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Opinion of the court.

where is drawn in question the construction of any statute of the United States, and the decision is against the right specially set up or claimed by either party under such statute-may be re-examined in this court; enacting further, however, that no other error shall be assigned or regarded as ground of reversal than such as immediately respects the before-mentioned questions of validity or construction.

Messrs. M. Blair and F. A. Dick, for the plaintiff in error, and Mr. A. G. Riddle, contra, argued the case on its merits.

Mr. Janin, for the defendant in error, asked to have the case dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Against the right to take the jurisdiction, he said that the act of August 18th, 1856, was the only one which defined the claim in language less vague than the original grant; that the act of 1856, which did define it, referred it to the courts to settle the location of the survey, and what land really passed under the confirmation; that the courts of Louisiana had settled. that and nothing else; and that this was not a subject for review. Hence that the writ could not be entertained.

Mr. Justice SWAYNE delivered the opinion of the court. We are met at the threshold of the investigation by the proposition, on the part of the defendant in error, that this court has no jurisdiction of the controversy between the parties, and that the case must be dismissed.

The defendant in error holds the lands in controversy by the right of preemption, under the laws of the United States; and it is admitted that his title is valid and must prevail, unless his adversary has proved a better one. The plaintiff in error insists that such a title is shown in the record, by a grant from the government of Spain to Paul Toups, in 1796, confirmed by the acts of Congress of the 3d of March, 1807, of the 12th of April, 1814, of the 11th of May, 1820, and especially by the act of the 18th of August, 1856.

None of these acts, except the one last mentioned, at

Opinion of the court.

tempted to fix definitely the locality and boundaries of the grant. That act refers to surveys made by Hawke, in 1854, and confirms them. The plaintiff in error claims according to these surveys. They include the land in controversy. But the confirmation by this act was accompanied by important conditions.

[The learned judge here read the provisos as given, supra, p. 206, in the statement of the case.]

These provisos expressly save the rights, whatever they may be, of the defendant in error.

The act, considered in its entirety, confirmed to the plaintiff whatever he was entitled to by virtue of the original grant, conceding that to have been valid. It neither enlarges nor diminishes what the grant gave him. It extinguishes all claim, on the part of the United States, to the land covered by the surveys; but as regards all adverse claimants, it determines nothing, and concludes no one. It gives to the settlers upon the land, in express terms, the right to institute and maintain the litigation necessary to enable them to test the validity of the surveys. It leaves adverse claimants otherwise where they were before Congress legislated upon the subject, and in all respects as if this act had not been passed.

The defendant in error does not deny that a grant was made as alleged by the plaintiff in error, nor that it was confirmed by Congress; but he denies that its boundaries were properly defined by the surveys of Hawke; and he asserts, that if properly located it will not include the land in dispute. The plaintiff in error insists that these surveys conformed to the grant, and that they are made conclusive by the act of 1856.

The Supreme Court of Louisiana gave to this act the same construction which we have given, and proceeded to settle the rights of the parties according to the evidence.

The controversy in that court turned wholly upon the question of the locality of the eastern boundary of the grant. The plaintiff contended that it was a line eighty arpens from the west bank of the Mississippi River. The defendant al

Opinion of the court.

leged that it was the Bayou Crocodile. If the plaintiff's claim prevailed, the tract would include the land in controversy; if the defendant's, the opposite result would follow. The court, after an elaborate examination of the subject, sustained the theory of the defendant, and gave judgment accordingly.

Has this court jurisdiction to examine the grounds of this decision?

