United States v. Reynes
50 U.S. 127
SCOTUS
1850
Check Treatment
Mr. "Justice DANIEL

delivered the opinion of the court.

The petitioner in the court below, as the heir of Jose Reynes, claimed under a grant from the government of Spain, forty thousand arpents of land, lying within what was formerly the district of Eaton Rouge, now making portions of the parishes of East Feliciana and St. Helena in the State of Louisiana. The documents upon which this claim is asserted, so far as the formalities entering into the creation of a complete title under the Spanish government are requisite, appear to be regular, and to have been admitted in evidence without exception. No exception either has been taken to the verity of the signatures and certificates appended to those documents, or to the truth of the official position of the agents by whom those signatures and certificates have been made. The questions arising upon this record grow out of considerations beyond the mere facts admitted as above mentioned, considerations involving the powers of the agents, whose acts are relied on, as affected by the treaties, by the political sovereignty, and by the legislation of the United States.

The petition in this case, if not by its own terms, has, by the arguments adduced in its support, been rested upon the act of Congress of May 26, 1824, (reenacted by the act of June 17, 1844, and extended in its operation to claims originating with either the Spanish, French, or British authorities,) by which act it seems to be supposed that, beyond the mere permission therein given to proceed against the United States as defendants in their own courts, some essential rights in the subjects of pursuit have been originated or superinduced on behalf of claimants, — rights which but for the law of 1824 could not have existed. The character of this hypothesis requires particular examination, as upon its correctness or its fallacy must depend the fate of this claim, and of every other similarly situated. Pursuing this theory, it is insisted that the petitioner (the defendant in error here), as the heir of a purchaser for valuable consideration from the Spanish authorities, and holding the evidences of a perfect title from those ' authorities, is now permitted to show that he falls within the class of persons whose rights have been protected, both by the treaty of St. Ildefonso, between Spain and France, of the 1st of October, 1800, and by the treaty of Paris between France and the United States, of the 30th of April, 1803, and who are specially referred to and provided for in the act of 1824. In answer to this pretension of right under the act of 1824, it might perhaps be sufficient to observe, that, if this right be asserted in virtue of a perfect Spanish title, it would seem to be comprised neither within the mischief nor the remedy contemplated .by the statute. The mischief intended to be provided for by the act of 1824-was the inchoate or incomplete condition of titles having a fair and just and legal inception under either the French or Spanish governments of Louisiana, but which, by reason of the abdication or superseding of those governments, and by that cause only, had not been completed. The remedy was the permission to bring such titles before the courts of the United States, and there to render them complete, and to establish them by proof of the legality and justice of their origin and character. Such, then, being the mischief declared, and such the remedy provided by the statute, it is difficult to perceive the reason or the authority for bringing before the courts merely for supervision titles alleged to be already perfected under the unquestionable and competent authority of either Spain or France. With regard to titles so derived and so consummated, there is no provision made by the statute. None could be requisite; and there could, with reference to such titles, be nothing for the courts to act upon, nothing .which it was competent for them to consider. Conceding for the present that the title before us has not been completed, the inquiry presents itself, whether in other respects it'corresponds with the description of claims authorized by the law to be brought before the courts for completion and establishment. Amongst the requisites demanded for these titles by the statute are the following. That they shall be legally granted, by the proper authorities,- to persons resident within the Province of Louisiana at the time, or on or before the 10th day of March, 1804; that they should be such claims as were protected or secured by the treaty between the United States and the French Republic of'the 30th of April, 1803, and which might have been perfected into complete titles under and in conformity to the laws,' usages, and customs of the government under which the same originated, had not the sovereignty of the country been transferred to the United States. With regard to the modes of proceeding by which these claims are to be brought before.the courts, the statute next prescribes that it shall be t-y petition setting forth fully and -plainly the nature of the claim to the lands, &c., particularly stating the date of the grant, concession, warrant, or order of survey, under which the claim is made, by whom issued, &c.

