Stephen Johnson Field

“ I do not recognize the doctrine that the attorney general takes any power by virtue of his office except what the constitution and the laws confer. The powers of the executive officers of England are not vested in the executive officers of the United States government, simply because they are called by similar names. It is the theory, and, I may add, the glory, of our institutions, that they are founded upon law; that no one can exercise any authority over the rights and interests of others except pursuant to, and in the manner authorized by, law. ”

“ In a multitude of cases, titles to lands, upon which whole communities live, rest upon patents of the United States. In several instances, cities having more than a hundred thousand people residing within their limits are built on land patented by the government. I cannot believe that it is within the power of the attorney general, to be exercised at any time in the future,-this generation or the next,-as no statute of limitations runs against the government, to institute suits to unsettle the title founded upon such patents, even where there are allegations of fraud in obtaining them. ”

“ It holds that in suits brought by the government for relief against an instrument alleged to have been obtained by fraud or deceit, or any practice which would justify a court in granting relief, the government must show, like a private individual, that it has such an interest in the relief sought as entitles it to move in the matter. If it be a question of property, a case must be made in which the court can afford a remedy in regard to that property; if it be a question of fraud, which would render the instrument void, the fraud must operate to the prejudice of the United States ”