McCarty v. Mann

| U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota | Jul 1, 1873

DILLON, Circuit Judge.

The location of Poncin was cancelled by the commissioner because it was made on land which had been duly reserved from sale as school land, and the government, by the second section of the act of July 27th, 1854, granted to the territory of Minnesota for school purposes other lands in the place of those which by that act it authorized to be patented to Poncin. The act of July 27th, 1854, validated, on condition of payment, the entry of Poncin which had been cancelled, and declared that the said entry should be “allowed and reinstated as the date of the said entry,” which was February 13th, 1850. The act declared one purpose for which this was done to be “that the title to the said land should inure to the benefit of the grantees of Poncin as far as he may have conveyed the same.” The condition of payment to the government was subsequently complied with.

It is, in our opinion, too plain to admit of fair controversy that congress had the power to reinstate the entry, and to declare the terms on which it would do so. It was the land of the general government, and under the absolute disposal of congress. It saw fit to dispose of it for the benefit of Poncin and his grantees, one of whom was Van Etten. French having before that time conveyed to Elfelt, the grantor of Van Et-ten, had no longer any interest in the land, and could derive no benefit from the act. In 1856, when he made the quit claim to Furber, under which the plaintiff claims he had no interest in the land, and consequently conveyed none. We are unable to see any ground on which the plaintiff can rest. He claims under a deed made long after tlie act of 1854. Neither he nor French, under whom he claims, had any interest in the land when that act was passed. He insists that the land was solely that of the government, and how he can question the right of the sovereign to dispose of its land as it may see fit, and its action in recognizing equities in the grantees of Poncin, we confess we have been unable to discover. His counsel’s argument rests upon the assumption that Pon-cin became the absolute owner in his own right by the patent in 1855; that no precedent equities existed, or could by congress be recognized to exist, and that the title under the act inured only to the grantees of Poncin, who held by deeds of warranty. Such a construction would defeat the manifest intention of the act.

By the construction for which the plaintiff contends the act was passed for, or inured to, the benefit of French', although he had on the- 19th day of April, 1850, made a bond for a deed to Elfelt, which was recorded, and although he had on March 19th, 1851, for a valuable consideration, conveyed by a deed which was also on record, all his interest in said lands to Elfelt. It is utterly inconceivable that congress intended the act for the benefit of French. It was intended for the benefit of the owners under Poncin, and the owner at the time of its passage was Van Etten, the grantee of Elfelt. The bill must be dismissed. Bill dismissed.

[Subsequently this case was taken on appeal to the supreme court, where the decree of the circuit court was affirmed. 19 Wall. (86 U. S.) 20.]