The Act of June 13, 1812, 2 Stat. 748, c. 99, "making further
provisions for settling the claims to land in the Territory of
Missouri," was a grant
in praesenti of all the title of
the United States to all lands in the Grand Prairie Common Field of
St. Louis which had been inhabited, cultivated, or possessed, prior
to the treaty with France of April 30, 1803, leaving in them no
title to such lands which could pass to the State of Missouri by
the Act of March 6, 1820, c. 22, 3 Stat. 545, authorizing the
people of Missouri Territory to form a constitution and state
government, etc.
In ejectment in Missouri, to recover a part of the Grand Prairie
Common Field of St. Louis, the plaintiff claiming under the Act of
Congress of March 6, 1820, c. 22, § 6, subdivision 1, and the
defendant claiming under a possession, occupation, and cultivation
under French law prior to the cession of Louisiana to the United
States, it being proved that the land in controversy was either
part of that Common Field or had been inhabited, cultivated, or
possessed prior to the cession, the defendant is not required to
prove with certainty and precision the time when, and the person by
whom, the cultivation or occupation was made, but it is sufficient
if there is satisfactory proof that, according to the terms of the
statute, the tract in dispute and all the land within the Grand
Prairie Common Field had been inhabited, cultivated, or possessed
prior to the year 1803.
The Court stated the case as follows:
The writ of error in this case brings before us for review a
judgment of the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri rendered on
the 11th day of May, 1885, in a suit commenced in the St. Louis
Land Court of St. Louis County in that state, on the 15th day of
September, 1853. This suit is in the nature of an action of
ejectment to recover possession of about 200 acres of land. It was
tried three or four times in the court of original jurisdiction,
the last trial resulting in a verdict for fifty-three acres of said
land in favor of plaintiff, has been once or twice before the court
of appeals, a court of intermediate review, and has been three
times heard and decided in the Supreme Court of the state of
Page 128 U. S. 561
Missouri. All of the decisions of the latter court have been in
favor of the defendants, and the last one is now before us. It is
one of a class of cases very numerous, many of which have reached
this Court, growing out of claims for land which had their
inception prior to the treaty of 1803, 8 Stat. 200, by which the
United States obtained the region of country called "Louisiana"
from France. Article III of that treaty reads as follows:
"The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in
the union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible,
according to the principles of the federal Constitution, to the
enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens
of the United States, and in the meantime they shall be maintained
and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and
the religion which they profess."
8 Stat. 200.
This provision for the protection of the rights of private
property is probably no more than what follows by the principles of
the law of nations upon the transfer of the allegiance of the
inhabitants of a given territory from one government to another.
The City of New Orleans was the principal center of population of
this large extent of country at the time the treaty was made with
France, but there were also many villages and towns, generally
located along the Mississippi River and upon some of the other
navigable streams, and the Town of St. Louis seems to have become
the largest of these in the northern part of it at the beginning of
the century. This territory, known as Louisiana, was for many years
the subject of negotiations and contests between the governments of
France and Spain. It had been held by the latter power and under
its control for some thirty-eight years when, by the Treaty of San
Ildefonso, October 1, 1800, it was receded by Spain to France. No
actual transfer of possession had been made under this treaty at
the time that of 1803 was ratified, by which we acquired the
country from the French government, but formal proceedings were
taken immediately thereafter by which, at New Orleans, possession
was delivered to the French official, M. Laussat, on the 30th day
of
Page 128 U. S. 562
November, and on the 20th day of December following this
possession was formally passed over to Gen. Wilkinson, representing
the United States. Corresponding changes of flags were made at the
time at New Orleans, and similar transfers were effected at St.
Louis on the 9th and 10th of March, 1804.
