Samuel Freeman Miller

“ If fraud, mistake, error, or wrong has been done, the courts of justice present the only remedy. These courts are as open to the United States to sue for the cancellation of the deed or reconveyance of the land as to individuals; and if the government is the party injured, this is the proper course.
'A patent,' says the court in United States v. Stone (2 Wall. 525) , 'is the highest evidence of title, and is conclusive against the government and all claiming under junior patents or titles, until it is set aside or annulled by some judicial tribunal. ”

“ But if no such appeal be taken, and the patent issued under the seal of the United States, and signed by the President, is delivered to and accepted by the party, the title of the government passes with this delivery. With the title passes away all authority or control of the Executive Department over the land, and over the title which it has conveyed. It would be as reasonable to hold that any private owner of land who has conveyed it to another can, of his own volition, recall, cancel, or annul the instrument which he has made and delivered. ”

“ This was only two years and a half before these lands were sold to Mitchell, and they were parts of an alternate section reserved in a railroad grant. That statute, in its terms, was limited to persons who had already settled on such alternate sections, and it may be doubted whether any right of pre-emption by a settlement made afterwards existed under the law. But it is unnecessary to decide that point, as it is beyond dispute that it required in any event that the money should be paid before the land was offered for sale at public auction. ”

“ But that in this class of cases, as in all others, there exists in the courts of equity the jurisdiction to correct mistakes, to relieve against frauds and impositions, and in cases where it is clear that those officers have, by a mistake of the law, given to one man the land which on the undisputed facts belonged to another, to give appropriate relief. ”

“ If an individual setting up claim to the land has been injured, he may, under circumstances presently to be considered, have his remedy against the party who has wrongfully obtained the title which should have gone to him. ”

“ In its inception, it was a bill in the Circuit Court for De Witt County, to foreclose a mortgage given by Thomas I. Bunn to his brother Lewis Bunn, on the south half of the south-east quarter and the south half of the south-west quarter of section 27, township 19, range 3 east, in said county. In the progress of the case, the bill was amended so as to allege that C. H. Moore and David Davis set up some claim to the land ”