Case ID: tex_5/html/0221-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hemphill, Ch. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Warren v. Shuman and others.
    A judgment for costs merely, without any order disposing of the subject-matter of the controversy, is not a final judgment, and an appeal or writ or error will not lie from it. (Note 77.) The prohibition contained in the act of February 5,1840, againsc surveys on nnreoommended certificates after the 1st of May of that year did not legalize By implication surveys made previously on a certificate not recommended at the time of the survey nor subsequently. (Note 78.)
    A survey, whensoever made, if supported by a recommended certificate, is in contemplation of law valid; if otherwise, it is without legal foundation.
    
      Quere whether land covered by an unrecommended certificate was open to relocation prior to the 1st of January, 1844.
    Unrecommended certificates and surveys thereon upon which suit was not instituted on or before the 1st day of January, 1844, did not, after that day,con«tiíute a claim against the Government, and consequently did not operate as a bar to the patent of the same land in favor of another claimant of the 10th of February, 1846. (Note 70.)
    The construction of the 20th section of the general provisions of the Constitution is that if rights were of a character to be beyond the control of legislation before the adoption of the Constitution, they should so coutinue; if otherwise, they should be subject to the action of the legislative authority in like manner as they had been under the Constitution and laws of the Republic.
    Where there is a conflict between a general and a special provision in the Constitution, the special provision must prevail in respect to the subject-matter of it.
    The doctrine by which a junior patent or confirmation is held to have relation back to the inception of the right, and to take dignity accordingly, and thus overreach any patent which may have been granted in the meantime for the same land, but on o junior equity,. applies in cases only where the senior equity is valid in law, or. in other words, the subject of cognizance by the officers of the Government at the date of the elder patent. (Note 80.)
    The confirmation or establishment of an unrecommended certificate, under the extension of time allowed by the Constitution of the State, does not relate back and overreach a patent i«*uod after the 1st of January, 1844, and before the 16th cf February, 184(5; but quere whether it would not overreach any inchoate claim, as a$urvey, &c. (Note 81.)
    Any right that vested before the 10th of February, 1846, is a vested right under the provisions of the Constitution.
    The intention of the convention to annul perfect rights will not be assumed, but must be embodied in express terms or be the result of unavoidable implication.
    Appeal from Guadalupe. This suit was brought by the appellant against the appellees for the recovery of land. The original certificate issued from the board of land commissioners of San Augustine county, and located and surveyed on the land in controversy, was not approved as'a genuine claim against the Government by the local and traveling board of commissioners appointed under the act to detect fraudulent land certificates, &c., nor was a suit instituted for its re-establishment previous to 1st January, 1844. The land was afterwards located and surveyed by virtue of the certificate which is the foundation of the defendant’s title, and a patent was issued on the 10th February, 184G. The plaint iff afterwards, under the provisions of the Constitution opening the courts for that purpose, sued for the re-establishmont of his certificate, arid obtained judgment in his favor at the April Term of the District Court in 1S47.
    Upon these facts tiie court in effect charged the jury that, the plaintiff having failed to commence suit for the re-establishment of his certificate'before the 1st of January, 1844, the land became vacant and subject to location, and the defendant’s rights under a patent issued subsequent to that period, and previous to the confirmation of the xrlaintiff’s certificate afLer the re-opening of the courts, cannot be divested by such confirmation.
    The entry of what was termed the decree, after reciting the preliminary statements, proceeded as follows : “The jury returned the following verdict, to wit: ‘We, tiie jury, find for the defendant. J. H. Polly, foremanwhere-upon it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed by the court that the defendant do recover of the plaintiff and his securities, for the use and benefit of the officers of the court, all the costs in this behalf expended, and that execution issue therefor.”
    
