Lyda Conley v. Richard Ballinger
| Decision Date | 31 January 1910 |
| Docket Number | No. 77,77 |
| Citation | 216 U.S. 84,54 L.Ed. 393,30 S.Ct. 224 |
| Parties | LYDA B. CONLEY, Appt., v. RICHARD A. BALLINGER, Secretary of the Interior, and Horace B. Durant, Thomas G. Walker, and William A. Simpson, Commissioners |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Miss Lyda B. Conley, in propria persona, for appellant.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 85-87 intentionally omitted] Solicitor General Bowers and Mr. Barton Corneau for appellees.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 87-88 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:
This is a bill in equity to enjoin the Secretary of the Interior and commissioners appointed by him from selling or disturbing an Indian cemetery. The bill was demurred to on the grounds, among others, that the matter in dispute was not alleged to exceed the value of $2,000, and that the suit was a suit against the United States. The bill was dismissed for want of jurisdiction, and an appeal was taken to this court.
The substance of the bill is as follows: The plaintiff is a citizen of the state of Kansas and of the United States, and a descendant of Wyandotte Indians dealt with in the treaty of January 31, 1855. 10 Stat. at L. 1159. By article 1 of that treaty the tribe of the Wyandottes was to be dissolved on the ratification of the treaty, and the members made citizens of the United States, with exemption for a limited time of such as should apply for it. By article 2, the Wyandotte Nation ceded their land to the United States for subdivision in severalty to the members, 'except as follows, viz.: The portion now inclosed and used as a public burying ground shall be permanently reserved and appropriated for that purpose;' etc. The plaintiff's parents and sister are buried in this ground, and she alleges that she 'has seisin, and a legal estate and vested rights in and to' the same, and that although the land is worth $75,000, there is no standard by which to estimate the value of her rights. (It is set forth further that, by a treaty of February 23, 1867, with the Senecas and others, art. 13, 15 Stat. at L. 513, 516, a portion of the Wyandottes were allowed to begin anew a tribal existence; but the bearing of this treaty upon the case does not appear.) The defendants are intending and threatening to remove the remains of persons buried as above to another designated place and to sell the burying ground; the proceeds, after certain deductions, to be paid to parties to the treaty of 1855, or their representatives, in accordance with the act of Congress of June 21, 1906, chap. 3504, 34 Stat. at L. 325, 348. This act is alleged to violate the constitutional rights of the plaintiff and to be void.
The record shows that the court left it open to the plaintiff to amend so as to avoid any technical objection that could be avoided by amendment, and as she conducted her own case, we go as far as we can in leaving such considerations on one side. For every reason we have examined the facts with anxiety to give full weight to any argument by which the plaintiff's pious wishes might be carried out. But if it is obvious that the bill could not be amended so as to state a case within the jurisdiction of the court, the judgment must be affirmed or the appeal dismissed, as the defect of jurisdiction turns out to be peculiar to courts of the United States as such, or one common to all courts.
The allegation of the plaintiff's interest plainly does not mean that she has taken possession of the whole burying ground, and has acquired a seisin of the whole by wrong. As it does not mean that, it must mean simply a statement of the rights that the plaintiff conceives to have been conferred by the treaty of 1855 upon those whom she represents. The argument that vested rights were conferred upon individuals by that treaty, stated as strongly as we can state it, would be that, as the tribe was to be dissolved by the treaty, it cannot...
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