office which had been previously discharged by the secretary of the treasury."

Opinion of Justice Field, Patterson v. Tatum, 3 Saw. 164.

There is no more responsible bureau of the government than that of the general land office. It holds the record of titles to the vast area known as the public domain, on which there are hundreds of thousands of homes. All the business pertaining to the survey, disposition, and patenting of the public lands of the United States is transacted through it, or under its order and supervision, giving employment on an average to two hundred clerks.

The laws and decisions of various states and territories have to be examined to determine who are the lawful wives, widows, heirs, devisees, executors, administrators, or guardians; to determine the jurisdiction of local courts, and the validity of proceedings therein, and the legality of judicial sales.

Important questions of law often arise in the various divisions of the office as to rules of evidence, as to boundaries, riparian rights, entries, locations, cultivation, improvements, settlement, domicile, expatriation, jurisdiction of executive officers; as to the authority of the office to set aside patents after execution, before delivery, and after delivery; as to right of way and water rights; as to when patents take effect; as to when patents are valid, void, or merely voidable; as to when legal title passes without patent; in construing foreign treaties and Indian treaties; as to forfeitures, abandonments, assignments; as to parties holding scrip, etc.

Public Domain, p. 166.

The secretary of the interior is charged by the statute with all business relating to public lands, including mines.

R. S. 441.

The commissioner of the general land office, like the secretary, is appointed by the president, and his business is under the direction of the secretary of the interior, to discharge all executive duties appertaining to the surveying and sale of the public lands of the United States, or in any wise respecting such public lands, and also such as relate to private claims of lands and the issuing of patents for all grants of land under the authority of the government.

R. S. 453.

§ 15. Registers and Receivers.-These officers are appointed by the president and belong to the executive department of the

government, and all their acts are subject to review by the commissioner and secretary of the interior. The offices were created and districts for the sale of lands made by act of May, 10, 1800. A land district for disposition of lands, with a regis ter and receiver, may cover a state, or there may be ten in a state. Land districts are in no wise connected in boundary with surveying districts. They are made by law of congress (or by the president in mineral districts), and are abolished or consolidated one with another, reduced in area, or closed by congress or the president. They are simply points for sale and disposition of land more for the convenience of the people than of the government. The land being surveyed is duly returned, and notice of filing of plats given, and the land laws applicable to the district are put in force by the registers and receivers of the several district land offices in permitting the settlers and locators to proceed under the law.

Through the agency of these district offices, the United States proceeds to dispose of the public lands, in the methods contemplated in the laws providing for sales at ordinary private entry, for pre-emptions, for entries for homesteads, timber culture, townsite, and mining purposes; and in the laws making grants for specific objects, and exceptional provisions with regard to abandoned military and other reservations.

Public Domain, p. 171.

§ 16. Board of Equitable Adjudication.-The commissioner of the general land office, the secretary of the interior, and the attorney general constitute a "board of equitable adjudication," whose duty it is to prescribe regulations for the equitable decision of suspended entries of public lands, and of suspended settlers' claims, and adjudicate in what cases patents shall issue upon the same, and report such adjudication to congress.

R. S. 2450.

This is a tribunal of special and limited jurisdiction, but upon allegations of fraud, etc., it has the power to set aside an entry. When a case is properly presented, the board acquires exclusive jurisdiction, and the interior department and general land office lose all control over it, nor is there any appeal.

Conlin v. Yarwood, Copp's L. O., Jan. 1883, p. 188.

§ 17. Indian Lands and Reservations.-By section 2257, revised statutes, all lands belonging to the United States to which the Indian title has been or may hereafter be extinguished, shall be subject to the right of pre-emption, under the conditions, re

strictions, and stipulations provided by law. The same right has been extended to homestead and other settlers upon public lands.

R. S. 2289.

The president can make military reservations, but he can not abolish them without an act of congress, as the act of June 12, 1858 (11 Stats. p. 336), interdicts the sale of any lands in such reservation without an act of congress. In regard to Indian reservations, he can not only create but abolish them without any express authority from congress.

Public Domain, pp. 243, 249.

§ 18. Rights between States and Settlers.-The eighth section of the act of congress of September 4, 1841, in authorizing the state to make selections of land, does not interfere with operations of the other provisions of that act regulating the system of settlement and pre-emption. The two modes of acquiring title to land from the United States are not in conflict with each other. Both are to have full operation; that one controlling in a particular case under which the first initiatory step was had.

