143 F. 716 | 8th Cir. | 1906
This case is presented to test the validity of the decree’ of the Choctaw and Chickasaw citizenship court of December 17, 1902, which by its terms annulled all the judgments and decisions of the United States courts in the Indian Territory which had admitted persons to citizenship under the act of June 10, 1896, in either the Choctaw or Chickasaw Nation of Indians. These ■nations were the owners of a large and valuable tract of land in com
On June 28, 1898, and while he was thus in possession of the land, Congress passed an act whereby it consented to the Atoka agreement with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations of April 23, 1897, empowered the Dawes Commission to allot the lands of these tribes to their members in severalty and provided that any member should be entitled to receive his allotment out of the lands in his possession if
The action now in this court is an action of ejectment. Henry McSwain and Roma McSwain, by their guardian and next friend, were the plaintiffs below, and they are acknowledged citizens of the Chickasaw Nation who have received allotments of these lands from the Dawes Commission and have brought this action against Hill and those claiming under him to recover possession of them. Hill has presented his judgment in the United States court to the Dawes Commission, has demanded his enrollment as a citizen of the Choctaw Nation and the allotment to him of the land in dispute, but the commission has refused his request on the sole ground that his judgment was annulled by the decree of the citizenship court. Hill insists that that decree is void, and under the legislation which has been recited he is entitled to retain possession and to receive the land in dispute as his allotment unless his judgment of admission as a citizen of the Choctaw Nation has been avoided by that decree. The facts which have been recited appear in the complaint and answer in the action in hand or have been admitted by counsel in their briefs, and the defendant Hill prayed in his answer that the case be transferred to the equity docket, that his title be quieted, and that he have all other proper relief. A demurrer to his answer was sustained by the trial court and by the appellate court in the Indian Territory.
We are met at the threshold of the investigation of this case by the objection that the United States Court for the Southern District of the Indian Territory had no jurisdiction of this action because the land in dispute had been allotted to the plaintiffs by the Dawes Commission, and by the act of July 1,1902, exclusive jurisdiction had been conferred upon that commission to determine under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior all matters relating to the allotment of land and to issue allotment certificates which should be conclusive evidence of the right of the allottee to the land therein described, and authority was given to the Indian agent at Union Agency to place allottees in possession of their lands upon application to him, free from the writ or process of any court. Chapter 1362, 32 Stat. 644, par. 23, 24. No application, however, appears to have been made to the Indian agent to place the plaintiffs in possession of the land here in dispute, and the rights and powers of the agent are not in question in this case. The plaintiffs ■commenced an action of ejectment in the trial court below which was met by the plea that in equity and good conscience the land which was its subject and the possession thereof were the property of the defendant and by a prayer for proper relief in equity. Jurisdiction ■of such an action was clearly granted to the courts in the Indian Territory by Act June 7, 1897, c. 3, 30 Stat. 83, which provides that ofi and after January 1, 1898, those courts shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction and authority to try and determine all civil causes in law and equity thereafter instituted, as well as by section 3, Act of June 28, 1898, 30 Stat. 496, c. 517.
Attention is called to section 2, Act June 28, 1898, 30 Stat. 495, c. 517, which provides that, when in the progress of any civil suit in the United States court in any district in the Indian Territory it shall appear to the court that the property of any Indian tribe is in any way affected by the issues being heard, the court is authorized and directed to make such tribe a party, and it is contended that both by virtue of this provision and under the general rule in equity the Choctaw and Chickasaw Tribes were indispensable parties to this action. But the lands in controversy here have been allotted to the plaintiffs below. They are no longer the property of the tribes, and none of their property can in any way be affected, even remotely, by this action unless the averments of the answer entitle the defendant to relief. The courts below were of the opinion that they did not-, and hence it did not appear to them that any property of the tribes would be affected by the issues in this action. Until their opinions in this regard are overruled, it will not so appear, and, if they should be, this case must be remanded for testimony and hearing, and there will then be ample opportunity for them to consider and determine whether or not the Indian nations should be made parties. The record before us does not show that this question has yet been presented to the courts below, and hence it is not now here for our consideration or decision. We come, then, to the crucial question in the case.
