected. As
described, the premises are situated in the City of St. Paul,
County of Ramsey, and State of Minnesota, and the allegation is
that the lot extends to and adjoins the public street and levee
which run along the left bank of the Mississippi River in front of
that city; that the said street and levee constitute the public
landing for all steamboats and other vessels bound to that port,
and the place where all such vessels receive and discharge their
freight and passengers; that the street, levee, and public landing
occupy the whole space between this lot and the bank of the river
in front of the same, and that he is the owner in fee of that
Page 74 U. S. 281
whole space, subject to the public right to use and occupy the
same as such street, levee, and public landing.
Based upon these preliminary allegations, the charge is that the
corporation respondents were then engaged, without his license or
consent, in extending and constructing their railroad over and
along the said public street, levee, and landing, in front of his
premises, with the design and purpose of running their cars on the
same for the transportation of freight and passengers; and the
complainant alleged that the effect would be, if the design and
purpose of the respondents should be carried out, that the said
public street, levee, and landing, could not be occupied and used
for the purposes for which they were constructed, and to which they
were dedicated, and that his premises would be rendered useless and
valueless.
Two defenses were set up by the respondents in their answer.
First. They denied that the fee of the land described in the
bill of complaint, as a public street and levee, or public landing,
was ever in the complainant, or that he ever had any right, title,
or interest in the land between his premises and the main channel
of the river.
Secondly. They alleged that all the land between the premises of
the complainant and the river in front, were part and parcel of the
lands surveyed by the United States, and granted by the act of
Congress of the 3d of March, 1857, to the Territory of Minnesota,
and that they were the owners of the same in fee, as the grantees
of the territory and state, to aid in the construction of their
railroad.
Defense of the other respondents is that all the acts charged
against them were performed by the direction and under the
authority of the respondent corporation.
Prayer of the bill of complaint was that the respondent might be
restrained from extending and constructing their railroad over and
along said public street, levee, or landing, and from obstructing
and impeding the free use of the same by the public.
By consent of parties, it was subsequently ordered by the
Page 74 U. S. 282
court that the cause be referred to a sole referee to hear and
determine all the issues in the pleadings, and that he should
report his determination to the court. Such a report was
subsequently made by the referee, and the record shows that the
court, in pursuance of the same, enjoined the respondents as prayed
in the bill of complaint and ordered, adjudged, and decreed that
the respondents should remove from the street, levee, and landing
in front of the complainant's premises all tracks, trestleworks,
embankments, buildings, and obstructions of every kind erected or
constructed thereon by them for railroad purposes.
Appeal was taken by the respondents from the decree, as rendered
in the district court for that county, to the supreme court of the
state, where the decree was in all things affirmed, and the
respondents removed the cause into this Court by a writ of error
sued out under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act.
1. Express finding of the referee was that the premises in
question were included in that part of section five, township
twenty-eight north, in range twenty-two west of the fourth
principal meridian which is situated on the north side of the
center line of the Mississippi River. He also found that the survey
of that part of section five was made by the deputy surveyor
October 27, 1847; that the field notes of the survey were duly
communicated to the surveyor general, and that the latter officer,
on the 15th of March following, duly approved the survey as made by
the deputy surveyor. Same report also shows that a plat of that
part of section five was duly prepared and certified by the
surveyor general on the same day, and that it was duly transmitted
to the land office of the district where the land was situated. By
that plat it appears that the land as surveyed consisted of two
separate parcels, called lots 1 and 2, in the report of the
referee, exhibited in the record. Lot 1, the tract in question is
situated in the northwest corner of the section, and contains the
quantity of land described in the official survey and plat.
Particular description of lot 2 is unnecessary, as it is not in
controversy in this case.
Page 74 U. S. 283
Both of those lots were purchased by Lewis Roberts, and on the
24th of March, 1849, a patent, in due form of law, was issued to
him, for the same, by the proper officers of the United States.
Possessed of a full title to all the land described in the patent,
the purchaser caused lot 1 to be surveyed and laid out into town
blocks, lots, streets &c., as a part of the town of St. Paul,
and the finding of the referee is, that the plat, as recorded,
describes the land as extending to the main channel of the river.