By the second section of the statute it is enacted, that every petition which shall be prosecuted under its provisions “ shall be conducted according to the rules of a.court of equity, except that the answer of the District Attorney of the United States shall not be required to be verified by his. oath, —- and the said court shall have full power and authority to hear and determine all questions arising in said cause, relative to the title of the claimant, the extent, locality, and boundaries of the claim, or other matters connected therewith, fit and proper to be heard and determined, and by a final decree to settle and determine the question of the validity.of the title, according to the laws of nations, the stipulations of any treaty, and proceedings'under the same, - the several acts of Congress in relation thereto, and the laws and ordinances of the governments from which it is alleged to have been derived.”

In part compliance with' the act of Congress, the petitioner alleges, that his father acquired the land claimed (now situated within the parishes of East Feliciana and St. Helena in the State of Louisiana) by purchase and grant from Juan Yentura Morales, the duly authorized officer and agent of the Spanish government, the then sovereignty over the territory in which the said land is situated, at the time of the purchase and grant; and that Morales had full authority from the government of Spain to sell the said land, and to grant a good and perfect title thereto. The petitioner goes on to allege, a survey made and returned by the duly authorized officer of the Spanish government, on the 19th day of November, 1803; payment of the purchase-money, on the 30th of December, 1803, and the emanation or issuing of the grant to the father of the petitioner, on the 2d of January, 1804. In support of the petition there are made exhibits, the certificates of the deputy and principal surveyors, Pintado and Trudeau, and the grant from Morales to the father of the petitioner, for the land in question; these documents respectively correspond in dates with the allegations of the petition.

Upon the aforegoing allegations and documents it is insisted for the defendant in error, that by operation of the acts of 1824 and 1844 already cited, and by virtue ‘of stipulations in • the treaties of St. Ildefonso and of Paris, and by the rules of the law of nations as applicable to those treaties, his rights to the land granted by Morales to his father have been protected, and that the petitioner is entitled thereto, as adjudged to him by the District Court,

Wjth respect to that' interpretation of the acts of Congress which would expound them as conferring on applicants new rights not previously existing, we would remark that such an interpretation accords neither with the language nor the obvious spirit of those laws ; for if we look to the language of the act of 1824, we find that the grants, surveys, &c., which are authorized to be brought before the courts, are those only which had been legally made, granted, ór issued, and which were also protected by treaty. The.legal integrity of these claims (involving necessarily the competency of the authority which conferred them) was a qualification associated by the law with that of their being protected by treaty. And as to the spirit and intention. of the law, had it designed to create new rights, or to enlarge others previously existing, the natural and obvious means of so doing would have been a direct declaration to that effect; certainly not a provision placing these alleged rights in an adversary position, to the government, to be vindicated by mere dint of evidence not to be resisted. The provision of the second section of the act of 1824, declaring that petitions presented under that act shall “ be conducted according to the rules of a court of equity,” should be understood rather as excluding the technicalities of proceedings in courts, than as in any degree varying the rights of parties litigant; as designed to prevent delays in adjudicating upon titles, as is further shown in another part of the same sentence, where it is declared that these petitions shall be tried without continuance, unless for cause shown. The limitations, too, maintained as to the character of claims and that imposed upon the courts in adjudicating upon them, is further evinced in that part of the same section which says, that the court shall hear and determine all questions relative to the title of the claimants, the extent, locality, and boundaries of,the claim, and by final decree shall settle and determine the questions of the validity of the title, according to the law of nations, the stipulations of any treaty, and proceedings under the same, the several acts of Congress, and the laws and ordinances of the government from which it is alleged to have been derived. .In some aspects of these claims, they were properly to be denominated equitable. They were to be equitable in the sense that they should not be inequitable or wrongful, — that they should be rightful, and founded in justice ; and they were necessarily to be equitable in so far as they were incomplete, and could not therefore be maintained as perfect legal titles. But in no proper acceptation could they be called equitable titles, as implying any addition to their strength or any diminution of the rights of the United States, as affected by the statute.