And where a state seeks to select lands as a part of the grant aforesaid, and a settler seeks to acquire a right of pre-emption to the same lands, the party taking the first initiatory step, if the same is followed up to patent, acquires the better right to the premises. The patent relates back to the initiatory act and cuts off all intervening claimants.

Shepley v. Cowan, 1 Otto, 330; Foley v. Harrison, 15 How. 433.

§ 19. The Secretary of the Interior.-The secretary of the interior has the power of supervision and appeal in all matters relating to the general land office, and that power is coextensive with the authority of the commissioner to adjudge.

Maguire v. Tyler, 1 Black, 195.

§ 20. The Land Department.-Congress created the land department for the purpose of having the public lands surveyed and sold, and confided to the department as a special tribunal the authority to hear and determine certain matters arising in the course of its duties, and the decision of that tribunal within the scope of its authority is conclusive upon all others. On the other hand, there has always existed in the courts of equity the power in certain classes of cases to inquire into and correct mistakes, injustice, and wrong, in both judicial and executive action, however solemn the form which the result of that action may assume when it invades private rights; and by virtue of

this power the final judgments of courts of law have been annulled or modified, the patents and other important instruments issuing from the crown, or other executive branch of the government, have been corrected or declared void, or other relief granted. No reason is perceived why the action of the land department should constitute an exception to this principle.

Johnson v. Townley, 13 Wall. 72.

§ 21. Pre-emption and Sale.—Under the public land system, after surveys are made in any given locality, so that the different tracts can be identified by the descriptions used in these surveys, they are not subject to sale at private entry at the land office until there has been a public auction, at which the lands so surveyed are offered to the highest bidder.

The act of 1841, however, provided a general system of preemption, and authorized pre-emption of lands surveyed but not open to private entry, as well as land that could be bought at private sale.

Johnson v. Townsly, 13 Wall. 85.

§ 22. Patents. It is the duty of the commissioner to issue patents for public lands and private land claims in all cases where the issue thereof is authorized by law.

2 Stat. 716; R. S. 453.

In the legislation of congress a patent has a double operation. It is a conveyance by the government when the government has any interest to convey, but where it is issued upon the confirmation of claim of a previously existing title, it is documentary evidence, having the dignity of a record of the existence of that title, or of such equities respecting the same as justify its recognition and confirmation.

A legislative confirmation of a claim to land is a recognition of the validity of such claim, and operates as effectually as a grant or quitclaim from the government. If the claim be to land with defined boundaries, or capable of identification, the legislative confirmation perfects the title to the particular tract, and a subsequent patent is only documentary evidence of that title. If the claim be to quantity and not to a specific tract capable of identification, a segregation by survey will be required, and the confirmation will then immediately attach to the title to the land segregated.

Langdean v. Haines, 21 Wall. 521.

A patent for public land issued by the land department, act

ing within the scope of its authority, and delivered to and accepted by the grantee, passes the legal title to the land. All control of the executive department of the government over the title thereafter ceases.

Moore v. Robbins, 6 Otto, 530.

But where a patent has been issued by the land department for land not subject to such disposal, or where the officers had no power to make such conveyance, the patent is absolutely void.

Sherman v. Buick, 3 Otto, 209.

A second patent may issue where the first is clearly erroneous. Bell v. Hearne, 19 How. 253.

A patent appropriates land. Any defects in the preliminary steps which are required by law are cured by the patent. It is a title from its date, and has always been held conclusive against all those whose rights did not commence previous to its emanation.

Hoofnagle v. Anderson, 7 Wheat. 214; Bagnall v. Broderick, 13 Pet. 436.

A court of equity will set aside a patent of the United States obtained by mistake, inadvertence, or fraud.

Hughes v. United States, 4 Wall. 232; United States v. Stone, 2 Id. 525.

A patent is a mere ministerial act, and if it be issued for lands reserved from sale by law, it is void.

Stoddard et al. v. Chambers, 2 How. 284.

Testimony, whether parol or documentary, which shows a want of power in the officers who issue a patent, is admissible in an action at law to defeat a title set up under it. In such case, the patent is not merely voidable, but absolutely void, and the party is not required to resort to a court of equity to have it so declared.

Sherman v. Buick, 3 Otto, 209.

And where there is a valid pre-emption claim on a school section at the time when the land is surveyed, the state has the right to select other lands.

Sherman v. Buick, 3 Otto, 209.

The power of congress in the disposal of the public domain can not be interfered with or its exercise embarrassed by any state legislation.

Gibson v. Chouteau, 13 Wall. 92,

The commissioner of the general land office can not properly