Stephen Johnson Field

“ It is an established principle of law, everywhere recognized, arising from the necessity of the case, that the disposition of immovable property, whether by deed, descent, or any other mode, is exclusively subject to the government within whose jurisdiction the property is situated. ”

“ The power of the State to regulate the tenure of real property within her limits, and the modes of its acquisition and transfer, and the rules of its descent, and the extent to which a testamentary disposition of it may be exercised by its owners, is undoubted. ”

“ And when the property cannot be acquired by voluntary arrangement with its owners, it may be taken against their will by the United States in the exercise of their power of eminent domain, upon making just compensation,-a power which can be exercised in their own courts, and would always be resorted to, if, through caprice of individuals or the hostility of the State legislature, or other cause, harassing conditions were attached to the acquisition of the required property in any other way. ”