Samuel Nelson

“ The facts set up in the plea prove the contrary. According to these, the plaintiff was nineteen years old when this suit was commenced, and between twenty-two and twenty-three years when the plea was put in to the jurisdiction. If she was competent to make an election while a minor, but after she had arrived at mature years, as to the Government to which she would owe allegiance, the presumption, upon the facts, is, that she has made it in favor of the one under which she has lived since her birth. ”

“ That ordinarily a law of the Legislature, and judicial action under it, would be necessary to avoid such a grant. Yet that claimant might act so as to supersede the necessity of such a judicial determination; and if conduct of plaintiff amounted to an admission of the forfeiture, she could not afterwards set up the right, especially against a person who had, in the mean time, acquired a grant from the State; and that it was a question for the jury to determine, whether the conduct of the plaintiff amounted to an admission of forfeiture. ”

“ Assuming that the plaintiff is an alien, and not a citizen of Texas, the next question is, whether or not she is under any disability that would prevent her from the assertion of her title to the premises in question; in otherwords, whether her absence and alienage worked a forfeiture of the estate. The general principle is undisputed, that the division of an empire works no forfeiture of a right of property previously acquired. ”