James Moore Wayne

“ If we look to results, they are all in our favor. The object of Congress, in making the original reservation, was to prevent monopoly, but not the general settlement of the country. The leasing system has not paid expenses, and it injures the land. The Secretary of War has, for many years, recommended that the lead mines should be sold; and we say, that Congress has ordered it, but that the President has improperly withheld them from sale.
By the act of 26th June, 1834, the President was authorized to sell the public lands with certain reservations, and these are not within the reservations. ”

“ The rule is, that a perpetual statute, (which all statutes are unless limited to a particular time,) until repealed by an act professing to repeal it, or by a clause or section of another act directly bearing in terms upon the particular matter of the first act, notwithstanding an implication to the contrary may be raised by a general law which embraces the subject-matter, is considered still to be the law in force as to the particulars of the subject-matter legislated upon. ”

“ By the law of 1834, and the various pre-emption laws, Congress has authorized their sale and disposal, and they are not, consequently, within the meaning of any reservation or appropriation mentioned in the subsequent pre-emption laws.
On all public lands, authorized to be sold, citizens are permitted and encouraged, by the pre-emption laws, to go on them and improve them. To do so, they must erect houses, break up the natural meadow, and fell trees. ”

“ The defendant's plea shows him to have been entitled to claim it. There was no reservation in the act. It has been said, by the attorney-general, that no settlement could be made on lands which had not been offered for sale, and that the Secretary of the Treasury must prescribe regulations. But the very term implies a recognition of a settlement thus made. What is it? Pre-emption: a right to purchase before the day of public sale. Before the passage of such a law, a settler was an intruder ”

“ On the 2d of March, 1833, an act was passed reviving that of April 5th, 1832, extending the privileges granted by that act to the same period as those just mentioned, and placing the beneficiaries of the two acts of the 5th of April and 14th of July upon the same footing. ”

“ He had a discretionary power, which carried with it the right to refuse to sell them at the minimum price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. See opinion of Attorney-General Butler, 2 Land Laws, 127, 128. ”

“ Congress never does order the President in imperative terms. The language is courteous; but it is a ministerial act to proclaim the lands for sale. Grignon v. Astor, 2 How., 344.
This power can be exercised by other officers than the President; and in the following cases other subordinate officers are authorized, alias directed, to make sales, &c.: Secretary of War, March 3d, 1803, sect. 2, Land Laws, 99; Secretary of Treasury, March 3d, 1825, sect. ”