We come now to the inquiry, whether the grant in question was protected either by the treaty of retrocession from Spain to the French Republic, or. by the treaty of Paris, by which the Territory of Louisiana was ceded to the United States. The treaties above mentioned, the public acts and proclamations of the Spanish and French governments, and those of their publicly recognized agents, in carrying into effect those treaties, though not made exhibits in this cause, are historical and notorious facts, of which the court can take regular judicial notice; and reference to which is implied in the investigation before us.

It is proper in this place again to refer to the date of the certificate of survey on which the grant in question was issued, and to that of the grant itself. The former purports to have been given on the 19th day of November, 1803, the latter to have been issued by Morales on the 2d of January, 1804. The dates of the treaties of St. Ildefonso and of Paris have already been mentioned, — that of the former being the 1st of October, 1800, that of the latter the 30th of April, 1803. In the construction of treaties, the same rules which govern other compacts properly apply. They must be considered as binding from the period of their execution; their operation must be understood to take effect from that period, unless it shall, by some condition or stipulation in the compact itself, be postponed. Were it allowable at this day to construe the treaty of St. Ildefonso as not being operative from the signature thereof, its operation could by no construction be postponed to a period later than the 21st of March, 1801, at which time, by the treaty negotiated by Lucien Bonaparte and the Prince of Peace, Spain accepted from the French Republic the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in full satisfaction of the provision stipulated in favor of the Duke of Parma: or at the farthest, the government of Spain must be concluded, as to satisfaction of the stipulation above mentioned, by the royal order issued at Barcelona on the 15th of October, 1802, announcing from the king to his subjects the retrocession of Louisiana, and giving orders for the evacuation of the country by all Spanish authorities, and its delivery to General Victor, or any other officer authorized, by the French Republic to take possession. In obedience to this order, formal possession was on the 30th of November, 1S03, delivered by Salcedo and Casa Calvo, the Spanish Commissioners, to Laussatt, the Prefect and Commissioner of the French Republic. The treaty between the 'United States and the Republic of France contains no article or condition by which its operation could be suspended. It declares that the Republic, in pursuance particularly of the’third article of the treaty of St. Ildefonso, has an incontestable title to the domain and to the possession of the territory, and cedes it to the United States in the name of the French Republic for ever, and in full ’sovereignty, with all its rights and appurtenances. Tffiis treaty therefore operated from its date ; its subsequent ratification by the American government, and the formal transfer of the country to the American Commissioners on the 20th of Deceihber, 1803, have relation to the date of the instrument. The rights and powers of sovereignty, on the part of Spain, over the territory, ceased with her transfer of that sovereignty to another government; it could not exist in different governments or nations at the same time. The power to preserve the peace and order of the community may be admitted to have been in the officers previously appointed by Spain, until the actual presence of the agents of the succeeding government; but this would not imply sovereign power still remaining in Spain, — for if she continued to be sovereign after expressly conceding her sovereignty to another government, she might still rightfully resist and control that government; for sovereignty from its nature is never subordinate. She might, if still sovereign, notwithstandng her treaty stipulations with France, have ceded the entire territory to some other nation. That the government of Spain never ¡Supposed that any sovereign authority was retained by it after the cession to France, is apparent from the character of the treaty itself, and of the acts of the Spanish government carrying that treaty into effect. " It is a somewhat curious fact, that there is not in this treaty a single stipulation or guarantee in favor of the lives or the property of the subjects or inhabitants of the ceded country, much less a reservation of power to grant or invest new rights within that territory. The same characteristic is observable in the royal order announcing the cession, and also in the formal act of delivery of the territory. So far from .containing any such stipulation or reservation, the language of his Catholic Majesty may correctly be understood as conveying an acknowledgment that he had made no condition or stipulation whatever in behalf of his late subjects; and had no'power to insist on any thing of the kind; but had handed them over to the justice or the liberality of the new government to whorñ he had transferred them. Thus, in the order of Barcelona, after announcing the cession of the territory, and directing the collection of all the papers and documents relating to the royal treasury, and to the administration of the colony of Louisiana, in order to bring them to Spain for the purpose of settling the accounts; and an inventory of all artillery, arms, ammunition, effects, &c., which belong to him; and an appraisement of them in order that their value might be •reimbursed him by the French Republic, he uses this language; — “ Meanwhile, we hope, for the tranquillity of the inhabitants of said colony, and we promise ourselves, from the sincere amity and close alliance which unite us to the government of the Republic, that the said government will issue orders to the governor and other officers employed in its service, that the ecclesiastics and religious houses employed in the service of the parishes and missions may continue in the exercise of their functions, and in the enjoyment of their privileges and exemptions, granted to them by the charters of their establishments. That the ordinary judges may, together with the established tribunals, continue to administer justice according to the laws and customs in force in the colony. That the inhabitants may be protected in the peaceful possession of their property. That all grants of property, of whatever denomination, made by my governors, may be confirmed, although not confirmed by myself. I hope further that the government of the Republic will give to its new subjects the same proofs of protection and affection which they have experienced under my dominion.”

