28 Kan. 274 | Kan. | 1882
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The question presented for our considertion is, whether the statute of 1874, entitled “An act relating
“That exclusive jurisdiction be and the same is hereby conceded to the United States over and within all the territory owned by the United States, and included within the limits of the United States military reservation known as the Fort Leavenworth reservation, in said state, as declared from time to time by the president of the United States, saving, however, to the said state, the right to serve civil or criminal process within said reservation, in suits or prosecutions for or on account of rights acquired, obligatons incurred or crimes committed in said state, but outside of said cession and reservation; and saving further to said state the right to tax railroad, bridge, and other corporations, their franchises and property, on said reservation.”
Counsel for plaintiff in error (defendant below) claims that since the enactment of this statute, the laws of the State have had no more force within the territory attempted to be ceded thereby, than they have in Missouri or Maine, and that the rights and liabilities of parties for acts done within this territory since the alleged cession of jurisdiction, must be determined, not by the laws of Kansas, but of the United States.
On the part of the defendant in error (plaintiff below), it is urged that the act of 1875, ceding jurisdiction of the Fort Leavenworth reservation to the United States, is void, on the ground that there is no power vested in the legislature of Kansas to cede away any of the sovereign political rights of the state, and that the constitution of the state grants no power to its legislature to divest the state of any part of its governmental authority over any portion of the soil included within its boundaries when admitted into the union. It is further claimed, that although the eighth section of the first article of the federal constitution gives congress the exclusive right of legislation “over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state ... for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards and other
It is the rule, as we understand it, that all laws and municipal regulations in force at the time any territory is ceded by one power to another .power or jurisdiction, remain in force until changed by the new sovereign authority, unless such laws and regulations are inconsistent or in conflict with the existing laws of the new power taking possession of the ceded territory. It follows from this, that even conceding the validity of the act of February 22, 1875, ceding to the United States the Fort Leavenworth reservation, and conceding that the United States has legally accepted the grant, the act of 1874 is operative over the reservation, because such act has not been abrogated by congress, nor is it inconsistent
The judgment of the district court will be affirmed.