The acquisition of titles by individuals to lands from the
government, both under the French and Spanish regimes, was of the
simplest character. An application to the governor, who usually
resided at New Orleans, or to a lieutenant governor for leave to
cultivate some of the land under his authority was rarely refused,
and when such an application was rejected, it was generally upon
the ground that some previous applicant had a better right. Some of
these grants were surveyed and marked out, and the license and
survey were considered, when accompanied by possession, to complete
the title. Many individuals, however, were in possession of lands
under titles which were not perfect, and when the country came into
the control of the United States, it became the purpose and obvious
duty of the government to secure to these people all the rights,
however imperfect or inchoate, which had been acquired by them
under the dominion of either France or Spain. Most of the
inhabitants of this territory were French.
The government of the United States performed this duty in the
most liberal manner. It commenced by passing an act of Congress in
1805, 2 Stat. 324, c. c. 26, and a supplement thereto in 1806, 2
Stat. 391, c. 39, which was amended in 1807, 2 Stat. 440, c. 36, by
which three commissioners were appointed for the purpose of
establishing these land claims, and separating them from the public
domain. This commission, called the "Old Board" to distinguish it
from another which succeeded it, made a report of its proceedings
to Congress in the year 1811. It rejected a very large proportion
of the claims submitted to it, and the hard rules which were
applied to the cases brought before it for adjudication occasioned
much discontent. A history of the effort to induce Congress to some
more liberal provision in regard to them
Page 128 U. S. 563
shows that that body was very fully informed as to the
proceedings taken by the commission, and it was upon the
representation of at least one of the commissioners, as well as
statements of some other persons who were interested in and
cognizant of the state of affairs, and upon petitions presented to
it, which may be found among the American state Papers, that
Congress was induced to pass a much more liberal statute in regard
to these claims. It was approved June 13, 1812, 2 Stat. 748, c. 99,
and provided for the appointment of another board of commissioners,
with authority to reexamine the claims which had been rejected, as
well as to investigate others not previously presented, and
directed a report to be made to Congress. The first and second
sections of this statute, which is supposed to be controlling in
regard to the case now before us, read as follows:
"
An act making further provision for settling the
claims"
"
to land in the Territory of Missouri"
"SEC. 1.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled that the rights, titles, and claims to town or
village lots, out-lots, common field lots, and commons, in,
adjoining, and belonging to the several towns or villages of
Portage des Sioux, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. Ferdinand, Villago a
Robert, Carondelet, St. Genevieve, New Madrid, New Bourbon, Little
Prairie, and Arkansas, in the Territory of Missouri, which lots
have been inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior to the 20th day
of December, 1803, shall be, and the same are hereby, confirmed to
the inhabitants of the respective towns or villages aforesaid,
according to their several right or rights in common thereto,
provided that nothing herein contained shall be construed
to affect the rights of any persons claiming the same lands or any
part thereof whose claims have been confirmed by the board of
commissioners for adjusting and settling claims to land in the said
territory. And it shall be the duty of the principal deputy
surveyor for the said territory, as soon as may be, to survey, or
cause to be surveyed and marked
Page 128 U. S. 564
(where the same has not already been done, according to law) the
outboundary lines of the said several towns or villages so as to
include the out-lots, common field lots, and commons thereto
respectively belonging. And he shall make out-plats of the surveys,
which he shall transmit to the surveyor general, who shall forward
copies of said plats to the Commissioner of the General Land Office
and to the recorder of land titles. The expense of surveying the
said out-boundary lines shall be paid by the United States out of
any moneys appropriated for surveying the public lands,
provided that the whole expense shall not exceed three
dollars for every mile that shall be actually surveyed and
marked."
"SEC. 2.
And be it further enacted that all town or
village lots, out-lots, or common field lots included in such
surveys which are not rightfully owned or claimed by any private
individuals or held as commons belonging to such towns or villages,
or that the President of the United States may not think proper to
reserve for military purposes, shall be, and the same are hereby,
reserved for the support of schools in the respective towns or
villages aforesaid,
provided that the whole quantity of
land contained in the lots reserved for the support of schools in
any one town or village shall not exceed one-twentieth part of the
whole lands included in the general survey of such town or
village."
