Henry Baldwin

“ The court of appeals did not think that the record of the circuit court did not bring the great question directly and distinctly for their consideration. It seems to me that the fact of the plaintiff in ejectment being saddled with a judgment of one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars, at the suit of a defendant, for improvements, necessarily involves every question necessary to give this court jurisdiction. A citizen of Kentucky has a right to question the validity of the occupying claimant law, on its alleged repugnancy to the constitution of the United States. ”

“ It appears on the record, that the plaintiff read in evidence on the trial of the cause, a patent from Kentucky for six hundred acres of land in pursuance of three military warrants, Nos. 1115, 1125, and 1123; entered on the 21st of July 1784, and surveyed the 23d of May 1785. The patent is set forth verbatim. As the state of Kentucky had no existence in 1784 or 1785, when these warrants were entered and surveyed, we cannot be judicially ignorant that these acts, as well as the issuing of the warrants, and the title founded on them, were under the laws of Virginia. ”