Block 29, as exhibited on that plat, includes lots 11 and 12,
described in the bill of complaint, and the report of the referee
shows that they are a part of the triangular fraction of land
situated in the northwest corner of section 5, as delineated on the
official plat.
Claim of the complainant is to lots 11 and 12, in block 29, and
the finding of the referee is, that he holds the same through
certain mesne conveyances, from the original grantee under the
patent.
Congress granted to the Territory of Minnesota, by the Act of
the 3d of March, 1857, for the purpose of aiding in the
construction of certain railroads, every alternate section,
designated by odd numbers, for six sections in width, on each side
of the respective railroads therein mentioned, and their branches,
and the respondents claim title to the premises described in the
pleadings under that act of Congress, as the grantees of the state.
[
Footnote 4]
Title claimed by the complainant, being of prior date to that
set up by the respondents, will be first examined, because if it be
sustained as including the premises in controversy, an examination
of the title of the respondents will not be necessary.
Since the Town of St. Paul was organized under her city charter,
passed March 4, 1854, the city government has exercised municipal
authority and control over the entire parcel of land lying between
the main channel of the river and
Page 74 U. S. 284
block twenty-nine, where the complainant's warehouse is
situated. Claiming entire control over the premises, as a street,
levee, or landing, the city authorities have established a grade
for the same, and, long before any attempt was made by the
respondents to controvert the title of the complainant, they had
made large progress in the work of reducing the surface of the land
to the established grade.
Appellants contend that the river is not a boundary in the
official survey; that the tract, as surveyed, did not extend to the
river, but that the survey stopped at the meander posts and the
described trees on the bank of the river. Accordingly they insist
that lot 1 did not extend to the river, but only to the points
where the township and section lines intersect the left bank of the
river, as shown by the meander posts.
The finding of the referee also shows that the meander line of
lot 1 was run, in the official survey, along the left or north bank
of a channel which then existed between that bank and a certain
parcel of land in front of the same, afterwards designated as
Island 11, but which was not mentioned in the field notes of the
official survey, nor delineated on the official plat.
Conceded fact is that those field notes constituted the
foundation of the official plat, and that that plat was the only
one in the local land office at the time the patent was issued
under which the appellee claims. When the water in the river was at
a medium height, there was a current in the channel, between what
is called the island and the bank, where the meander posts were
located, but when the water was low, there was no current in that
channel, and when the water was very high in the river, the entire
parcel of land, designated as the island, was completely
inundated.
No mention is made of any such channel in the official survey,
under which the patent was issued, but the deputy surveyor, under
the instructions of the land office, on the 13th of March, 1856,
made a new survey of the parcel of land lying between that channel
and the main channel of the river, and the field notes of the same
were subsequently
Page 74 U. S. 285
approved by the surveyor general. Duplicates of that survey were
communicated to the General Land Office, and the finding of the
referee shows that the plat exhibits the true relation which that
tract bears to lot 1 in that section. Prior to that survey,
however, the City of St. Paul had filled the channel and reclaimed
the land at the west end of the same, and extended the grade of the
street and levee, or landing, entirely across the island to the
main channel of the river. Besides, the uncontradicted fact is that
the landing for boats and vessels touching at that port was always
on the river side of the island, and the finding of the referee
shows that the front wall of the complainant's warehouse is not
more than four feet north of the southerly line of the lot on which
it is erected.
Surveyors were directed by the Act of Congress of the 20th of
May, 1785, to divide the territory ceded by individual states into
townships of six miles square by lines running due north and south,
and others crossing these at right angles, "unless where the
boundaries of the tracts purchased from the Indians rendered the
same impracticable." [
Footnote
5]
Congress preserved the same system also in the Act of the 18th
of May, 1796, in respect to the survey and sale of the lands
northwest of the Ohio River, but the latter act recognizes two
other necessary exceptions to the general rule. [
Footnote 6] Public lands therein described
were required to be divided by north and south lines running
according to the true meridian and others crossing them by right
angles, so as to form townships of six miles square,
"unless where the line of the late Indian purchase, or of the
tracts of land heretofore surveyed or patented, or the course of
navigable rivers, may render it impracticable."
