James Cooper, Plaintiff In Error v. Enoch Roberts

• Decision Date: 01 December 1855
• Citation: 15 L.Ed. 338,18 How. 173,59 U.S. 173
• Parties: JAMES M. COOPER, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. ENOCH C. ROBERTS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

59 U.S. 173

18 How. 173

15 L.Ed. 338

JAMES M. COOPER, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. ENOCH C. ROBERTS.

December Term, 1855

THIS case was brought up, by writ of error, from the circuit court of the United States for the district of Michigan.

It is stated in the opinion of the court.

It was argued by Mr. Buel and Mr. Vinton, for the plaintiff in error, and Mr. Truman Smith, for the defendant.

Such of the points only as were included within the decision of the court will be noticed.

The counsel for the plaintiff in error first considered the questions which arose relative to the act of 23d June, 1836, granting school lands to Michigan.

1. Is it simply a law in the ordinary meaning of the term, and, as such, repealable at the will of the law-making power, or does it belong to that class of laws which are legislative compacts?

The counsel contended that it was a compact. 5 Stats. at Large, 59, 60.

2. If it be of the latter class, when did it take effect as a compact, and become obligatory on the parties to it?

It became obligatory on 25th July, 1836, that being the day on which the legislature of Michigan passed the act of acceptance. Revised Code of Michigan for 1846, 748; 2 Wheat. 196; 4 Harrington, 479; 9 Wheat. 469.

3. Does either possess the power to annul or change any of the essential terms of it, without the assent of the other?

Whether the grant of section 16 operated as a present grant, or was only a promise that it should be granted in futuro, makes no difference in the obligation of the United States.

4. Viewed as a compact, what are the rules and principles that govern it? And what are the obligations which the article respecting section 16 imposes on the United States?

The rules and principles which govern it are those which regulate contracts generally. 1 Pet. Cond. R. 453; 1 Tenn. 319; 3 Ohio, 572.

That the government cannot resume its grant, and that a grant is a contract executed, see New Orleans v. De Armas, 9 Pet. 236. There the court say: 'It is a principle applicable to every grant, that it cannot affect pre existing titles.' In Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch, 43, (same case, 2 Pet. Cond. R. 321,) held, that where the legislature had the authority to make a grant of lands, such grant, when made, vests an indefeasible and irrevocable title. And in Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, Chief Justice Marshall said: 'A grant in its own nature amounts to an extinguishment of the right of the grantor, and implies a contract not to reassert that right; a party, therefore, is always estopped by his own grant.' Pollard's Lessee v. Hogan, 3 How. 212.

Whether a contract be executed or executory, it is equally binding on the parties to it. Fletcher v. Peck, 2 Pet. Cond. R. 321.

5. What is the meaning and effect of that clause in the article which provides, that where section sixteen has been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to the State?

This was to provide for prior and not subsequent sales. Assuming that the act of 1836 was only a promise, and that the act of March 1, 1847, embraced section sixteen, still, Michigan has the better right to it. But that act did not dispose of the mineral lands without reference to the school reservation.

1. Instead of the mineral lands being reserved by the act in pursuance to an established policy, it was a primary object of that act to put an end to the policy that had theretofore prevailed of reserving mineral lands from sale, and to dispose of them by sale as soon as practicable, and for the best price that could be obtained.

2. By the true interpretation of the second section of the act, section sixteen in every township of the district is expressly reserved from sale; and also such reservations as the President shall deem necessary for public uses, whether the same are mineral lands or not.

3. As the interpretation of the court conflicts with prior and existing legislative grants and obligations, those grants and obligations are entitled to the benefit of every legal presumption and inference in their favor; and such effect ought not to be given to the law, unless the intent to produce this conflict be expressed in manifest and undoubted language.

4. If the act had, in general terms, directed the sale of all the lands in the district, but was silent as to the lands previously dedicated and granted to schools, it would not have the effect to divert them from this special use.

Mr. Smith, for the defendants in error, contended:——

1. That the article in the act of 1836 was conceived in words of the future tense; and that the plaintiff below could not make out a title without a patent. 13 Pet. 516; 15 How. 433; 1 Op. Att. Gen. 273; 12 How. 76; 14 ibid. 274.