This order from the king is an explicit admission of what the treaty itself exposes; namely, that no special stipulation had been made for the protection either of persons or property; that he regarded his own authority and the dominion of Spain over the territory as at an end, and that his sole reliance for the protection and welfare of his late subjects, and even for enforcing the grants he ! dmself, through his officials, had made to them, was on the justice and benevolence of the new government. So far as the acts of the king of Spain aré to be considered in connection with the territory and its inhabitants ceded by him, he appears to have committed both to. those practices and to • that discretion which obtain in civilized communities, wholly uninfluenced by any pledge or condition exacted by himself.

■ The proclamation of the Spanish provincial officers is almost a literal repetition of this royal order. The treaty of St. Ildefonso,1 then, can, by no rule or principle deducible from the laws of nations, be interpreted as still reserving to Spain., after the sigrfature of that treaty, the power to grant away the public domain; for she could have had no right to calculate upon the mala fides of the French Republic with regard to the provision for the Duke of Parma, and to make such' calculation an excuse for mala fides on her own part. But surely no right, under any pretext, to grant the pfiblic domain, could exist in Spain after the treaty of Aranjuez of March 21st, 1801, between that country and Francé, by which the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, that had been previously ceded to the French Republic, was accepted by Spain in full satisfaction of the provision agreed to be made for the Duke of Parma. And .least of all could such a power continue in the government of Spain after the royal order of the 15th of October, 1802, proclaiming the retrocession of the Territory of Louisiana and the fulfilment or satisfaction, of course, of all treaty stipulations in reference to that territory; and all this, too, promulgated under the signature of the king himself.