      Paschal and Hancock, for appellant.
    The only point presented for the consideration of the court is whether the plaintiff’s right, acquired by virtue of his location ana survey in 1838, ceased to exist and became extinct in January, 1S44, when the courts ceased to have power to re-establish headright certificates previously issuea by the board of laud commissioners and which had not been confirmed by the local and traveling board, or whether such right merely lay dormant till the expiration of the time accorded by the State Constitution (if 1846 for the re-establishment of headright certificates rejected.
    That tiie plaintiff had a vested right in the land in controversy by virtue of his location and survey in 1838, which right was protected by the Constitution and laws of tiie Republic, there can be no doubt. His certificate bad been duly and regularly issued by a board of land commissioners established by law. The survey had been properly made and the land severed from the public domain in the manner prescribed by law, and Warren’s interest became vested the moment tiie survey was made. That his certificate is genuine is. fully proved by the judgment of tiie District Court of Sail Augustine county re-establishing the same.
    The only question therefore is whether there was anything in the legislation of Texas, from the date of Warren’s survey in the spring of 1838 up to tiie time of tiie institution of the present suit, which divested or destroyed that interest.
    The investigation of this question necessarily involves an examination of the laws relating to the re-establishment of headright certificates during the above period, as well as the powers of Congress under the Constitution of the late Republic.
    Wo shall therefore first inquire whether the Congress of the Republic ever attempted in its legislation to divest the rights of parties to lands which had been surveyed by virtue of yalid headright certificates recognized by the laws of the Republic.
    Secondly, whether the Congress had the power to have done so.
    The first act establishing the traveling and local board of commissioners was finally passed 29th January, 1S39. (Acts 1839, p. 139.) By the fifth section of this act the Commissioner of the Hand Office is restrained from issuing patents upon any survey not made by virtue of a certifícale returned as genuine and legal. No restraint is imposed, upon the holders of certificates from locating, nor were the surveyors inhibited from surveying by virtue, of such certificates. The intention was to restrain the commissioner from issuing final patents till the certificates were reconfirmed. No attempt was made to destroy rights acquired nor to prevent future locations and surveys.
    On t lie 5th of February following locations and surveys were prohibited after the 1st day of May, 1840. This act virtually adopted surveys previously made. (Acts 1840, p. 161, sec. 1.)
    
      An act was passed on same day in terms recognizing all previous surveys. (Acts 1S40, p. 261, sec. 1.) These surveys have been recognized from year to year since. (Acts 1841, p. 1; Acts lS41-’42, p. 5, see. 1; Acts 1842, p. 13.)
    • By the first section of the act of 1S41, p. 171, the power of confirming rejected certificates was conferred on the District Court. By an act of 14th January, 1843, p. 19, this privilege was limited to the 1st January, 1844. The second.section of the Xlth article of the State Constitution reopened the District Courts till the 1st July, 1847, for the confirmation of rejected claims.
    These are the laws by which the plaintiff’s right to recover must stand or fall. It is not pretended the land in controversy was subject to relocation till after the 1st January, 1844, when there ceased to exist any tribunal for the establishment of these claims.
    We contend, the law having expired, the party was deprived of the remedy for attaining a complete grant, but that his interest was in nowise affected. The party was deprived of the means by which he conld perfect his title, but his equitable interest remained protected by the Constitution.
    This provision of the Constitution declares claims not sued on within the time prescribed should become null and void. This was an act of the sovereign power which could not be gainsaid, whether it spoke into or out of existence previous rights, except by the same high sovereign power. The last clause of this section impliedly protects all previous locations and surveys in the event the certificates are proved up as required. It provides that all relocations made on such surve}rs shall not be disturbed until the certificates are re-established as above directed. This is a negative pregnant with an affirmative.
    The cases principally relied upon by defendants are that of Les Bois v. Brammell (4 How. R.) and Menard v. Jones, (1 Tex. R.) Neither is in point. The first had been specially barred and declared not legal evidence before confirmation. Plaintiff’s claim was always legal evidence in an action of ejectment. (Acts 1840, p. 137, sec. 6; 1841, p. 170, sec. 23.)
    
