Harcourt and others against Gaillard and others

• Decision Date: 01 January 1827
• Citation: 16 Wheat 523,6 L. Ed. 716,25 U.S. 523
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

25 U.S. 523

6 L.Ed. 716

12 Wheat. 523

HARCOURT and other against GAILLARD and others.

March 3, 1827

Feb. 1st.

25 U.S. 523

6 L.Ed. 716

12 Wheat. 523

HARCOURT and other against GAILLARD and others.

March 3, 1827

Feb. 1st.

This cause was argued by Mr. White Mr. Isaacks for the plaintiffs, and by Mr. Coxe and Mr. Worthington for the defendants.^a March 3d.

Mr. Justice JOHNSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

The questions upon which this cause turns arose out of a British grant to the ancestor of the plaintiff, dated the 24th of January, 1777.

The land in controversy is situated in that tract of country which lies between the Mississippi and Chatahouchee rivers, and between the 31st degree of north latitude to the south, and a line drawn from the mouth of the Yazoo river, due east to the Chatahouchee. From the earliest times of the settlement of North America, the region of territory in which that tract of country is described, was the subject of wars and negotiations with France, Spain, and Great Britain, until 1763, when Great Britain became the undisputed proprietor of the whole, from the lakes Maurepas to Ponchartrain, and the gulphs of Mexico and Florida, by the Mississippi northwardly. Before that time, her claim extended southwardly to the 29th degree of north latitude, as is evidenced by her charter to the lords proprietors of 1677; and from the same instrument it appears that she interfered with the province of Louisiana by extending her southern line to the Pacific ocean. The country of Florida, therefore, south of the 29th degree, was a conquest; that north of the 29th degree, and up the Mississippi, was held as a part of her own territory, concerning which her treaties with France and Spain only established a disputed boundary.

On the 7th of October, 1763, the king, exercising a right which was never questioned, over what were then called royal provinces, issued his proclaimation, by which he established the northern boundary of the Floridas at the 31st degree of north latitude from the Mississippi to the Apalachichola, down that steam to its confluence with Flint river, and from that point by a line to the head of the St. Mary's, and by that river to the sea. And this was the line which, by treaty of peace, was established as the southern boundary of the United States. After the peace, the United States, Spain, South Carolina, and Georgia, succeeded to the disputes of Great Britain, France and Spain, relative to the same tract of country.

The original title of South Carolina, under the grant to the lords proprietors was unquestionable; and she contended that she had never then legally devested of soil or sovereignty.

Georgia founded her claim on the commissions to her governor Wright, which comprised, within its jurisdiction, the territory in question; and the United States claimed it as a conquest from the British province of West Florida. While Spain insisted that it a was a part of Louisiana or Florida, and as such, ceded to her by the treaty of 1783. Finally, South Carolina, by the treaty of Beaufort, relinquished her claim to Georgia, and the United States settled her claim by taking a cession from Georgia of the land in controversy; so that, at present, the claims of the United States, of the State of South Carolina, and of Georgia, have become united in the general government.

The grant to Harcourt, it will be perceived from its date, was subsequent to the declaration of independence, and within the acknowledged limits of the United States; it, therefore, involves the question whether such a grant can be valid; a question which would have been involved in less difficulty, if the United States had never set up the claim of conquest. That ground would admit the original right of the governor of West Florida to grant, and if so, his right to grant might have continued in force until the treaty of peace; and the grant in that case to Harcourt might have had extended to it the benefit of those principles of public law which are applicable to territories acquired by conquest; whereas, the right set up by South Carolina and Georgia deny all power in the grantor over the soil; the question which they present, is one of disputed boundaries, within which, the power that succeeds in war is not obliged to recognise as vally any acts of ownership exercised by his adversary.

There are several reasons for putting the claim of the United States out of the question. She has abandoned it, and it is very clear, could never have sustained it. The very ground on which she denied the capacity of Spain to conquer, or take by cession, the territory on the Mississippi, was fatal to the pretensions set up by her against Georgia and South Carolina, to wit, that Spain could not acquire by conquest a territory within the limits claimed by an ally in the war.

But there was another reason. There was no territory within the United States that was claimed in any other right than that of some one of the confederated States; therefore, there could be no acquisition of territory made by the United Stated distinct from, or independent of some one of the States.

We are then referred to the belligerent rights of South Carolina and Georgia; and it is immaterial to the question here, to which of those States the territory appertained. Each...