There are numerous acts of Congress confirming titles reported
upon favorably by this commission to be found in the years
subsequent to its appointment, as well as many statutes displaying
the utmost liberality in extending the time within which parties
might apply to this commission or to an officer who, as recorder,
succeeded to it, so that the patience and generosity with which
Congress endeavored to have these claims originating in those early
days established where there was any basis of right whatever is
conspicuous. Congress also dealt with the State of Missouri, in
regard to contributions for the erection of public buildings and
for the promotion of education, in the same liberal manner as it
did in regard to other regions which were admitted as new
states
Page 128 U. S. 565
that had previously been governed for a while as territories
under its enactments.
By the Act of March 3, 1811, Congress extended the system of the
surveys of the public lands over this region, and in the tenth
section, providing for sales of such public lands as should have
been surveyed, declared that
"All such lands shall, with the exception of the section 'number
sixteen,' which shall be reserved in each township for the support
of schools within the same, with the exception also of a tract
reserved for the support of a seminary of learning, as provided for
by the seventh section of this act, and with the exception also of
the salt springs and lead mines and lands contiguous thereto which,
by the direction of the President of the United States, may be
reserved for the future disposal of the said states, shall be
offered for sale to the highest bidder,"
etc. 2 Stat. 665. c. 46. § 10.
When the time came for the admission of Missouri into the union,
among the propositions which Congress submitted to the people of
the territory upon which it might be admitted as a state the first
was
"That section numbered sixteen in every township, and when such
section has been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands
equivalent thereto and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to
the state for the use of the inhabitants of such township for the
use of schools."
Act of March 6, 1820, c. 22, § 6, subdivision 1. 3 Stat.
547.
The acceptance by the state of this proposition as one of the
conditions under which it entered the union forms the basis of the
title claimed by the plaintiff in this suit. By the general system
of surveys of public lands which had been established prior to the
act of 1811, all the public lands of the United States, and all
those within the general boundary, as fast as they were surveyed at
all, were divided first into townships of six miles square, each of
which was then subdivided into sections of 640 acres. These
townships and sections were controlled by meridians of latitude and
longitude, and not by natural objects, and although the lines, if
actually protracted upon the ground, might extend over places of
considerable population and include lands owned by private
citizens, yet
Page 128 U. S. 566
as it was necessary to the completion of the general system of
congressional surveys, they were made to cover the whole country,
and to include the entire territory. As regards the sixteenth
section, of course, when these surveys were protracted either by a
simple calculation or by actual survey, over lands which were
claimed or owned by private persons, or which had been reserved for
public purposes, they had no effect to defeat or establish such
titles, but all that came within the lines of such sixteenth
section which was not otherwise appropriated became the property of
the state for school purposes.
The conflict in this case grows out of the assertion by the
plaintiff that the land in controversy passed to the state by
virtue of the act of 1820 as part of a sixteenth section, while the
defendants claim that the title and right to it passed out of the
government of the United States by the act of 1812, eight years
prior to the admission of the state into the union and the act
granting each sixteenth section to the state. It is not denied that
the lines of the sixteenth section of township forty-five north,
range seven east, of the principal meridian include the land in
dispute, nor, if there was no reason to the contrary, that it
passed to the State of Missouri under the provisions of the act
admitting it into the union. Neither is there any dispute that the
plaintiff in error in this case, who was also plaintiff below, is
invested as commissioner, for the purposes of this suit, with the
right of the State of Missouri to the possession.
The defendants say, on the other hand, that they and their
predecessors, from whom they derive title, became the owners of
this land by operation of the act of 1812, and that the United
States, having by that act parted with its title, had nothing to
give to the State of Missouri by the act of 1820, and did not
intend to give to that state that which had been granted and
confirmed already to private parties.
These two propositions present sharply the issue to be tried in
the present case.