      Phillips and Vanderlip, for appellees.
    The charge of the court is based on the act of the Util January, 1843. (Dali. Dig., 342.) It provides “that all suits contemplated by the first section of the act to which this is a supplement shall be commenced on or before the first day of January, 1844, and not thereafter.” Tiiis is emphatically a limitation. Its legal effect is not confined to tlie remedy alone. The act of 29th January, 1840, creating the traveling board of land commissioners, had already cast a cloud of suspicion on this class of claims. It attached to them the legal presumption of fraud. This presumption, it is true, was not conclusive in law at the uate of the act; it might be repelled by positive proof to the contrary at any time before the limitation of 1844 expired. After that time, however, in the absence of any proof t.o the contrary, the first presumption of fraud became conclusive in law, and the certificate, a.s evidence of any right whatever, was mere waste; paper. The party who had claimed by virtue of it was placed in the original position which he occupied before any certificate had issued, and in fact a< lo his rights, in view of any specific property, as he did prior to the creation of a board of land commissioners. He might still retain an equitable claim on the political power under the Constitution, but ho had none under the law. This was the condition, then, of the appellant until the adoption of the Stale Constitution. It becomes important for us to inquire how and in what respects his rights were affected by that instrument.
    The 20th section of the general provisions provides “ that the rights of property and action which have been acquired under tiie Constitution and laws of the Republic of Texas shall not be divested, nor shall any rights or actions which have been divested, barred, or declared null and void by the Constitution and laws of the Republic of Texas be reinvested, revised, or reinstated; but the same shall remain precisely in the situation which they were before the adoption of this Constitution.
    This clause has a twofold bearing on this case : first, in barring the claim here insisted on by the appellant; and, second, in sustaining the vested right of the appellee. After the 14th January, 1844, the former was barred, the link that connected him with the land in controversy, to wit, his certificate, was fraudulent in law, and he could claim no right of property or action by virtue of a nullity. After that time the right of property and action on the part of the appellees vested. This is the position in which the Constitution found the parties, and it expressly declares they shall remain as to each other precisely in the same position in which they wereibefore the adoption of the Constitution. It is not denied that the political power could by law or by statutory enactment change the position of a party in relation to itself; but tiie organic law absolutely prohibits such change where third parties are interested, and an attempted law to that effect would be a nullity.
    The Constitution, however, confers the power on the Legislature of providing a remedy for any equitable claim that may have existed against the State. To this there can be no serious objection, no conflicting rights intervening. The State waived tiie bar of 1844 in favor of herself. The second section of the 11th article of the Constitution authorized the Legislature again to open tiie courts till 1st July, 1S47, that those who had been entitled to head-rights under previous laws might establish them. The power was conferred with another limitation. And it will be remarked that though the words ‘‘certificates for headlights” are mentioned in the 2d section, nothing is said of these ‘‘certificates ” being revived or reinstated. They are to be construed as descriptive of the class'of persons intended to be benefited rather than as a revived or reinstated evidence of a right. The words are to be understood as under the old law providing for the issuance of patents to legal claimants. The jurisdiction of the court with regard to the land claims was special and limited to that class of persons whose certificates had not been recommended; but (he certificate itself proves nothing, even as against tiie Government that had issued it. Much less could it prove anything as against a third party. So under tiie new Constitution ; it was not evidence of nor connected with any right, but simply descriptive of the claimant.
    The latter part of the second section, to wit, “all relocations made on such surveys shall not be disturbed until the certificates are established as above directed,” may either mean, first, that where a relocation has been made, and no more done towards perfecting the right, the original survey, with a certificate obtained under [lie authority of the second section, shall have the preference, or, second, it may be, construed prospectively and refer to relocations made after the adoption of the State Constitution.
    The first construction would be consistent with tiie principle decided in the case of League v. l)e young, &c. The obligation remains imperfect on the part of the Government as long as it retains the fee, and “as an incident attached to the fee being in the Government, it lias the right to attach such terms and impose such regulations as maybe, deemed most consistent with sound policy.” The political power, for political reasons, might give to a survey priority over a mere location. This construction, however, sustained by the case cited, might not be in exact conformity with, tiie principles assorted in tilt' 20th section of the general provisions referred to before. A prospective construction will in no way conflict with tiie other provisions of the Constitution, ami would therefore seem to be the trite one.
    The one adopted by the appellant to sustain his title goes entirely beyond tho case of League, v. De Young, and would extend the exercise of’ political power to eases where the Government had parted with the fee. In this case the right of the appellee was not inchoate, but perfected into a grant. This view, in fact, so far from being sustained by tiie case cited, is in direct, conflict with it; for the opinion states that the “imposition of terms and regulations is an incident to the fee being in the Government,” conveying by the strongest implication that if the fee has passed, the political power has no control.
    But the construction of the appellant renders the 20th section of the general provisions a dead letter. It divests a vested right; it revives and reinstates a barred claim by retrospective relation. This view too would secure a complete triumph of fraud over all the legislative vigilance of the Government on this ■subject. After all the laws and decisions had, the land must have been appropriated and continued appropriated after tile limitation of 1844,and if no further organic or legislative action had been taken, it would have remained in that condition throughout all time. It was not enough according to this view that the certificate by virtue of which it was held was in law fraudulent; that no patent could issue; that a penalty was imposed on the commissioner for respecting in any manner any asserted right connected with such a location and survey. All this was in vain. The land was still propertyunder afrandulent claim, proved to be such, and could be held without a title when it could not be 'held by an inchoate title.
    It has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that a patent must prevail overall inchoate right, though prior in time and subsequently confirmed. (Les Bois v. Brammell, 4 How. B.) There it is sought to make an inchoate right last in time prevail over the title.
   Hemphill, Ch. J.

