49 Tenn. 355 | Tenn. | 1871
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case, is upon the construction of the statutes of descent. The complainants are the aunts, on the paternal side, of Jasper McCracken, who'
This case is not like that of Beaumont v. Irwin, 2 Sneed, 291, in which it was held that,'by the act of 1842, c. 171, s. 1, upon the death, intestate, of a person owning real estate inherited from the father, without issue or brothers and sisters, or the issue of such, or father or mother surviving, such real estate vests in the right heirs of the father. In .consequence of this construction of the act of 1842, this precise principle has been carried into the Code in more express terms by Hon. R. J. Meigs, who made an able argument in this Court in the case of Beaumont v. Irwin That case simply preserves the estate in the line of the transmitting ancestor when both parents are dead. This case presents the question of the effect of the survivorship of the mother of the intestate, when the estate came from his deceased father.
The parental line of inheritance was first engrafted upon our law by the act of 1784, c. 22. It was a principle in feudal times, that when the- tenant in fee died, the estate should descend, and not ascend. It was an observation of Judge Haywood, that the mission of the two acts of 1784, c. 22, ss. 3 and 7, and c. 10, s. 3, was “to destroy primogeniture; to destroy the indi
The decree of the Chancellor is affirmed, and the bill dismissed.