Henry Baldwin

“ The principle that the acts of a king are in subordination to the laws of the country, applies only where there is any law of higher obligation than his will; the rule contended for may prevail in a British, certainly not in a Spanish province. There is another source of law in all governments, usage, custom, which is always presumed to have been adopted with the consent of those who may be affected by it. ”

“ A public grant, or one made in the name and assumed authority of the sovereign power of the country, has never been considered as a special verdict; capable of being aided by no inference of the existence of other facts than those expressly found or apparent by necessary implication, an objection to its admission in evidence on a trial at law, or a hearing in equity, is in the nature of a demurrer to evidence on the ground of its not conducing to prove the matter in issue. ”

“ If no future act of theirs was necessary to their ratification and confirmation, the legal estate, much less the beneficial interest, never passed to them. A treaty of cession is a deed of the ceded territory, the sovereign is the grantor, the act is his, so far as it relates to the cession, the treaty is his act and deed, and all courts must so consider it, and deeds are construed in equity by the rules of law.
A governments is never presumed to grant the same land twice, 7 J. R. 8. ”

“ It is thus clearly evidenced, by the acts, the words, and intentions of the legislature, that in considering these claims by the special tribunals, the authority of the officer making the grant, or other evidence of claim to lands, formed no item in the title it conferred; that the United States never made that a point in issue between them and the claimants to be even considered, much less adjudicated. ”

“ It is useless to pursue the inquiry, whether by the common law the grant of a king can be adjudged to pass what he had conveyed to another, and whose title he intended to ratify and confirm by the very act of a grant to another, by excepting it from the generality or the thing granted, and reserving it from the operation of the new grant for the use of a prior grantee. ”

“ A general custom is a general law, and forms the law of a contract on the subject matter; though at variance with its terms, it enters into and controls its stipulations as an act of parliament or state legislature ”

“ No inquiry was directed to be made as to the authority by which it was done; the United States were too just to exact from the grantees of land under an absolute colonial government what no court requires from one who holds lands under the grant of the United States or of a state fully executed: or if inchoate never compels a claimant to produce the authority of the officer who issues or executes a warrant or order of survey ”

“ They are liberal-worthy of the government which has adopted and made them the rules by which to test the rights of private claimants to portions of the land embraced in the ceded territory. From a careful examination of the whole legislation of congress on the subject of the Louisiana and Florida treaties, we cannot entertain a doubt that it has from their beginning been intended that the titles to the lands claimed should be settled by the same rules of constructions, law and evidence, in all their newly acquired territory. ”

“ Whether then the present claim is by patent, grant, concession, warrant, or order of survey, or any other act which might have been perfected into a complete title, by laws, usages, and customs of Spain, is immaterial as to our power to hear and determine. The fifth section of the Missouri act (3 Story, 1962) , and the twelfth section of the Florida act (pamphlet, 63) , finally bars at law and in equity all claims to lands, tenements, and hereditaments within their purview, which are not brought by petitioner before the court. They are of course not cognizable by them. ”

“ The court not only may, but are bound to notice and respect general customs and usage as the law of the land, equally with the written law, and, when clearly proved, they will control the general law; this necessarily follows from its presumed origin,-an act of parliament or a legislative act. Such would be our duty under the second section of the act of 1824, though its usages and customs were not expressly named as a part of the laws or ordinances of Spain. ”

“ The general words of a king's grant shall never be so construed as to deprive him of a greater amount of revenue than he intended to grant, or to be deemed to be to his or the prejudice of the commonwealth ”

“ The United States do not come into court claiming this cession and renunciation as vesting them with the whole territory in full dominion, in their sovereign capacity, with liberty to confirm previous appropriations of parts of it or not, at their pleasure; but require us to finally decide between them and the claimants as grantees from the same grantor; which grant carries the title to the land. ”

“ That they have adopted as the basis of all their acts, the principle that the law of the province in which the land is situated is the law which gives efficacy to the grant, and by which it is to be tested, whether it was properly at the time the treaties took effect.
The United States seem never to have claimed any part of what could be shown by legal evidence and local law to have been severed from the royal domain before their right attached. ”

“ The words of a grant are always construed according to the intention of the parties, as manifested in the grant by its terms or by the reasonable and necessary implication, to be deduced from the situation of the parties and of the thing granted, its nature and use ”

“ The condition of settling two hundred families on the land has not been complied with in fact; the question is, has it been complied with in law, or has such matter been presented to the court as dispenses with the performance and divests the grant of that condition. ”

“ The only questions which can arise between an individual claiming a right under the acts done, and the public, or any person denying its validity, are, power in the officer, and fraud in the party. All other questions are settled by the decision made or the act done by the tribunal or officer ”

“ The intendant pronounced his sentence on the report of these officers, and declared the granted lands to be a part of the royal domain, and open to a grant, reserving the Indian right of occupancy whenever it should be resumed. The fact of abandonment was the important one to be ascertained, if voluntary, the dominion of the crown over it was unimpaired in its plenitude; if by force the Indians had the right whenever they had the power or inclination to return. ”

