REICHART
v.
FELPS
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A dispute arose over title to land claimed under patents issued in 1838 and 1853, with the central question being whether the land had been previously granted, reserved, or appropriated by the government. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decision, holding that a 1799 patent and survey from Governor St. Clair constituted conclusive evidence that the land was reserved from sale and therefore could not be validly patented to the plaintiff, and that the governor's written confirmation of the title was sufficient without requiring a formal sealed instrument.
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Mr. Justice GRIER delivered the opinion of the court.
The patents under which the plaintiff claimed in the State court were declared by that court to be void. The ease, therefore, is properly cognizable in this court under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789.
He claimed under two patents of the dates of 1838 and 1853, which exhibit conclusive evidence of title if the land claimed had “not been previously granted, reserved from sale, or appropriated.” The only question to be decided in this ease is, whether the land had been so granted, reserved, or appropriated.
The patent of Governor St. Clair, February 12th, 1799, duly registered in 1804, with the survey of McCann, April 10th, 1798, are conclusive evidence that the laud in question was reserved from sale. The case of Moore v. Hill,
*
decided nearly forty years ago in the Supreme Court of Illinois, on the same survey and grant which is now before us, should have been conclusive against the objections which have been revived on the present writ of error. “ This very able and elaboi’ate opinion received the concurrence of the bar and the country at the time it was delivered, and has never been called in question since. There is no fact in the present case calculated to produce a result different from the one there annouuced.”†
The objection that the patent from the governor was without a seal-ought not to have been made. The act of Congress giving power to the governor did not require him to issue a patent nor to execute an instrument under seal. Any written evidence of his confirmation would have been a sufficient execution of the power. All that was necessary was an authentic declaration by the United States, through their authorized agent, that they had no claim to the land. It was not a grant by the United States, because the title was not in them.
Congress is bound to regard the public treaties, and it had no power to organize a board of revision to nullify titles confirmed many years before by tbe authorized agents of the government. And Congress became afterwards so well satisfied itself of this that it passed an act restoring to the purchasers the money which they had paid for titles obtained on the assumption of such a right.
Judgment affirmed
*
Breese, 236.
†
Reichart v. Felps, 33 Illinois, 439, A. D. 1864, per Breese, J., who reported the case A. D. 1829.
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Choate v. Trapp, 224 U.S. 665 (U.S. 1912)…ndable and repealable at the will of Congress. But there is a broad distinction between tribal property and private property, and between the power to abrogate a statute and the authority to destroy rights acquired under such law. Reichert v. Felps, 6 Wall. 160. The question in this case, therefore, is not whether the plaintiffs were parties to the Atoka Agreement, but whether they had not acquired rights under the Curtis Act which are now protected by the Constitution of the United States. 2. The individ…
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Mahn v. Harwood & Others, 112 U.S. 354 (U.S. 1884)…ued which the land officers had no authority to issue, as, Avhere the lands have been previously granted, reser\Ted from sale, or appropriated to other uses. Stoddard v. Chambers, 2 How. 284, 318; Easton v. Salisbury, 21 How. 426; Reichart v. Felps, 6 Wall. 160; Silver v. Ladd, 7 Wall. 219; Meader v. Norton, 11 Wall. 442; Best v. Polk, 18 Wall. 112; Morton v. Nebraska, 21 Wall. 660; Leavenworth, &c., Railroad v. United States, 92 U. S. 733; Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U. S. 761; Sherman v. Buick, 93 U. S. 209.…
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Noble v. Union River Logging R.R. Co., 147 U.S. 165 (U.S. 1893)…ular, but absolutely void, and may be shown to be so in any collateral proceeding. Polk's Lessee v. Wen [*175] dall, 9 Cranch, 87; Patterson v. Winn, 11 Wheat. 380; Jackson v. Lawton, 10 Johns. 23; Minter v. Crommelin, 18 How. 87; Reichart v. Felps, 6 Wall. 160; Kansas Pacific Railway v. Dunmeyer, 113 U. S. 629 ; United States v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 146 U. S. 570. Upon the other hand, if the patent be for lands which the Land Department had authority to convey, but it was imposed upon, or was induc…
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