Page 128 U. S. 571
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
It will be seen at once that there is really no contest about
the claim of the plaintiff, unless the defendants have established
some break in the continuity of the title which the United States
may have received from France by the treaty of 1803 or unless the
exceptions in that treaty of private property take the land in
controversy out of that class where the right of ownership was
vested in the United States by the treaty. We must turn, then, to
the defense in this case to ascertain whether the decision of the
Supreme Court of Missouri is sound which held that defense to be a
good one.
There is no question here as to the jurisdiction of this Court,
although the case comes from the supreme court of a state, for
every matter in dispute arises either under the treaty of 1803, the
acts of Congress in regard to these lands, or the authority of some
officer of the government of the United States exercised over
them.
The Act of June 13, 1812, was passed, as we have stated, for the
purpose of prescribing more liberal principles by which the claims
of private persons to portions of what otherwise would have been
public land should be ascertained and established, and its
provisions must be construed in that spirit. The inhabitants of
French villages had a system of dividing and distributing the
ownership of lands in and about them not common to people of
English origin. Collecting themselves together for residence in
that part of the settlement which may be called the village proper,
they selected small parcels of land for cultivation, which were
generally long strips with
Page 128 U. S. 572
narrow fronts. These, measured by the French arpent, were
usually two or three arpents wide by forty in length, running
backward in the shape of a parallelogram. The dividing lines
between these adjoining tracts which were held by different owners
were sometimes well marked, but in other cases not so distinctly
indicated. The ground in which these small pieces of land were thus
held by their various individual owners was known as the "town or
village lots, out-lots, common field lots, and commons," belonging
to the particular village. A large number of the villages in the
northern part of Louisiana, which afterwards came to be called the
"Territory of Missouri," had these outlying appendages to the
village proper, which were always treated as a part of it. The act
of 1812 very carefully gives the names of the villages so situated,
reciting the names of
"Portage des Sioux, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. Ferdinand,
Villago a Robert, Carondelet, St. Genevieve, New Madrid, New
Bourbon, Little Prairie, and Arkansas, in the Territory of
Missouri"
as those to which the act applied. It also declares that "the
rights, titles, and claims" intended to be covered by that statute
are those to the "town or village lots, out-lots, common field
lots, and commons in, adjoining, and belonging to the several towns
or villages" thus designated.
It will thus be seen with what care the statute enumerated the
villages to which it was intended to apply and the kind of claims
to tracts of land therein proposed to be covered by it.
The act then proceeds to confine its operation to those lots
which "have been inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior to the
20th day of December, 1803," that being the date on which, as
already stated, the government and possession of the territory in
which these settlements are located were actually transferred from
France to the United States. It may also be noted that the language
of the statute does not refer to lots then inhabited, cultivated,
or possessed -- that is, on December 20, 1803 -- but to such as had
been so inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior to that date.
There is nothing in the act which implies that the title conferred
by it was
Page 128 U. S. 573
dependent on actual possession at the very date when the above
transfer was made, but, on the contrary, if there had been
habitancy, cultivation, or possession prior to that time the act
operated upon the property. It will also be observed that these
qualifications of what is to be confirmed require no description of
the person of the owner, nor any evidence that any particular
individual shall be proved to have inhabited, cultivated, or
possessed any lot prior to December 20, 1803, nor any derivation of
title from such a party, but simply that the land shall have been
inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior thereto. The act then
proceeds to declare that "the same," evidently referring back to
the "rights, titles, and claims" mentioned at the beginning of the
section, to such lots as these, which
"have been inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior to the 20th
day of December, 1803, shall be, and the same are hereby, confirmed
to the inhabitants of the respective towns or villages aforesaid,
according to their several right or rights in common thereto."
The same section also made it the duty of the principal deputy
surveyor to run and mark "the out-boundary lines of the said
several towns or villages so as to include the out-lots, common
field lots, and commons thereto respectively belonging."