The Constitution of the United States had been extended over and put into effect in the Indian Territory before the legislation involved in this suit was enacted, and counsel for the defendant Plill contend that because his judgment of admission to citizenship of March 8, 1898, was by the terms of the act of June 10, 1896, final when it was rendered and he took possession of and improved the land he occupies before Tune 28, 1898, and because by the act of the latter date (30 Stat. 498) the right to select this land which was then in his possession as his allotment was granted to him, his right thereto then vested, so that Congress had no power either by direct enactment or by the creation of a commission or court to review or annul his judgment or to deprive him of his right to this allotment. In support of this position they cite Rutherford v. Greene’s Heirs, 2 Wheat. 196, 4 L. Ed. 218; Gaines v. Nicholson, 9 How. 356, 13 L. Ed. 172; U. S. v. Brooks, 10 How. 442, 13 L. Ed. 489; Doe v. Wilson, 23 How. 457, 16 L. Ed. 584; Crews v. Burcham, 1 Black, 352, 17 L. Ed. 91; Best v. Polk, 18 Wall. 112, 21 L. Ed. 805; New York Indians v. U. S., 170 U. S. 1, 18 Sup. Ct. 531, 42 L. Ed. 927; Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1, 20 Sup. Ct. 1, 44 L. Ed. 49. The argument is persuasive, and it is fortified by the suggestions that the defendant’s judgment had been affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1899 and that the citizenship court was in reality a commission, and not a judicial tribunal. But none of the authorities cited contains a decision that one has a vested right in a judgment of citizenship which the legislative department of the United States may not lawfully disturb, although one of the
The United States by its superior might took from the Choctaw • and Chickasaw Nations the power to determine who their citizens should be, which had been repeatedly guaranteed to them by treaties, and authorized the Dawes Commission and the United States court in the Indian Territory to decide this issue, by the act of June 10, 1896. Here is the origin of every right of the defendant involved in this action. The maintenance by him of any claim in any court necessarily concedes the power of the legislative department of the government to create or to revive, and to enforce his demand for citizenship, because without that concession the provisions of the act of June 10, 1896, in this regard are void, and the defendant’s claim is conclusively adjudged to be baseless by its rejection by the Choctaw Nation. But, if the legislative department of the United States had the constitutional power to create or to revive the defendant’s claim and to enforce it, it necessarily had the same power to determine whether or not it would revive or enforce it and to select its own method of deciding these questions. It might have determined this issue itself and have declared by direct enactment that the defendant Hill was a citizen of the Choctaw Nation. It might have empowered a committee, an Indian agent, a commission, a board, or a court to examine and determine that. question on its behalf, and as the determination of this question of citizenship was a purely legislative and administrative function, and not a judicial one, Congress necessarily had the authority under the Constitution at any time before an allotment of land under its previous acts had been finally made
Thé fact that the effect of the act of July 1, 1902, has been to avoid final judgments of the United States courts in the Indian Territory, which had been affirmed by the Supreme Court, has not been disregarded. In the rendition of those judgments, however, those courts were not exercising any of the judicial power of the United States conferred by the third article of the Constitution. They were not constitutional, but legislative courts of the United States, .exercising a jurisdiction conferred upon them by Congress by virtue of the sovereignty of the nation and of section 3 of article 4 of the Constitution, which empowers Congress to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States. American Ins. Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, 546, 7 L. Ed. 242; Benner v. Porter, 9 How. 235, 242, 243, 13 L. Ed. 119; Hornbuckle v. Toombs, 18 Wall. 648, 655, 21 L. Ed. 966; Good v. Martin, 95 U. S. 90, 98, 24 L. Ed. 341; Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434, 447, 20 L. Ed. 659. In the case last cited Chief Justice Chase, speaking of the courts of the then territory of Utah, said: “There is no Supreme Court of the United States, nor is there any District Court of the United States, in the sense of the Constitution, in the territory of Utah.” Now, as the power conferred upon the courts in the Indian Territory and upon the Supreme Court respecting the decision of the question who were citizens of the Indian tribes was purely legislative and administrative, and the entire question still remained subject to congressional action, the legislative department had the same power at any time before allotments were made and the rights of allottees became vested to disregard or to authorize a review of the decisions of these courts by other tribunals that it would have had to have disregarded or reviewed the decisions of an Indian agent, a commission, or a committee, if it had conferred this power upon them. The decisions of the Supreme Court in Stephens v. Cherokee Nation, 174 U. S. 445, 488, 19 Sup. Ct. 722, 43 L. Ed. 1041, and
“The lands and moneys of these tribes are public lands and public moneys, and are not held in individual ownership, and the assertion of any particular applicant that his right therein is so vested as to preclude inquiry into his status involves a contradiction in terms.”
