Godwin v. Davis
| Citation | 74 Miss. 742,21 So. 764 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi |
| Decision Date | 05 April 1897 |
| Parties | D. D. GODWIN ET AL. v. THOMAS F. DAVIS |
March 1897
FROM the chancery court of Tallahatchie county HON. A. H. LONGINO Chancellor.
The appellee, Davis, began this suit in the chancery court against the appellants, Godwin and others, to cancel the claims of defendants to the lands in controversy, and to remove them from the possession thereof. The lands were a part of the internal improvement lands, donated to the state by act of congress, approved September 4, 1841, and complainant purchased from the state and obtained its patent under laws of Mississippi 1878, p. 218, which authorized the sale of the lands at fifty cents per acre, while the act of congress provided that they should not be sold by the state for less than one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. The defendants, by their answers, claimed ownership of the lands but did not offer evidence of any title in themselves.
Affirmed.
E. D. Dinkins, for appellants.
The complainant must rely on the strength of his own title, and not on the weakness of that of his adversary. He must have a "perfect legal or a perfect equitable title." Boyd v. Thornton, 13 Smed. & M., 338; Toulmin v. Heidleberg, 32 Miss. 268; Jayne v. Boisgerard, 39 Miss. 736; Huntington v. Allen, 46 Miss. 654; Handy v. Newman, 51 Miss. 166; Griffin v. Harrison, 52 Miss. 824.
The patent appears on its face to be invalid, as the ninth section of the act of congress, September 4, 1841 (code of 1857, 689), which gave to the State of Mississippi the right it had in said land, provides "that the lands herein granted to the states above named shall not be disposed of at a price less than $ 1.25 per acre until otherwise authorized by law of the United States. Now, by reference to said patent, it will be seen that it was issued under an act of the legislature of the State of Mississippi, approved March 4, 1878, which reduced the price of the lands known as "The Internal Improvement Lands, " granted by said act of congress, from the $ 1.25 per acre to fifty cents per acre. This reduction was not "authorized by law of the United States, " and, if the legislature acted without authority, then any patent issued under said act must be void.
The United States constitution, art. 4, sec. 3, provides that "congress shall have power to dispose of and provide all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory of the United States, " and in passing the act of September 4, 1841, congress merely exercised a constitutional right.
To hold that the patent in this case passes the title to the appellee, will be to say that, not congress, but the State of Mississippi has power to dispose of the public lands and of prescribing the rules and regulations concerning that disposition, which would be to say that the laws of the State of Mississippi are paramount to the laws of the United States in relation to a subject confided by the constitution to congress alone. Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Peters, 498.
Should it be urged that this is an unwarranted collateral attack upon a patent, which is the highest evidence of title, I answer in the words of the law: 19 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 352.
Calvin Perkins, for the appellee.
The case of Van Wyck v. Knevals, 106 U.S. 360-370, is conclusive of the question that no one but the United States, through judicial proceedings or by act of congress, can question the validity of the patent which the State of Mississippi issued to the plaintiff. See, also, St. Louis, etc., v. McGee, 115 U.S. 469; Schulenberg v. Harriman, 21 Wall., 44; Schow v. Harriman, 21 Wall., 264.
The eighth section of the act of congress of 1841 did not itself vest the title in praesenti in the state. Foley v. Harrison , 56 U.S. 433, 15 HOW 433, 14 L.Ed. 761; Patterson v. Tatum , 3 Sawyer's Cir. Ct. Rep., 165. But "when [as said in the last case cited, approving Doll v. Meador , 16 Cal. 295] the selection and location were once made, pursuant to the state's directions, of lands not reserved, but subject to location, the general gift of the quantity becomes a particular gift of the specific lands located, vesting in the state a perfect and absolute title to the same; and that title passed by her patent." Van Wyck v. Knevals , 106 U.S. 360, 27 L.Ed. 201, 1 S.Ct. 336, controls this case. The same learned judge (Field) delivered the opinions in all three of these cases-- Van Wyck v. Knevals, Patterson v. Tatum , and Doll v. Meador.
Foley v. Harrison does not support the contention of counsel for appellant. In that case the location of the land was never approved by the proper federal authorities. On the contrary, a special tribunal, with judicial power, created by act of congress of August 3, 1846, composed of the secretary of the treasury, the attorney-general, and the commissioner of the general land office, expressly disapproved the location, and the court said, at p. 448, that "decision was final within the law."
Patterson v. Tatum is wholly unlike the case at bar. There the selection and location was of land expressly reserved, by the proper federal authority, from sale, and hence not subject to location. Pages 166, 170. This case is like Doll v. Meador , distinguished and reaffirmed in Patterson v. Tatum. In Doll v. Meador , as here, the party seeking to set up, in a private litigation between himself and his adversary, the invalidity of the state's patent, based on the selection and location, was a "trespasser without title, not in privity with a common or paramount source of title." And the court said: "There, in Doll v. Meador...
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