This cause involves important questions. They were fully argued by counsel, and have been considered by the court; but, before announcing the result of our deliberations, an objection fatal to the exercise of tlie revisory jurisdiction has presented itself in the fact that no final judgment was rendered in the court below. The judgment does not show a disposition of the subject-matter of the controversy. It furnishes no evidence of the result of the dispute. There is no sentence pronounced upon the matters contained in the record for one party or the other. There is a verdict for defendants. Upon this should have been entered a corresponding judgment that the plaintiff take nothing by his suit, or that the title of the defendants to the lands be confirmed, or any equivalent order which on the facts as found would afford the relief appropriate to the law of the case. (1 Bail., 7; Dallam, 373.) There is judgment for costs only. The recovery of costs by a defendant is a legal consequence of a judgment upon the matters controverted in his favor. And the judgment for the costs alone is not such final judgment or decree as can be brought up for revision, and the appeal must therefore be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. (9 Mo. R., 354.)

And here this opinion might close were it not deemed expedient to express some conclusions as to the legal effect upon the rights of the defendants of the re-establishment of the headlight certificate under which the plaintiff claims title.

In support of the charge of the court reference is made to various provisions of the laws relative to the detection of fraudulent land certificates and the reestablishment of such certificates as were not recommended to be genuine and legal claims.