Testimony was offered in the trial court, which is found in the
transcript of the record in this case, tending to show that the
land now in controversy had been confirmed to four different
individuals, Laroche, Bouis, Baccanne, and Bizet, respectively, by
the board of commissioners established by the act of 1812, and that
surveys of those confirmations, which, for reasons not necessary to
explain, had been delayed a great many years, had finally been made
by one Cozens. The court was asked to hold that those surveys
constituted "
prima facie evidence of the correct location
of such confirmations." The lower court declined to do this, but
the supreme court of the state, in reversing its judgment, declared
that they were such
prima facie evidence.
Although the duty of making a survey of the village of St. Louis
which should include all these outlying commons,
Page 128 U. S. 574
out-lots, and common field lots was neglected by the officers of
the government charged with its performance by the first section of
the act of 1812, which we have been considering, such surveys have
been made, and plats are presented in this record showing the
locality of the village of St. Louis in 1803, together with the
extent and location of each of the above classes of commons and
out-lots. Among these is a large piece of land, designated as the
"Grand Prairie Common Field of Saint Louis," within which all the
land in dispute is embraced. There is also evidence enough to show
that all the land within this tract had been occupied and
cultivated, within the meaning of the act of 1812, prior to
December 20, 1803, and this fact is conceded in the argument of
counsel for plaintiff in error, even if it were not clearly
established. It may be taken as an unquestioned fact, as it is in
the argument and in the Supreme Court of Missouri, that all the
lands in the Grand Prairie Common Field had been occupied,
cultivated, and possessed by the inhabitants of the village of St.
Louis prior to December 20, 1803.
Under these circumstances, the trial court was asked to declare
the law to be as follows:
"If the court, sitting as a jury, believes from the evidence
that all of the land, from the lot of Motard on the south to the
St. Charles Road on the north, was inhabited, cultivated, or
possessed as common field lots of the Grand Prairie Common Fields
of St. Louis by several different inhabitants of the Town of St.
Louis prior to the 20th day of December, 1803, each of said
inhabitants cultivating or possessing one or more such lots for
himself, that such lots were in regular succession adjoining each
other on the sides, and all having uniform and straight front,
east, and west lines, then the plaintiff cannot recover if the
court, sitting as a jury, further believes from the evidence that
the land sued for lies within or constitutes a part of the land
cultivated or possessed as aforesaid."
This it declined to do, but the supreme court of the state held
that this prayer of the defendants in error stated the law
correctly, and reversed the judgment of the court below and
directed a final judgment to be entered for them. This was
Page 128 U. S. 575
done on the ground that the fact that all of the lands in the
Grand Prairie Common Field of St. Louis had been inhabited,
cultivated, and possessed prior to the act of 1803 showed that
there could be no other title than that derived from the persons so
inhabiting, cultivating, or possessing the land, and that the true
construction of the act of 1812 is that it was a present grant, at
the moment of its passage, of all the title of the United States to
such land as had been so inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior
to 1803. It was held that the title thus passed out of the United
States and inured to the benefit of those who might thereafter, by
contests among themselves, prove their right to profit by such
cultivation or possession; that however it might be among them and
parties claiming under them, the United States had no further
interest in the land, for it had parted with its entire title to
all the lots described in the act. So when it was asserted that in
1820, eight years thereafter, the act granting the sixteenth
section for school purposes conveyed such land, the claim could not
be admitted, because there was then no title remaining in the
United States which it could grant to the State of Missouri.
That the act of 1812 was a grant
in praesenti and
operated to convey or confirm such titles and claims as came within
its description has been repeatedly decided in the Supreme Court of
the State of Missouri and by this Court. The case of
Glasgow v.
Hortiz, 1 Black 595, contains a very full
examination of this point and of the previous decisions of the
Court upon the same subject, and, citing the case of
Guitard v.
Stoddard, 16 How. 508, adopts the following
language of the Court
"That the act of 1812 is a present operative grant of all the
interest of the United States in the property described in the act,
and that the right of the grantee was not dependent on the
factum of a survey under the Spanish government; that the
act makes no requisition for a concession, survey, or permission to
settle, cultivate, or possess, or for any location by public
authority as the basis of the right, title, or claim upon which its
confirmatory provisions operate. No board was appointed to receive
evidence or authenticate titles or
Page 128 U. S. 576
adjust contradictory pretensions. All these questions were left
to be decided by the judicial tribunals. P.
