Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States Volume 60 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 Excerpt: ...lots did not pass; and this exception is sufficiently shown by the acts of the Government." And again: "The statute did not protect the possession of the defendant below. His patent excepted those lots; of course, he had no title under it for the lots excepted." Until the case before us was reversed for error by the district judges who conformed to the above decision, I did not suppose that any one could doubt the correctness of the decision. Bogardus, in 1838, took a grant from the United States, subject to Forsyth's right, thereby rcgnising it, and consequently from that time he held it in subordination to Forsyth's title. If it be admitted that the fee did not pass to Forsyth until the patent issued in 1845, the patent nad relation back to the act of 1823, and operated from that time. The report of the register defined the boundaries of the lot as specifically as the survey, by reason of which, the lot was as well known, it is presumed, to the public, before the survey as afterwards. This may not have been the case with all the lots. Let any one read the patent to Bogardus, and ask himself the question, whether the United States intended to convey the lots to which the patent was made subject, and the answer must be, that they did not. By the act of 1823, they granted those lots to the French settlers, who, by the report of the register, were entitled to them under the act of 1820. It would have been an act of bad faith in the Government, after the act of 1823, to convey any one of those lots; and, on reading the patent, it is clear they did not intend to convey any one of them. It is said, suppose the French settlers had not claimed the lots, would not Bogardus have had a right to them? Such a supposition cannot be raised against the fact...