It may now be properly asked, What, then, are the grants, titles, or other rights protected by the third article of the treaty between the United States and the French Republic, of the 30th; April, 1803, and by the acts of Congress of 1824 and 1844, referring to that treaty, and to previous acts of the Spanish government ? ■ The third article of the treaty of Paris of 1803 is in these words: — “ 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 mean time they shall, be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.” The term property in this article will embrace rights either in possession, or in action ; property to which the title was completed, or that to which the title was not yet completed ; but in either acceptation, it could be applied only'’ to rights founded in justice and good faith, and based upon authority competent to the’ir creation. The article above cited cannot, without the grossest perversion, be made either to express or imply more than this. According to this just and obvious rule of interpretation, the treaty of Paris, of April 30th, 1803, by any reference' it could be supposed to have to titles or claims derived from Spain, could embrace such only as had their origin whilst Spain was the rightful sovereign over the territory; a period which, by the most liberal extension of her power, cannot be carried farther than the 15th of October, 1802,, the date of the royal order of Barcelona. Indeed, if not from the date of the treaty of St. Ildefonso, yei certainly from the, 21st of March, 1801, grants by Spain of the public domain in Louisiana would have been frauds upon the French Republic, since by the treaty of Aranjúez, of the date last mentioned, full satisfaction of the terms stipulated for the Duke of Parma was acknowledged by Spain. Looking more particularly to the documents on which this claim is founded, we find it recited in the certificate of Pintado, that the land in question had been surveyed by him in obedience to a decree of the General Intendancy of the Province, under date of the 1st of September, 1803. This decree is not produced in evidence, but, upon the supposition that it was in the record and properly verified, the question of the competency of the authority to order it would stand precisely as it does in its absence. Turning next to the. grant itself, there are, in addition to the fact of the date of that instrument, other circumstances disclosed upon its face, showing not only the want of authority in the grantor . to make a good title, but which bring nome to the grantor and to the individual soliciting the grant full knowledge that the title to whatever might be properly considered Louisiana, at least, no longer remained in the Spanish government. The grant is dated at New Orleans! It recites the application of Reynes for 40,000 arpents of land, to be paid for in letters of credit formerly issued by the provincial government, and then goes on to state, that, in consequence of the petition, Morales had caused a certified copy of the letter addressed by that Intendancy to the Commissioners appointed for the transfer of the Province of Louisiana, to be submitted, with the petition, to the Solicitor of the Crown. This document, then, excludes all doubt as to the knowledge of the parties of the cession to the United States of Louisiana by whatever might have been its real boundaries. It is signed by Morales, not as being an officer of the Territory of Louisiana, but as Intendant of the Province of West Florida, after Louisiana had passed to two sovereign states since its possession by Spain, and after actual possession had been delivered to the United States. It is clear, then, that the documents exhibited and relied on by the appellee could by their own terms convey no title within the Territory of Louisiana. Superinduced upon our conclusions drawn from the treaties above mentioned, and from the laws of nations applicable to their construction, is the positive legislative declaration in the act of Congress of March 26, 1804, “ pronouncing all grants for lands within the territories ceded by the French Republic to the United States by the treaty of the 30th of April, 1803, the title whereof was at the date of the treaty of St. Ildefonso in the crown, government, or nation of Spain, and every act and proceeding subsequent thereto, of whatsoever nature, towards the obtaining of any grant, title, or claim to such lands, under whatsoever authority transacted or pretended, be, and the same are hereby declared, to be, and to have been from the beginning, null, void, and of no effect in law or equity.” This act of 1804 explicitly avows the opinion of the government of the United States as to any power or right in Spain at any time after the treaty of St Ildefonso. It covers the whole subject of grants, concessions, titles, &c., derived from Spain at any time subsequent to the treaty, stamping upon all such grants-, &.C., the most utter reprobation; denying to them any validity or merit, either legal or equitable. This act of 1804 has never been directly repealed. It stiff operates upon all the grants, concessions, &c., embraced within its pro visions, except so far as these provisions may be shown to have been modified by posterior' legislation. And if has been invariably held, and indeed must follow as of necessity, that imperfect titles derived from a foreign government can only be perfected by the legislation of the United States. But it is argued for the appellee, that as the land in dispute did not lie within the territory of which France obtained from Spain actual occupancy, or of which the United States ever obtained a like occupancy until possession thereof was taken under the proclamation of President Madison, of October 10th, 1810, and as the Spanish authorities in the mean time, as a government de facto, retained possession, they could in this character invest their grantees with inchoate or equitable rights, which, under the privileges bestowed by the acts of 1824 and 1844, might be matured into perfect titles as against the United States. Without stopping to remark upon the caution which should ever be manifested in the admission of claims which, if not founded in violence or in mere might; yet refer us for their origin certainly not to regular unquestioned legal or political authority, it may be safely said, that claims founded upon the acts of a government de facto must be sustained, if at all, by the nature and character of such acts themselves, as proceeding from the exercise of the*inherent and rightful powers of an independent government. They can never be supported upon the authority of such a government, if shown to have originated in a violation of its own compacts, and in derogation of rights it had expressly conceded to others. Every claim asserted upon wrong, such as this latter position implies,, would be estopped and overthrown by alleging the compact or concession it sought to violate. Thus, if Spain, by the treaty of St. Ildefonso, did in truth cede to France the lands lying between the Mississippi and Perdido, she could not, as a government de jure or de facto, without thp assent of the United States, possessing all the rights of the French Republic, rhake subsequent grants of thé same lands either to communities or to individuals. Her grants could not be regarded as the inherent, competent, and uncommitted proceedings of an independent government de facto ; they would be met and made null by her own previous acknowledgment.

