Wolsey v. Chapman

• Decision Date: 01 October 1879
• Citation: 25 L.Ed. 915,101 U.S. 755
• Parties: WOLSEY v. CHAPMAN
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

101 U.S. 755

101 U.S. 755

25 L.Ed. 915

WOLSEY v. CHAPMAN.

October Term, 1879

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Iowa.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

The case was argued by Mr. Galusha Parsons for the appellants, and by Mr. George G. Wright for the appellee.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.

This case presents again for consideration the Des Moines River improvement grant. 9 Stat. 77. It is a suit in equity brought by Chapman, who claims under the river grant, to quiet his title as against Wolsey, whose rights depend on a patent from the State of Iowa granting the lands in dispute as part of lands ceded to the State under the eighth section of the act of Congress passed Sept. 4, 1841, entitled 'An Act to appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the public lands and to grant pre-emption rights.' 5 id. 453. That section is as follows:——

'SECT. 8. And be it further enacted, that there shall be granted to each State specified in the first section of this act five hundred thousand acres of land for purposes of internal improvement: Provided, that to each of the said States which has already received grants for said purposes there is hereby granted no more than a quantity of land which shall, together with the amount such State has already received as aforesaid, make five hundred thousand acres, the selections in all of the said States to be made within their limits respectively in such manner as the legislature thereof shall direct; and located in parcels conformably to sectional divisions and subdivisions, of not less than three hundred and twenty acres in any one location, on any public land except such as is or may be reserved from sale by any law o Congress or proclamation of the President of the United States, which said locations may be made at any time after the lands of the United States in said States respectively shall have been surveyed according to existing laws. And there shall be, and hereby is, granted to each new State that shall be hereafter admitted into the Union, upon such admission, so much land as, including such quantity as may have been granted to such State before its admission, and while under territorial government, for purposes of internal improvement as aforesaid, as shall make five hundred thousand acres of land, to be selected and located as aforesaid.'

Sect. 10 granted pre-emption rights in the public lands, but provided that 'no lands included in any reservation, by any treaty, law, or proclamation of the President of the United States, or reserved for salines, or for other purposes; no lands reserved for the support of schools, nor the lands acquired by either of the two last treaties with the Miami tribe of Indians in the State of Indiana, or which may be acquired of the Wyandot tribe of Indians in the State of Ohio, or other Indian reservation to which the title has been or may be extinguished by the United States at any time during the operation of this act; no sections of land reserved to the United States alternate to other sections granted to any of the States for the construction of any canal, railroad, or other public improvement; no sections or fractions of sections included within the limits of any incorporated town; no portions of the public lands which have been selected as the site for a city or town; no parcel or lot of land actually settled and occupied for the purposes of trade and not agriculture; and no lands on which are situated any known salines or mines, shall be liable to entry under and by virtue of the provisions of this act.'

At that time Iowa was a Territory, organized under the act of June 12, 1838. Id. 235. On the 8th of August, 1846, Congress passed the act making the Des Moines River grant (9 Stat. 77), the material parts of which are as follows:——

'An Act granting certain lands to the Territory of Iowa, to aid in the improvement of the navigation of the Des Moines River, in said Territory.

'Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that there be, and hereby is, granted to the Territory of Iowa, for the purpose of aiding said Territory to improve the navigation of the Des Moines River from its mouth to the Raccoon Fork (so-called) in said Territory, one equal moiety, in alternate sections, of the public lands (remaining unsold, and not otherwise disposed of, incumbered, or appropriated), in a strip five miles in width on each side of said river, to be selected within said Territory by an agent or agents to be appointed by the governor thereof, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

'SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, that the lands hereby granted shall not be conveyed or disposed of by said Territory, nor by any State to be formed out of the same, except as said improvements shall progress; that is, the said Territory or State may sell so much of said lands as shall produce the sum of $30,000, and then the sales shall cease until the governor of said Territory or State shall certify the fact to the President of the United States that one-half of said sum has been expended upon said improvements, when the said Territory or State may sell and convey a quantity of the residue of said lands sufficient to replace the amount expended; and thus the sale shall progress as the proceeds thereof shall be expended, and the fact of such expenditure shall be certified as aforesaid.

'SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, that whenever the Territory of Iowa shall be admitted into the Union as a State, the lands hereby granted for the above purpose shall be and become the property of said State for the purpose contemplated in this act, and no other, provided the legislature of the State of Iowa shall accept the said grant for the said purpose.'

On the 28th of December, 1846, Iowa was admitted into the Union as a State. 9 id. 117. By the Constitution, under which the admission was granted, the 500,000 acres of land to which the State became entitled by the act of 1841 were appropriated to the use of common schools (Const. Iowa, 1846, art. 9; School Fund and Schools, sect. 3), and on the 2d of March, 1849, Congress, by a special act, assented to this appropriation. Id. 349.

On the 17th of October, 1846, the Commissioner of the General Land-Office requested the governor of the Territory to appoint an agent to select the land under the river grant, at the same time intimating that the grant only extended from the Missouri line to the Raccoon Fork of the Des Moines River. On the 17th of December, a few days before the admission of the State, the territorial authorities designated the odd-numbered sections as the lands selected under the grant. The State accepted the grant in form by joint resolution of the General Assembly approved Jan. 9, 1847. On the 24th of February following, the State created a 'Board of Public Works,' to whom were committed the work, construction, and management of the river improvement, and the care, control, sale, disposal, and management of the lands granted the State by the act of 1846. This board was organized Sept. 22, 1847, and on the 17th of February, 1848, the Commissioner of the General Land-Office, in an official communication to the secretary of the board, gave it as the opinion of his office that the grant extended throughout the whole length of the river within the limits of the State. On the 19th of June, 1848, without any notice of a revocation of this opinion, a proclamation was issued by the President, putting in market some of the lands above the Raccoon Fork the title to which would pass to the State if the Commissioner was right in the construction he gave the grant. This led to a correspondence on the subject between the proper officers of the State and the United States, which resulted in the promulgation of an official opinion by the Secretary of the Treasury, bearing date March 2, 1849, to the effect that the grant extended from the Missouri line to the source of the river. In consequence of this opinion, the Commissioner of the General Land-Office, on the 1st of the following June, directed the registers and receivers of the local land-offices to withhold from sale all the odd-numbered sections within five miles on each side of the river above the Raccoon Fork.

Afterwards, the State authorities called on the Commissioner of the General Land-Office for a list of lands above the Raccoon Fork which would fall to the State under this ruling. The list was accordingly made out, and on the 14th of January, 1850, submitted to the Secretary of the Interior for approval; jurisdiction of matters of that kind having before that date been transferred by law from the Treasury to the Interior Department. On the 6th of April, the Secretary returned the list to the land-office with a letter declining to recognize the grant as extending above the Raccoon Fork without the aid of an explanatory act of Congress, but advised that any immediate steps for bringing the lands into market be postponed, in order that Congress might have an opportunity of acting on the matter if it saw fit.

On the 20th of July, 1850, the agent of the State having in charge the school lands and school fund gave notice at the General Land-Office that he had selected the particular piece of land in controversy in this suit as part of the 500,000-acre grant under the act of 1841. Other lands coming within the river grant, if extended above the Raccoon Fork, amounting in the aggregate with this piece to 12,813 51/100 acres, were included in a list of similar selections approved at the Land Department in Washington on the 20th of February, 1851. Two days afterwards, February 22, the Board of Public Works of the State formally demanded of the Secretary of the Interior for the river grant all the alternate odd sections above the fork. On the 26th of July the order of the...