Earlier decisions of that court are to the effect that the legislative department of the Government has ample power by subsequent enactment'to grant a new trial or a review by a suitable tribunal of judgments final under the laws in force when they were rendered. Sampeyreac v. U. S., 7 Pet. 222, 235, 8 L. Ed. 665; Freeborn v. Smith, 2 Wall. 160, 17 L. Ed. 922; Garrison v. New York, 21 Wall. 196, 204, 22 L. Ed. 612; Freeland v. Williams, 131 U. S. 405, 412, 9 Sup. Ct. 763, 33 L. Ed. 193; Essex Public Road Board v. Skinkle, 140 U. S. 334, 11 Sup. Ct. 790, 35 L. Ed. 446. In Sampeyreac v. U. S., 7 Pet. 222, 235, 8 L. Ed. 665, a decree of a court which established a title to land was rendered on November 24, 1827. After this decree had become final under existing laws an innocent purchaser bought the established title. On May 8, 1830, Congress passed an act which authorized the claimants defeated by the original decree, which had then been final for more than two years, to maintain a bill of review to set it aside. Such a bill was exhibited, a decree was rendered thereon which avoided the original decree and took the property from the innocent purchaser, and the Supreme Court sustained the act of Congress which allowed this review and the decree which followed it. There can be no doubt under these decisions that Congress had plenary power to authorize a review of the final judgments of the courts in the Indian Territory and of the Supreme Court in these citizenship cases. The contention that the act of 1902 is unconstitutional because it is class legislation is answered by the decision of the Supreme Court in the Stephens Case which sustained the act of July 1, 1898, which was of the same character. The suggestion that the citizenship court was a commission, and not a judicial tribunal, is immaterial, because the power of the legislative department of the government to authorize the review of the judgments of citizenship by a commission, a committee, or an agent was as complete as it was to authorize that review by a court. It had plenary authority to review the judgments itself or to create or select a tribunal to its liking for the purpose. In view of the considerations and authorities to which reference has now been made, our conclusions are: The power conferred upon the Dawes Commission and the United Statés courts in the Indian Ter
Finally counsel for defendant insist that he is not bound by the decree of the citizenship court (1) because he was not one of the 10 persons named as defendants therein, but as Congress had plenary power to directly reverse the judgments of citizenship, or to determine in what way they should be reversed, its enactment that the 10 persons should stand as the representatives of all others similarly situated was not ineffective; (2) because there was no proof in the citizenship court, and there is no finding in the decree, that he was one of the persons similarly situated with the 10 defendants named, but the decree avoids all the judgments of the courts in the Indian Territory, whereby in cases appealed from the decisions of the Dawes Commission under the act of June 10, 1896, any of the defendants named or any of the persons simliarly situated was adjudged a citizen of the Choctaw or Chickasaw Nation, and the answer of the defendant in this action that upon such an appeal he secured a judgment of one of those courts that he was a citizen of the Choctaw Nation sufficiently discloses the fact that he was similarly situated with the 10 defendants named in the decree of the citizenship court and brings him clearly within its terms; (3) because the act of 1902 required that notice of the pendency in the citizenship court of the suit there brought and of the time for answering the bill should be published for four weeks in two newspapers generally circulating in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations 30 days before the time for answering the bill expired, and the decree does not recite or adjudge that this notice was published (32 Stat. 647), but the 10 defendants are named in the title of the decree as defendants “for themselves and as representatives of all persons similarly situated, claiming to be mem
Counsel concede that the recital in the decree that the notice had been given “in conformity of law” is sufficient, in the absence of any inconsistent record or evidence, to raise the presumption of the legal publication of the notice and of the jurisdiction of the court over the persons of all who are affected by the decree (Applegate v. Lexington, etc., Min. Co., 117 U. S. 255, 269, 6 Sup. Ct. 742, 29 L. Ed. 892; Foster v. Givens, 14 C. C. A. 625, 632, 67 Fed. 684, 691; Beattie v. Wilkinson (C. C.) 36 Fed. 646; Rumfelt v. O’Brien, 57 Mo. 569, 572; Harris v. Lester, 80 Ill. 307, 315; Mulvey v. Gibbons, 87 Ill. 367, 380; 17 Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law 1082), were it not for the fact that this recital is limited by the words “the defendants herein,” but they insist that these words refer to the 10 defendants whose names are written in the title of the decree, and to them alone. Such a construction, however, is inconsistent with the decree against those similarly situated which could have been lawfully rendered only in case the publication of the notice had been made, and.the words “the defendants herein” must, therefore, be given a broader interpretation, and must include those who were similarly situated as well as those whose names were written in the title of the decree.
The defendant pleaded the decree of the citizenship court in his answer and took upon himself the burden of showing by adequate averments why it did not estop him from asserting that he was a citizen of the Choctaw Nation. He alleged, it is true, that he was not similarly situated with the defendants named in that decree, but he failed to set forth any difference between his situation and that of the 10 defendants there named, while his answer disclosed the fact that he had secured a like judgment upon a similar appeal. He alleged, it is true, that he was not a party to the suit in the citizenship court, and that no notice was ever served upon him therein, but he failed to allege that the notice of the pendency of that action was not published in the manner directed by the act of Congress. These averments were insufficient to withdraw the. defendant from the estoppel of the decree, and the judgments of the courts in the Indian Territory against him in the action now under consideration must be- affirmed.
It is so ordered.