By the ninth section of that act it is provided that all
navigable rivers within the territory mentioned in that act should
be deemed to be and remain public highways, and that in all cases
where the opposite banks of any stream not navigable shall belong
to different
Page 74 U. S. 286
persons, the stream and the bed thereof should become common to
both. [
Footnote 7]
Provision was made by the act of February 11, 1805, that
townships should be
"subdivided into sections, by running straight lines from the
mile corners, marked as therein required, to the opposite
corresponding corners, and by marking on each of the said lines
intermediate corners, as nearly as possible equidistant from the
corners of the sections on the same."
Corners thus marked in the surveys, are to be regarded as the
proper corners of sections, and the provision is, that the corners
of half and quarter sections, not actually run and marked on the
surveys, shall be placed, as nearly as possible, equidistant from
the two corners standing on the same line. [
Footnote 8] Boundary lines actually run and marked on
the surveys returned, are made the proper boundary lines of the
sections or subdivisions for which they were intended, and the
second article of the second section provides, that the length of
such lines, as returned, shall be held and considered as the true
length thereof. Lines intended as boundaries, but which were not
actually run and marked, must be ascertained by running straight
lines from the established corners to the opposite corresponding
corners; but where no such opposite corresponding corners have
been, or can be fixed, the boundary lines are required to be
ascertained by running from the established corners due north and
south, or east and west, as the case may be, to the watercourse,
Indian boundary line, or other external boundary of such fractional
township.
Express decision of the supreme court of the state was that the
river, in this case, and not the meander line, is the west boundary
of the lot, and in that conclusion of the state court we entirely
concur. [
Footnote 9]
Meander lines are run in surveying fractional portions of the
public lands bordering upon navigable rivers, not as boundaries of
the tract, but for the purpose of defining the
Page 74 U. S. 287
sinuosities of the banks of the stream, and as the means of
ascertaining the quantity of the land in the fraction subject to
sale, and which is to be paid for by the purchaser.
In preparing the official plat from the field notes, the meander
line is represented as the border line of the stream, and shows, to
a demonstration, that the watercourse, and not the meander line, as
actually run on the land, is the boundary.
Proprietors, bordering on streams not navigable, unless
restricted by the terms of their grant, hold to the center of the
stream; but the better opinion is, that proprietors of lands
bordering on navigable rivers, under titles derived from the United
States, hold only to the stream, as the express provision is, that
all such rivers shall be deemed to be, and remain public highways.
Grants of land bounded on rivers above tidewater, says Chancellor
Kent carry the exclusive right and title of the grantee to the
center of the stream, unless the terms of the grant clearly denote
the intention to stop at the edge or margin of the river, and the
public, in cases where the river is navigable for boats and rafts,
have an easement therein, or a right of passage, subject to the
jus publicum, as a public highway. [
Footnote 10]
The views of that commentator are, that it would require an
express exception in the grant, or some clear and unequivocal
declaration, or certain and immemorial usage, to limit the title of
the riparian owner to the edge of the river, because, as the
commentator insists, the stream, when used in a grant as a
boundary, is used as an entirety to the center of it, and he
consequently holds that the fee passes to that extent. Decided
cases of the highest authority, affirm that doctrine, and it must
doubtless be deemed correct in most or all jurisdictions where the
rules of the common law prevail, as understood in the parent
country. Except in one or two states, those rules have been adopted
in this country, as applied to rivers not navigable, when named in
a grant or deed as a boundary to land. Substantially the same
rules
Page 74 U. S. 288
are adopted by Congress as applied to streams not navigable; but
many acts of Congress have provided that all navigable rivers or
streams in the territory of the United States, offered for sale,
should be deemed to be, and remain public highways. [
Footnote 11]
Irrespective of the acts of Congress, it should be remarked,
that navigable waters, not affected by the ebb and flow of the
tide, such as the great lakes, and the Mississippi River, were
unknown to courts and jurists, when the rules of the common law
were ordained; and even when the learned commentaries were written,
to which reference is made, it was still the settled doctrine of
this Court, that the admiralty had no jurisdiction except where the
tide ebbed and flowed. [
Footnote
12]
Extended discussion of that topic, however, is unnecessary, as
the court decides to place the decision, in this case, upon the
several acts of Congress making provision for the survey and sale
of the public lands bordering on public navigable rivers, and the
legal construction of the patents issued under such official
surveys. Such a reservation, in the acts of Congress, providing for
the survey and sale of such lands, must have the same effect as it
would be entitled to receive if it were incorporated into the
patent, especially as there is nothing in the field notes, or in
the official plat or patent, inconsistent with that explicit
reservation. Rivers were not regarded as navigable in the common
law sense, unless the waters were affected by the ebb and flow of
the tide, but it is quite clear that Congress did not employ the
words navigable, and not navigable, in that sense, as usually
understood in legal decisions. On the contrary, it is obvious that
the words were employed without respect to the ebb and flow of the
tide, as they were applied to territory situated far above
tidewaters, and in which there were no salt water streams.