“ His honour was concerned most deeply in not doing an act which should deprive his subjects of what he had granted to them; by making a cession of the territory to a powerful nation-not content with ceding and renouncing only what belonged to himself, he wad desirous of expressing his intention of preserving his faith, by an article which should show it to be not to leave the confirmation of grants by lawful authority at the pleasure of the United States. ”

“ That he had power to make the grant, the terms and extent of which were within his discretion, of the proper exercise of which this court has neither the power or right to judge. We will, however, observe that we are well satisfied that the local authority was competent to make grants of lands of a greater quantity than that to which the counsel of the United States have contended that they were limited; the United States have never insisted on limiting grants to such a pittance. ”

“ The question of fraud has been pressed in the argument, but we perceive nothing in the evidence which shows its existence so as to bring it home to the claimants or that it exists at all according to the definition and rules heretofore settled.
It is objected that the lands in question are within the Indian boundary, and not subject to be granted. Of the fact of such location there seems to be no doubt, as the centre of the grant is the Indian town of Alachua. The title of the Indians to these lands is not a matter before us ”

“ Though a court of law must decide according to the legal construction of the condition and call on the party for a strict performance, yet a court of equity acting on more liberal principles will soften the rigour of law, and though the party cannot show a legal compliance with the condition, if he can do it cy pres they will protect and save him from a forfeiture ”

“ The act of 1822, for ascertaining claims and titles to land in the territory of Florida (3 Story, 1870) -directs all persons claiming title to lands under any patent, grant, concession or order of survey, to file before the commissioners their claim, 'setting forth its situation and boundaries, if to be ascertained, with their deraignment of title, where they are not the grantees or original claimants,' which shall be recorded, &c. ”

“ The plaintiff claimed a title the land in controversy under a Spanish grant prior to the treaty, which he alleged was confirmed by the eighth article; he stood simply on hisright, without any act of congress authorising the suit, or conferring on the court any extraordinary powers. The first question which was decisive of the plaintiff's pretensions was whether the lands in contest were within the boundaries of Louisiana, as ceded in 1803, or within Florida, as ceded in 1819. ”

“ On general principles it is incontestable, that a grantee can convey no more than he possesses. Hence, those who come in under the holder of a void grant, can acquire nothing; but it is clear that the courts of Tennessee have held otherwise. ”

“ The act of 1824 and 1828 authorise and require us to decide on the pending title on all the evidence and laws before us. Congress have disclaimed its decision as a political question for the legislative department to decide, and enjoined it on us one as purely judicial. ”

“ This seems to be a mode of proceeding known to the Spanish law in force in the province, in the nature of an inquest of office, as a judicial act, which vitally affecting the royal domain, come within its general superintendency, under the royal order of September. ”

“ These rules are in general directory, and where all the proceedings are completed, by a patent issued by the authority of the state, a compliance with these rules is pre-supposed. That every prerequisite has been performed, is an inference properly deducible, and which every man has a right to draw from the existence of the grant itself. ”

“ By consenting to be sued, and submitting the decision to judicial action, they have considered it as a purely judicial question, which we are now bound to decide as between man and man, on the same subject matter and by the rules which congress themselves have prescribed, of which the stipulations of any treaty and the proceedings under the same, form one of four distinct ones. We must therefore be distinctly understood as not in the least impairing, but affirming the principle of Foster v. ”

“ This law was passed to enable claimants to lands within the limits of Missouri and Arkansas, to institute proceedings to try the validity of their claims to land prior to the consummation of the cession of the territory acquired by the United States by the Louisiana treaty ”

“ Car. 169. Though such construction must be reasonable, such as will make the true intention of the king as expressed in his charter take effect, is for the king's honour, and stands with the rules of law; 4 Com. Dig. 428, 554; G. 12; 10 Co. 65. Grants of the strongest kind, 'ex speciali gratia, certa scientia, et mero motu,' do not extend beyond the meaning and intent expressed in them, nor, by any strained construction, make any thing pass against the apt and proper, the common and usual signification and intendment of the words of the grant, and passes nothing but what the king owned ”

“ This relieves the court from the difficulty in which they found themselves in giving a construction to the treaty in the case of Foster and Elam v. Nelson. A treaty is in its nature a contract between 'two nations, not a legislative act. It does not generally effect of itself the object to be accomplished, especially so far as its object is infra territorial, but is carried into effect by the sovereign powers of the parties to the instrument ”

“ We are also of opinion that the legal construction of the eighth article in English, would lead to the same conclusion at which we have arrived, according to the view heretofore taken of the Spanish. The law deems every man to be in the legal seisin and possession of land to which he has a perfect and complete title ”

“ After the acquisition of Florida by the United States, in virtue of the treaty with Spain, of the 22d of February 1819, various acts of congress were passed for the adjustment of private claims to land within the ceded territory. ”

“ That actual fraud is not to be presumed, but ought to be proved by the party who alleges it.
'2. If the motive and design of an act may be traced to an honest and legitimate source equally as to a corrupt one, the former ought to be preferred. ”