But if we assume that the first article of this compact operated to vest in the State of Michigan the fee, or a good and perfect title to these lands, then the next question is, whether that title has, through Williams, been transferred to the plaintiff? To answer which we must, as already mentioned, turn our attention both to the laws of the United States and of the State of Michigan.

Michigan had no power to sell this section without the assent of congress. The income of each section is to be applied to the support of schools in the township where it is situated, and the State has no power, without the consent of congress, to sell it for the purpose of creating a general fund. 14 How. 274.

This is shown by the numerous acts of congress granting permission to sell. 4 Stats. at Large, 237, 298; 5 ibid. 600; 10 ibid. 6.

The United States, in granting these lands, are the founders of a charity; 9 Cranch, 292; and their assent is necessary for a sale. 4 Wheat. 518.

But, assuming that the State of Michigan has the entire control of the lands, and can sell them without consulting either the United States or the inhabitants of the townships where situated; then the question arises, whether these lands were sold in conformity with the laws of the State?

The argument upon this point is omitted.

Mr. Justice CAMPBELL delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff sued in ejectment, to recover a portion of section No. 16, in township No. 50 north, of range 39 west, lying within the mineral district south of Lake Superior, in Michigan.

His case affirms that this section had been appropriated by the United States to the State of Michigan for the use of schools, in their compact, by which that State became a member of the Union; that the governor of Michigan issued, in November, 1851, to Alfred Williams, a patent, evincing a sale of that section under the laws of Michigan, in February, 1851; that he has a conveyance from the patentee, and that the defendant is a tenant in possession, withholding the locus in quo from him. The defendant, to support his issue, relies upon a license given in 1844, by the mineral agent of the United States for that district, empowering the donee to examine and dig for lead, and other ores, for the term of one year, and within that term to mark out and define a specific tract of land, not to exceed three miles square, for mining purposes; and, if he should fulfil this and other conditions, he was to become entitled to a lease for three years, with a privilege of one or two renewals, under restrictions. The secretary of war, in September, 1845, executed a lease for a tract three miles square, which the donee of the license had selected, and which included the locus in quo, and stipulated to renew it, if congress shall not have passed a law 'directing the sale, or other disposition, of these lands,' and if the lessee shall have complied with all the conditions of the present lease, and tendered a bond for the fulfilment of the conditions of the new lease, as described in the act. This lease came to the Minnesota Mining Company by assignment, and that company in 1847, and from thence till 1851, held possession of the land described in the declaration, erected valuable improvements, and made successful explorations for copper upon it. In November, 1850, the company applied to the proper officers of the land-office to enter the land comprised in the lease, and from thence, till the date of their patent in 1852, the right of the company to secure the locus in quo by entry was in dispute in the land-office of the United States. In September, 1851, the secretary of the interior determined adversely to the claim of the company, and in favor of the claim of Michigan; and in 1852, upon proofs that the company had complied with the lease, while he reaffirmed his conclusions in favor of Michigan, allowed the entry of the company, but with a reservation of the rights of Michigan. The section No. 16, aforesaid, was surveyed in the summer of 1847, and the portion in controversy, in the report of the geological survey of the district, was returned to the land-office as containing mines of copper. There was no application to the department of public lands to renew the lease held by the company, for the reason (it is said) that the system of letting mineral lands of this kind had been abandoned, upon the doubts expressed by the attorney-general, in 1846, of the legality of such leases. Upon the trial of the cause in the circuit court, the plaintiff moved the court for instructions to the jury, that, upon the facts, he was entitled to a verdict, and that the defendant's patent was invalid. The court refused the prayer, and told the jury, 'that by the act of congress of 1st March, 1847, all the mining lands within the district, reported, were taken out of the operation of the general law for the disposal of the public lands, in pursuance of an established policy to reserve from the ordinary mode of disposing of public lands those that contained valuable salt springs, lead mines, &c., that that they might be leased or disposed of to purchasers having full knowledge of their value, by reason of the salt springs or mineral ores...