Benjamin Robbins Curtis

“ It is clear, therefore, that these trustees, and not the United States, took the land under this deed, and that the latter acquired no interest in the land as such. This court has applied the same principles to the case of an alien, in Craig v. Leslie, 3 Wheat., 50, which settles that a devise of land to a citizen as a trustee, upon a trust to sell the land and pay over the proceeds to an alien, is a valid trust, and the interest of the alien is not subject to forfeiture. ”

“ An alien cannot have an action to enforce the title to land which he has taken by way of purchase; but this court has decided, in Hughes et al. v. Edwards et ux., 9 Wheat., 489, that an alien mortgagee may have the aid of a court of equity to foreclose a mortgage by a sale, because the debt is the principal thing and the land only an incident. ”

“ It is the opinion of the court, that by the true construction of the act of Congress now in question, the government are not prohibited from taking security upon lands, through the action of the proper department, for debts due to the United States, and that the court erred in giving the act such a construction as to avoid the deed from the bank to the trustees. ”

“ The deed in question conveyed the land to Badollett and others, in trust to sell so much thereof as might be necessary to raise sufficient money to pay a debt due from the bank to the United States. It is clear this was not in any sense a purchase of land on account of the United States. In the land itself, the United States acquired by the deed, no interest. ”

“ But we do not think it necessary to rest the decision of the case exclusively on this ground; for in our judgment the act of Congress does not prohibit the acquisition by the United States of the legal title to land, without express legislative authority, when it is taken by way of security for a debt. ”