Stephen Johnson Field

“ The confirmees could not measure off the quantity for themselves, and thus legally segregate it from the balance of the tract. The right to make the segregation rested exclusively with the government, and could only be exercised by its officers. Until they acted and effected the segregation, the confirmees were interested in preserving the entire tract from waste and injury, and in improving it; for until then they could not know what part might be assigned to them. Until then, no third person could interfere with their right to the possession of the whole. ”

“ No third person could be permitted to determine, in advance of such segregation, that any particular locality would fall within the surplus, and thereby justify his intrusion upon it and its detention from them. If one person could in this way appropriate a particular parcel to himself, all persons could do so; and thus the confirmees would soon be stripped of the land which was intended by the government as a donation to its grantee, whose interests they have acquired, for the benefit of parties who were never in its contemplation. ”

“ The regulations prescribed by law for the guidance of the magistrate in these matters made it his duty to preserve a record of the various steps taken in the proceeding, to have the same attested by the assisting witnesses, and to deliver an authentic copy to the grantee. ”