John Archibald Campbell

“ The constitution had provided for the transmission of the estates of citizens to their children or heirs, (being citizens,) and then provides that congress shall legislate to give to aliens a reasonable time to take possession and to dispose of such an inheritance. Neither the language of the act nor the policy of the State, as it may be discovered from its constitutions and laws, authorizes the conclusion that an alien, claiming real property in Texas, can transmit it, by descent, to an heir who is also an alien. ”

“ But if no proceedings were instituted and perfected before the late treaty between the United States and Mexico, the right in said heir becomes perfect, and not subject to forfeiture, by virtue of the 8th article of said treaty.' It is settled, in the jurisprudence of Texas, that the colonization laws of Coahuila and Texas annex, as an enduring and peremptory condition, to all titles issued by their authority, that the grantee, so long as he remains the proprietor, shall continue his domicile within the republic of Mexico, of which that State formed a part. ”

“ A number of questions are presented in the bill of exceptions, but the opinion the court has formed upon the 12th, 13th, and 14th instructions, given at the instance of the plaintiffs, in the district court, renders it unnecessary for us to consider any others. ”