57 U. S.
601."
The Court also said:
"The claims of these old villages to their common field lots,
and the peculiar customs regarding them, were well known. Congress
therefore did not require that any documentary evidence should be
filed, nor a report of commissioners thereon. A survey was
considered unnecessary because the several boundaries of each
claimant of a lot, and the extent of his possession, was already
marked by boundaries, well known among themselves. They required no
record in the land office to give validity to the title. The act is
certainly not drawn with much regard to technical accuracy. It is
without that certainty, as to parties and description of the
property granted, which is required in formal conveyances. But a
title by statute cannot be thus criticized. It sufficiently
describes the land intended to be granted and the class of persons
to whom it is granted. Besides, it is not a donation or mere gift,
requiring a survey to sever it from other lands of the donor, but
rather a deed of confirmation to those who are admitted to have
just claims. It passes a present title,
proprio vigore, of
the property described to the persons designated. A patent to
another afterwards for any of these lands would be void, because
the government had already released all title and claim thereto. If
Congress could not grant them to another, much less could the
arbitrary edict, or imperfect performance of a neglected duty by a
ministerial officer, operate to divest a clear title by
statute."
Pp.
57 U. S.
600-601.
The land in question had been in the possession of the original
defendant, Peter Lindell, for the time which would be required to
bar this action by the statute of limitations before it was
brought, and, extending as it does over a period of thirty or forty
years, is only prevented from thus operating by the principle which
does not permit time to run against the government. But it cannot
lose its force or value in the consideration of the question,
whether the act of 1820 is to be construed as granting lands to the
State of Missouri for the use of public schools, which had already
passed to others under
Page 128 U. S. 577
the act of 1812 by virtue of prior occupation, cultivation, or
possession. When the defendants have proved that the land in
controversy either belonged to the "Grand Prairie Common Field of
Saint Louis" or that the lots in dispute had been inhabited,
cultivated, or possessed prior to 1803, it would be a very harsh
rule to require one who claims to have purchased the title arising
from such occupation, cultivation, or possession to prove with
certainty and precision the time when and the person who cultivated
or occupied that precise property eighty or ninety years ago. Those
who could testify from actual knowledge are perhaps all dead. The
population of that time has passed away, and the memories of any
who may be living would be very imperfect. Neither the spirit of
the statute nor justice can require anything more than satisfactory
proof that, according to the terms of the statute, such lots, and
all the land within the Grand Prairie Common Field, had been
inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior to the year 1803.
Such was the decision of the Supreme Court of the State of
Missouri in this case reported in 50 Mo. 60, again in 72 Mo. 441,
and finally in 85 Mo. 559, which is now under review. Such is also
the spirit of all the decisions which this Court has made upon the
subject, the substance of which is found in
Glasgow v. Hortiz,
supra, which had relation to one of the same class of lots in
dispute here.
If we had any doubt as to the views above expressed, the reasons
for which seem to be very plain, the three decisions above referred
to of the Supreme Court of Missouri would be entitled to very great
consideration. They were made at times so far apart that upon each
occasion when a decision was rendered, the court probably consisted
of an entirely different body of judges, and they were arrived at
by a court especially familiar with this class of questions, lying,
as they do at the foundation of much of the most valuable property
in that state.
Other questions have been argued by counsel in this case, and we
have been urged in the brief to decide them, but as this
proposition is a broad one which covers the whole case and is
sufficient to dispose of it, we pursue our uniform course of
Page 128 U. S. 578
declining to consider other matters not necessary to a
determination of the issue. If the plaintiff in this action had no
title under the act of 1820 because the United States had none to
give, he had no right of action, and the case was properly decided
against him.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri is therefore
Affirmed.
