Samuel Freeman Miller

“ It has always been held, that an absolute want of power to issue a patent could be shown in a court of law to defeat a title set up under it, though where it is merely voidable the party may be compelled to resort to a court of equity to have it so declared. ”

“ The one says, that if settlement be made on land before the survey, which by that survey is found to be on the sixteenth or thirty-sixth section, the settlement shall be protected. The other says, that no settlement shall be protected unless made within one year after the passage of the act. In view of the well-known fact that none of these surveys would be completed under several years, the provision of the seventh section was a useless and barren concession to the settler, if to be exercised within a year, and, in the history of land-titles in that State, would have amounted to nothing. ”

“ Whether a settler on these school lands must have all the qualifications required by the act of 1841, as being the head of a family, a citizen of the United States, &c., or whether the settlement, occupation, and cultivation must be precisely the same as required by that act, we need not stop to inquire. It is very plain, that, by the seventh section, so far as related to the date of the settlement, it was sufficient if it was found to exist at the time the surveys were made which determined its locality ”