Viewed in the light of these considerations, the Court does not
hesitate to decide, that Congress, in making a distinction
Page 74 U. S. 289
between streams navigable and those not navigable, intended to
provide that the common law rules of riparian ownership should
apply to lands bordering on the latter, but that the title to lands
bordering on navigable streams should stop at the stream, and that
all such streams should be deemed to be, and remain public
highways.
Although such riparian proprietors are limited to the stream,
still they also have the same right to construct suitable landings
and wharves, for the convenience of commerce and navigation, as is
accorded riparian proprietors bordering on navigable waters
affected by the ebb and flow of the tide. [
Footnote 13]
Argument is scarcely necessary to show, in view of the definite
regulations of Congress upon the subject of the survey and sale of
the public lands, that the second survey of the space between block
twenty-nine and the main channel of the river, cannot affect the
title of the complainant as acquired from the United States under
the antecedent official survey and sale. [
Footnote 14]
Attempt is also made to justify the acts of the respondents, as
grantees of the state upon the ground, that the complainant, in
dedicating the premises to the public as a street, levee, and
landing, parted with all his title to the same, and that the entire
title vested in fee in the state. Respondents rely for that purpose
upon the statute of the Territory of Wisconsin, which was then in
force in the Territory of Minnesota. [
Footnote 15]
Suppose the construction of that provision as assumed by the
respondents is correct, it is no defense to the suit, because it is
nevertheless true that the municipal corporation took the title in
trust, impliedly, if not expressly, designated by the acts of the
party in making the dedication. They could not, nor could the
state, convey to the respondents any right to disregard the trust,
or to appropriate the premises
Page 74 U. S. 290
to any purpose which would render valueless the adjoining real
estate of the complainant.
Considered in any point of view, our conclusion is that the
decree of the state court was correct, and the decision in this
case also disposes of the appeal brought here by the same
appellants, from a decree rendered by the Circuit Court of the
United States for the District of Minnesota, in favor of George D.
Humphreys and others, which was a bill in equity against the same
respondent corporation. The appeal in that case depends
substantially upon the same facts, and must be disposed of in the
same way. Both decrees are
Affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
Acts of May 18, 1796, 1 Statutes at Large 446, May 10, 1800, 2
id. 73, and February 11, 1805, 2
id. 313.
[
Footnote 2]
See the able opinion of Wilson, C.J., in 10 Minn.
99-100, from which this account is extracted.
[
Footnote 3]
And see Act of April 16, 1814, 3 Statutes at Large 125,
as explained by Act of February 27, 1815,
ib., 218.
[
Footnote 4]
11 Stat. at Large 195; State Session Laws, 1857, 70; Gen.Laws,
1858, 9; Session Laws, 1862, 226.
[
Footnote 5]
1 Land Laws 19.
[
Footnote 6]
1 Stat. at Large 464.
[
Footnote 7]
1 Stat. at Large 468.
[
Footnote 8]
2
id. 313.
[
Footnote 9]
Schurmeier v. Railroad, 10 Minn. 82.
[
Footnote 10]
3 Commentaries 11th ed. 427.
[
Footnote 11]
1 Stat. at Large 491; 2
id. 235, 279, 642, 666, 703,
747; 3
id. 349.
[
Footnote 12]
The Jefferson,
10 Wheat. 428;
Genesee
Chief, 12 How. 456;
Hine
v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 565.
[
Footnote 13]
Dutton v.
Strong, 1 Black 23.
[
Footnote 14]
Lindsey v.
Hawes, 2 Black 554;
Bates v.
Railroad Company, 1 Black 204;
Brown v.
Clements, 3 How. 650.
[
Footnote 15]
Statutes of Wisconsin Territory 159.
