United States v. Sweet

• Decision Date: 28 January 1918
• Docket Number: No. 99,99
• Citation: 38 S.Ct. 193,62 L.Ed. 473,245 U.S. 563
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. SWEET
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

245 U.S. 563

38 S.Ct. 193

62 L.Ed. 473

UNITED STATES

v SWEET.

No. 99.

Argued Dec. 19, 1917.

Decided Jan. 28, 1918.

[Syllabus from pages 563-564 intentionally omitted] Mr. Assistant Attorney General Kearful, for the United States.

Messrs. A. C. Ellis, Jr., W. H. Dickson, and Albert R. Barnes, all of Salt Lake City, Utah, for appellee.

Arguments of Council on pages 564-566 intentionally omitted.]

Mr. Justice VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit by the United States to quiet the title to section 32 of a designated township in Carbon county, Utah the suit being specially directed against a claim asserted by the defendant, as an assignee of the state, under the school land grant to the latter. Whether this tract passed to the state under that grant or was reserved to the United States as mineral land is the matter in controversy. In the District Court the United States prevailed as to all but 40 acres, but in the Circuit Court of Appeals that decree was reversed and one for the defendant was directed. 228 Fed. 421, 143 C. C. A. 3.

The evidence shows that the entire section, excepting 40 acres, is valuable for coal and has been known to be so since before Utah became a state. Land valuable for coal is mineral land within the meaning of the public land laws. Thus the ultimate question for decision is whether the school land grant to Utah embraces mineral and. The grant is found in section 6 of the act of Congress of July 16, 1894, c. 138, 28 Stat. 107, and is copied in the margin ¹ with another closely related section of the same act. It neither expressly includes mineral lands nor expressly excludes them. If it did either, it would be conclusive of the will of Congress upon the point. But, as it makes no mention of such lands, it is permissible—indeed, is essential—to inquire whether the congressional will is otherwise made manifest, that is to say, whether the general words of the grant are to be read in the light of other statutes and a settled public policy in respect of mineral lands.

In the legislation concerning the public lands it has been the practice of Congress to make a distinction between mineral lands and other lands, to deal with them along different lines, and to withhold mineral lands from disposal save under laws specially including them. This practice began with the ordinance of May 20, 1785, 10 Journals of Congress (Folwell's Ed.) 118, and was observed with such persistency in the early land laws² as to lead this court to say in United States v. Gratiot, 14 Pet. 526, 10 L. Ed. 573, 'It has been the policy of the government, at all times, in disposing of the public lands, to reserve the mines for the use of the United States,' and also to hold in United States v. Gear, 3 How. 120, 11 L. Ed. 523, 838, that an act making no mention of lead-mind lands and providing generally for the sale of 'all the lands' in certain new land districts, 'reserving only' designated tracts, 'any law of Congress heretofore existing to the contrary notwithstanding,' could not be regarded as disclosing a purpose on the part of Congress to depart from 'the policy which had governed its legislation in respect to lead-mine lands,' and so did not embrace them. A like practice prevailed in respect of saline lands, and in Morton v. Nebraska, 21 Wall. 660, 22 L. Ed. 639, where a disposal of such lands under an act providing generally for the sale of lands in certain territories was drawn in question, this court said that it could not be supposed 'without an express declaration to that effect' that Congress intended by such an act to permit the sale of saline lands and thus to depart from 'a long-established policy by which it had been governed in similar cases.'

While the early land laws occasionally and specially provided for the sale of mineral lands, they very generally evinced a purpose to reserve such lands for future disposal; and this purpose was given particular emphasis following the discovery of gold in California in 1848, as is shown in the Oregon Donation Act, the Homestead Act (which adopted the mineral land reservation of the Pre-emption Act of 1841), the grant to the several states for the benefit of agricultural colleges, the railroad land grants and other land acts of that period.³ Noticeable among those acts is one which, in dealing with grants to Nevada and surveys in that state, declared, 'in all cases lands valuable for mines of gold, silver, quicksilver, or copper shall be reserved from sale,' chapter 166, § 5, 14 Stat. 86, and another declaring, 'no act passed at the first session of the Thirty-Eighth Congress, granting lands to states or corporations, to aid in the construction of roads or for other purposes, or to extend the time of grants heretofore made, shall be so construed as to embrace mineral lands, which in all cases shall be, and are, reserved exclusively to the United States, unless otherwise specially provided in the act or acts making the grant.' 13 Stat. 567. Although applied in one instance to lands in Nevada and in the other to grants made at a particular session of Congress, these declarations were but expressive of the will of Congress that every grant of public lands, whether to a state or otherwise, should be taken as reserving and excluding mineral lands in the absence of an expressed purpose to include them; and upon this theory both declarations were carried into the Revised Statutes as being general and per- manent in their nature—the first in enlarged terms as section 2318 (Comp. St. 1916, § 4613)⁴ and the other as section 2346 (section 4658).

