Roger B. Taney

“ But without a survey and possession the authenticity of the grant would have nothing to support it but parol testimony, resting only in the knowledge of individual witnesses; for if what purports to be a grant is produced by the party from some private receptacle, and the handwriting of the official signatures proved by witnesses, and even proved to have been executed when it bears date, it is but parol testimony, open to doubt, since its authenticity depends upon the truth or falsehood of the witnesses, instead of resting upon the certainty of the public records of the nation. ”

“ Whenever, therefore, a party claims title to lands in California under a Mexican grant, the general rule is that the grant must be found in the proper office among the public archives; this is the highest and best evidence. ”

“ A paper thus wanting in all the written proceedings which the Mexican law required before a grant could be issued, which had never been seen by any one of the witnesses until produced by McKenzie, with no evidence of the time or place of its execution, with no trace of it in the Mexican archives, and the witnesses produced to prove the possession contradicting each other, can hardly be entitled to confirmation as a valid grant. ”