Micken v. United States

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BRADLEY
• Citation: Micken v. United States, 97 U.S. 204, 24 L.Ed. 947 (1877)
• Decision Date: 01 October 1877
• Parties: McMICKEN v. UNITED STATES

97 U.S. 204

24 L.Ed. 947

McMICKEN v. UNITED STATES.

October Term, 1877

APPEAL from the District Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Willis Drummond and Mr. Robert H. Bradford for the appellant.

The Solicitor-General, contra.

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court.

The claim to lands in this case originated as follows: On the 17th of December, 1798, William Coleman, an inhabitant of New Feliciana, within the bounds of the present State of Louisiana, east of the Mississippi River, applied to the Spanish governor-general for a grant of six hundred and ten arpents of land, for a plantation and settlement, in the district of Baton Rouge, three miles from the Mississippi. A certificate of the local surveyor was annexed to the application, certifying that there were vacant lands in the district of St. Helena, on the west bank of the Tangipahoa River, beginning at the thirty-first parallel of latitude (the boundary line of the United States), in which could be found the arpents front which the petitioner asked for, excluding whatever might be in the possession of actual settlers. The place thus indicated was about fifty miles east of the Mississippi. To this application Grandpr e, the surveyor of the district, added a further certificate, dated Dec 22, 1798, and addressed to the governor, by which he stated that four hundred and ten arpents might be conceded in the place indicated by the local surveyor. Thereupon the governor, De Lemos, on the 2d of January, 1799, issued a warrant or order of survey, in the following terms (as translated):——

'NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 2, 1799.

'The surveyor of this province, Don Carlos Trudeau, shall locate this interested party on four hundred and ten arpents of land, front, in the place indicated in the foregoing certificate, they being vacant, and thereby not causing injury to any one, with the express condition to make the high-road and do the usual clearing of timber in the absolutely fixed limit in one year; and that this concession is to remain null and void if at the expiration of the precise space of three years the land shall not be found settled upon, and to not be able to alienate it within the same three years, under which supposition there shall be carried out uninterruptedly the proceedings of the survey, which he (the surveyor) shall transmit to me, so as to provide the interested party with the corresponding title-papers in due form.

(Signed) 'MANUEL GAYOSO DE LEMOS.'

This is the only title presented, and neither survey nor settlement, nor improvement of any kind, appears ever to have been made on the part of the petitioner or any one claiming under him. The only thing done by him in that direction was to procure from Pintado, the local Spanish surveyor at Baton Rouge, on the 26th of February, 1806, after the country had been ceded to the United States, but before this part had been surrendered by Spain, an authority to one Ira C. Kneeland, a deputy surveyor, to survey the tract according to certain general instructions (which do not appear), specifying, however, that it was understood that the warrant was for a certain number of arpents in front, and that the depth ought to be forty arpents, or four hundred perches of Paris; which would make the tract contain sixteen thousand four hundred arpents, the quantity now sought to be recovered of the United States. But nothing was ever done by Kneeland, and the prosecution of the grant seems to have been abandoned by Coleman and his assigns until long afterwards. Grandpr e himself, in 1806 (having become governor), issued a warrant for a thousand arpents, on a portion of the tract, to one Robert Yarr, who entered upon and settled the same; and his title was subsequently confirmed by the United States. And before the country was occupied by our government, actual settlers had become possessed of the whole tract, who were subsequently confirmed in their holdings by the act of March 3, 1819, upon the report of the commissioners who had been appointed to investigate the title to lands in that region. Most of the claims of these settlers were presented to Commissioner Cosby in 1812, 1813, and 1814, he being then engaged in ascertaining all claims to lands in the district west of Pearl River. His report was made in the early part of 1815 (Amer. State Papers, Public Lands, vol. iii. pp. 39-76); but no claim seems to have been presented by Coleman for the lands in question.

On the 16th of September, 1814, he assigned his right to the land to one Charles McMicken, under whom the appellant claims as devisee. But neither did McMicken present any claim to the commissioner.