By the act of March 3, 1853, c. 145, 10 Stat. 244, Congress granted to the state of California sections 16 and 36 in each township for school purposes and large quantities of lands for other purposes. Mineral lands were neither expressly excepted from nor expressly included in the grant of the school sections, but were specially excepted from the other grants. This difference led to a controversy over the true meaning of the school grant, the state authorities taking the view that it did, and the land officers of the United States that it did not, include mineral lands. Ultimately the controversy came before this court in Mining Co. v. Consolidated Mining Co., 102 U. S. 167, 26 L. Ed. 126, and the position taken by the land officers of the United States was sustained, the court saying (102 U. S. 174, 26 L. Ed. 126):

'Taking into consideration what is well known to have been the hesitation and difficulty in the minds of Congressmen in dealing with these mineral lands, the manner in which the question was suddenly forced upon them, the uniform reservation of them from survey, from sale, from pre-emption, and above all from grants, whether for railroads, public buildings, or other purposes, and looking to the fact that from all the grants made in this act they are reserved, one of which is for school purposes besides the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections, we are forced to the conclusion that Congress did not intend to depart from its uniform policy in this respect in the grant of those sections to the state.

'It follows from the finding of the court and the undisputed facts of the case, that the land in controversy being mineral land, and well known to be so when the surveys of it were made, did not pass to the state under the school-section grant.'

That ruling was reaffirmed and followed in Mullan v. United States, 118 U. S. 271, 6 Sup. Ct. 1041, 30 L. Ed. 170, where valuable coal lands, known to be such, were held not to be open to selection by the state as indemnity school lands.

The conditions ensuing from the discovery of gold and other minerals in the western states and territories resulted in a general demand for a system of laws expressly opening the mineral lands to exploration, occupation and acquisition, and Congress, responding to this demand, adopted from 1864 to 1873 a series of acts dealing with practically every phase of the subject and covering all classes of mineral lands, including coal lands.⁵ These acts, with some before noticed, were carried into a chapter of the Revised Statutes entitled 'Mineral Lands and Mining Resources.' Taken collectively they constitute a special code upon that subject and show that they are intended not only to establish a particular mode of disposing of mineral lands, but also to except and reserve them from all other grants and modes of disposal where there is no express provision for their inclusion. Thus the policy of disposing of mineral lands only under laws specially including them became even more firmly established than before, and this is recognized in our decisions. Mining Co. v. Consolidated Mining Co., supra, 102 U. S. 174, 26 L. Ed. 126; Deffeback v. Hawke, 115 U. S. 392, 402, 6 Sup. Ct. 95, 29 L. Ed. 423; Davis v. Weibbold, 139 U. S. 507, 516, 11 Sup. Ct. 628, 35 L. Ed 238. And while the mineral-land laws are not applicable to all the public land state, some being specially excepted,⁶ there has been no time to all the public land states, some being applicable to Utah.

Another statute indicative of the policy of Congress and pertinent to the present inquiry is the act of February 28, 1891, c. 384, 26 Stat. 796 (Comp. St. 1916, §§ 4860, 4861), which defines the indemnity to which a state or territory is entitled in respect of its school grant. In addition to dealing with deficiencies occurring in other ways, it provides, 'And other lands of equal acreage are also hereby appropriated and granted, and may be selected by said state or territory where sections sixteen or thirty-six are mineral lands.' In this there is a plain implication that where those sections are mineral—known to be so when the grant takes effect—they do not pass under the grant. And it does not militate against this implication that under another provision the state may surrender those sections and take other lands in lieu of them where, although not known to be...