Samuel Nelson

“ Fraud is not to be presumed, and the burden, therefore, lay upon the complainants to establish it; and having failed, all ground for the equitable relief failed also; and the court below should have dismissed the bill, leaving the parties to the settlement of their rights in the action at law. In the absence of fraud or imposition in the issuing of the patent, the question was one of conflicting title under the treaty on one side, and the acts of Congress, appropriating every sixteenth section in the townships for the benefit of schools, on the other,-a question purely of law. ”

“ Wall, it seems, was a minor, and resided with his father at the date of the treaty, and therefore was not within its terms, so that locality could be given to any particular section by a reference to residence or improvements. But under the liberal construction mentioned, the right to a section, notwithstanding, existed,-a right, however, to no particular tract or section, but at large, to be located upon some portion of the ceded territory,-what, in common parlance, is denominated a float. ”

“ There is no doubt but that all persons in whose behalf reservations were made under the treaty, and who were residents upon any particular tract, and had made improvements thereon at its date, were entitled to the section, including their improvements, in preference to any other right that could have been previously acquired under the government ”