Whether, by the treaties of St. Ildefonso and of Paris, the territory south of the thirty first degree of north latitude, and lying between the Mississippi and Perdido, was ceded to the United States, is a question into which this court will not now inquire. The legislative and executive departments of the government have determined that the entire territory was so ceded. This court have solemnly and repeatedly declared, that this was a matter, peculiarly belonging to the cognizance of those departments, and that the propriety of their determination it was not within the province of the judiciary to contravene or question. See the cases of Foster and Elam v. Neilson, 2 Peters, 253, and of Garcia v. Lee, 12 Peters, 511. In the former case the court say, — “If a Spanish grantee had obtained . possession of the land in dispute, so as to be the defendant, would a court of the United States maintain his title under a Spanish grant made subsequent to the acquisition of Louisiana, singly on the principle that .the Spanish construction of the treaty of St. Ildefonso-was right, and the American construction wrong ? Such a decision would subvert those principles which govern the relations between the legislative and judicial departments, and mark the limits of each.” Substituting the United States as a defendant in the place of 'a private litigant, (a privilege permitted by the law of 1824,) the case supposed and satisfactorily answered in the quotation just made is in all its features precisely that now before the court; and to sustain the pretensions of the appellee, it is indispensable that the American construction of the treaty of St. Ildefonso be rejected, and the Spanish construction held to be the- true one. In the case of Garcia v. Lee, "this court say, — “ The controversy in relation to the country between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers, and the validity of the grants made by Spain in the disputed territory after the cession of Louisiana to the United States, were carefully examined, and decided, in the case of Foster and Elam v. Neilson. The Supreme Court in that case decided, that the question of boundary between the United States and Spain was a question for the political department of the government; that the legislative and executive branches having decided the question, the courts of the United States are bound to regard the boundary determined - by them to be the true one. That grants made by the Spanish authorities of lands which, according to this boundary line, belonged to the United" States, gave, no title to' the grantees in opposition to those claiming under the United States.” Has the law, as expounded in the cases of Foster and Elam v. Neilson, and of Garcia v. Lee, been in any respect changed by the act of 1844 ? Has that act enlarged thq- rights of claimants under French or Spanish titles, or restricted the rights of the United States as derived from the treaties of St. Ildefonso and of Paris ? Beyond an extension of the modes of proceeding allowed by the act of 1824 to claimants in Missouri, to persons claiming under Spanish, French, or British titles, within the States of Louisi ana and Arkansas, and within those portions of the States of Mississippi and Alabama lying south of the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and between the Rivers Mississippi and Per-dido, we can perceive no change in the act of 1824 effected by the act of 1844. We are unable to perceive any addition made by the latter act to the intrinsic strength of the claims allowed to be prosecuted, or any dispensation from proofs of their bona fides, or of a single condition prescribed in relation to their origin and character by the act of 1824. What are the conditions prescribed by this act as indispensable to the állowance and establishment of titles derived from France or Spain has been stated in a previous part of this opinion, and having shown the title of the appellee to be wanting in all those conditions, it is the opinion of this court that his petition should have been rejected,— and therefore that the judgment of the District Court pronounced in this cause should be reversed, and the same is hereby reversed.

Order.

This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the District Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is the opinion of this court, that the title of the petitioner is null and void. Whereupon it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that the judgment of the said District Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby, reversed, and that this cause be, and the same is hereby, remanded to the said District Court, with directions to dismiss the petition of the,claimant in this cause.