Under the various laws extending the time for presenting claims several other reports were subsequently made by the commissioners for the St. Helena district west of Pearl River; and finally, under an act passed May 26, 1824 (4 Stat. 59), additional claims were received in that year, and a report was made in the January following, in which the claim in question first comes to notice. The petition in this case states that it was presented to the commissioners on the 26th of December, 1824. With various others, it was rejected by them on the ground that 'the claimants had not complied with the requisitions of the law as regards either habitation or cultivation.' Amer. State Papers, Public Lands, vol. iv. pp. 438, 443. This report was confirmed by Congress by the act of May 4, 1826. 4 Stat. 159. In 1846, McMicken instituted suit in the United States District Court of Louisiana, against the United States, under the provisions of the act of June 17, 1844, for the confirmation of the grant; but this suit was not prosecuted when called up for trial, and was dismissed, and judgment entered for the United States. In March, 1873, the present suit was brought under the act of June 22, 1860, entitled 'An Act for the final adjustment of private land-claims in the States of Florida, Louisiana, and Missouri, and for other purposes.' 12 id. 85. A decree was rendered in favor of the United States. McMicken thereupon appealed to this court.

Two questions arise in the case: First, whether the petitioner has shown any derivation of title to himself; and, secondly, whether the claim is a valid one.

The petitioner claims as devisee of Charles McMicken, under his will, bearing date in 1855, which is set out in full in the record. An inspection of this will shows that the tract in question was not named in it, nor devised in any way. It mentions various other tracts in Louisiana belonging to the testator, but not this one. It would seem that McMicken had abandoned all idea of establishing the validity of the claim. As the appellant does not pretend to have any other title than that of devisee under this will, it is difficult to see how his petition can be sustained. If this were an action of ejectment, there could be no question on the subject. But it is contended on the part of the petitioner that whether his own title be properly deraigned or not, the court, if satisfied of the validity of McMicken's title, might make a decree in favor of his legal representatives, for the benefit of whom it might concern. A decree in this form is often made against the government in these land cases, when a title is satisfactorily established, and the parties prosecuting it connect themselves in some way with it, so as to show some real interest to be protected. Castro v. Hendricks, 23 How. 438; Brown v. Brackett, 21 Wall. 387. But a mere stranger to the title can hardly ask the court to go that length. It is not for every one who chooses to take up the prosecution of such claims, without any connection whatever with the title sought to be established.

But the more important question in this case is that relating to the validity of McMicken's title to the land.

We do not understand that the act of 1860 was intended to make any claims valid which would not have been so before, if the government making the grant had had the right to make it. The objection of want of title in the granting power was removed by the act, as to all grants made by a government in possession which were otherwise sustainable on the principles of justice and equity; the time for presenting claims was opened and extended; and actual surveys were dispensed with where the land could be otherwise identified. These were the principal remedial provisions of the act so far as relates to the validity of titles. Claims invalid from intrinsic defects in 1815 or 1825 are not helped by the act of 1860. The utmost that our treaty stipulations ever required was, that we should sustain titles which would have been sustained by the government from which our title to the territory was derived. Nothing more could be fairly asked, and we think that nothing more was intended by Congress to be given, except to make provision (as it did from time to time) in favor of actual settlers.

The question then arises, whether the decision of the commissioners in 1824, with regard to this claim, was not correct. The title was nothing but a warrant or permit to survey, occupy, and improve the land, with a view to a grant when this should be done, and with an express condition to be void if not done within three years. Such warrants or permits have invariably been respected by our government, whenever there has appeared any bona fide attempt to perform the conditions, or any plausible excuse for their non-performance. But where no such attempt has been made, and no excuse is offered for not making it, the claim has been disallowed. Under such circumstances it would be simply asking the government for a gratuity, a donation without the slightest consideration, to seek a grant of the land. The government does not stand upon formal conditions. It does not demand that there should have been an actual survey, if the land can be otherwise identified. The act of...