The case is brought here under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Our authority is derived from and limited by that section. This court has repeatedly held, that it does not warrant the review of an adjudication upon a mere question of boundary. The fact that the land to which the boundary relates is held by a title derived from an act of Congress does not change the result. If the title be admitted as recognized by the act, its location upon the land is a subject wholly within the cognizance of the State tribunals, and it is not within the power of this court to revise their action. In such cases our authority is limited to errors relating to the title. If any such are committed, it is our duty to correct them. If there are none, we have no more authority to interpose than in any other case of alleged maladministration of justice by a State court. A party cannot, by setting up an unfounded claim of title, compel us, after deciding the claim against him, to take to ourselves a jurisdiction which, but for such claim, we could not have exercised. Such a result would make the jurisdiction depend, not upon the nature and merits of the case, but upon what the party may choose to allege. In this way, in every case where the title is derived from the United States, and a question of boundary is involved, this court might be constrained to do what it has uniformly held to be beyond the sphere of its power.

In the case before us, the Supreme Court of Louisiana construed correctly the several acts of Congress relating to the subject of the controversy. No greater or different effect would have been given to them here if the case had been brought before us by appeal from a Circuit Court of the

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Statement of the case.

United States. Full effect was given to the title. The error, if any were committed, was in locating it upon the land, and fixing its boundaries. In the performance of this function by that court, no treaty, act of Congress, or authority exercised under the United States, was drawn in question. We cannot, therefore, review the conclusions at which the court arrived.* The section referred to in express terms forbids it.

The decision having been correct upon the only question before us for consideration, the judgment below is

AFFIRMED.

WITHERSPOON v. DUNCAN.

1. The different States, as a general rule, have the right of determining the manner of levying and collecting taxes on private property within their limits; and can declare that a tract of land shall be chargeable with taxes, no matter who is the owner, or in whose name it is assessed and advertised; and that an erroneous assessment does not vitiate the sale for taxes.

2. Lands originally public cease to be public after they have been entered at the land office, and a certificate of entry has been obtained.

3. Lands so entered are liable to taxation; and if the taxes remain unpaid, they may be sold like other lands, even though no patent may as yet have issued.

4. The right to tax attaches as well to donation entries as to cash entries; the particular land in either case, when the entry is made and certificate given, being segregated from the mass of public lands, and becoming private property.

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of Arkansas; the case, as stated by the learned justice who gave the opinion of the court, being thus:

The State of Arkansas, on her admission into the Union, made a compact with the General Government not to tax the public lands within the State, nor interfere with their primary disposal by the United States, or with the regula

* McDonough v. Millandon, 3 Howard, 707; Doe v. Esclava, 9 Id. 448.

Statement of the case.

tions adopted by Congress for securing the title in them to purchasers. It was claimed that this compact had been broken by the decision of the Supreme Court of Arkansas in this case.

The facts on which the claim was based were these: On the 23d day of May, 1828, a portion of the public domain, within the limits of the Territory of Arkansas, was, by treaty, ceded to the Cherokee Indians, west of the Mississippi River, and suitable provision made for the removal of the settlers from it. As an indemnity for the loss of improvements and the trouble and expense of removing, each settler who did remove was entitled, by an act of Congress, to enter, at the proper land office in Arkansas, two quarter sections of the public lands of the territory, the sale of which was authorized by law.

The children of Timothy Harrell (one of the settlers on these ceded lands) furnished the requisite proof to the regis ter and receiver of the land office, at Little Rock, of the settlement, removal, and subsequent death of their father, and were, on the 22d day of May, 1830, allowed to enter the lands in controversy. The proper certificate of this donation entry, as it is called, was transmitted, as is usual in land entries, to the General Land Office at Washington; but, for some unexplained reason, a patent was not issued for the lands embraced in it until the 5th day of February, 1846. By mistake, owing, doubtless, to the neglect of the land officers at Little Rock to make the proper cancellation on their books, and to the multiplication of land districts, these same lands were entered at the land office at Washington (within which district they were then included), on the 8th day of June, 1836, by G. W. Denton, who received the usual certificate of purchase. This entry was cancelled by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, on the issue of the patent to the heirs of Harrell, and, in February, 1849, the purchase-money refunded to Denton.

In 1842, these lands were listed for taxation, by the authorities of Arkansas, in the name of Denton, and sold (because the taxes were unpaid) to Duncan and Flanigan, the defend

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