The act adopted January 29, 1840, (Acts of 1840, p. 139,) authorized the appointment of commissioners to ascertain and report what certificates had 'been issued to legal claimants; and the Commissioner of the General Land Office was prohibited from issuing a patent upon any survey “which shall not have been or may thereafter be made by virtue of a certificate returned as genuine and legal by the commissioners appointed under this act,” and a patent issued contrary to the provisions of the act is declared to be null and void. By :an act approved February 5, 1840, (Acts of 1840, p. 161,) locations and surveys from and after the first of day May thereafter were prohibited on certificates not certified as having been reported to be genuine and legal, and all surveys made contrary to the intent and meaning of the act were declared to be null and void. The Commissioner of the General Land Office was, by an act of the 19th of January, 1841, required to issue patents upon all claims which had been or might thereafter be recommended by the investigating board of commissioners. By the act of Congress of the 4th of February, 1841, (Dallam, 334.) individuals holding unrecommended certificates were authorized to file their petitions in the District Court, setting forth the grounds of their claims, and on a verdict of the jury in their favor, they were entitled to a certificate to that effect; and the Commissioner of the General Land Office was required to issue a patent on said claims in the same manner as if said claims had been recommended as genuine and legal by the board of commissioners appointed under the act to detect fraudulent land certificates. By a supplemental act approved January 14, 1843, it was declared that suits for the establishment of certificates not recommended should be commenced on or before the 1st day of January, 1844, and not thereafter. The courts were not afterwards by any legislative act of the Republic reopened for the establishment of such claims. But by section 2, article XI, of the Constitution, it was provided that they should be opened for that purpose until the 1st day of July, 1847, and all certificates not sned upon or established before the period limited were declared to be barred, and the certificates and locations and surveys thereon to be null and void; and it was further declared that all locations made on such surveys’ should not be disturbed until the certificates were established.

These are believed to be all the provisions which by supposition can materially ailect the questions raised on the charge of the court, and we proceed to examine, but very briefly, the doctrine on which the instruction is predicated.

It will be perceived that patents issued on surveys made by authority of unreeommeuded certificates are declared to bo mill and void; that locations and surveys on certificates were, after the 1st day of May, 1840, prohibited, and the surveys declared to be nullities. The law prohibiting the location of fraudulent land certificates was approved February 5, 1840, and the position cannot be maintained that the prohibition against surveys on unrecognized certificates after the 1st of May, 1840, legalized by implication surveys made previously on a certificate not reported at the time of the survey, or subsequently, to be genuine. The extension of the time to the 1st of May was to prevent a suspension of locations and surveys during the period likely to bo occupied by the investigating board in completing their examinations, but not to elevate surveys made before the 1st of May over those subsequent to that date. Consequently all surveys previously made on a certificate not subsequently recommended would be equally void with those made posterior to the 1st of May. Nor does a survey prior to the passage of the law of the 5th February, 1840, occupy a higher ground than those made subsequently. The commissioner is prohibited from patenting surveys on certificates not recognized as genuine without regard to the date* of the survey, and such patents are declared void, and the ground of the prohibition and nullity, as appears from the law, is that tiro foundation of the survey and patent is radically defective. The authority upon which the survey was made is pronounced to be invalid, and is no evidence of a claim against the Government. A survey, whensoever made, if supported by a recommended certificate, is in contemplation of law valid; if otherwise, it is without legal foundation, and constitutes no such evidence of claim as entitles it to satisfaction out of the public domain.

By the subsequent law of February 4, 1841, suits for the re-establishment of unrecommended certificates were authorized, and patents, on their re-establishment, were directed to issue in the same manner as if they had been recommended by the investigating board of commissioners, and this authorization to sue was afterwards limited to the 1st of January, 1844.

It was not, contended in this case that tills land was open to location at any tune before the 1st of January, 1844. The facts of the case do not require-that the point should be considered. The questions raised ior decision are whether the land should be regarded as vacant after the 1st of January, 1844, and whether the defendant’s rights under their patent can be impaired by the re-establishmeñt of the certificate under the Constitution.

We have already determined that the acts to detect fraudulent land certificates were valid and not repugnant to the Constitution of the Republic of Texas; and this not being an open question, it seems extremely clear that at tlie time of the location, survey, and patent under the certificate of the defendants the land was vacant, or, in other words, subject to location by any claim recognized in law as valid against the Government. A patent on the survey of the same land, made by virtue of the plaintiff’s original certificate, would, by positive declaration of law, have been a nullity on the ground that it was founded on a certificate which, being without the sanction of the commissioners, constituted no evidence of claim against the Government. To prevent the absorption of the public domain by forged and fraudulent certificates, the law had declared in effect that all certificates not reported as genuine should not, either alone or with their locations and surveys, be regarded as claims against the Government. The obligation upon the political'authority to make provisions for recognition of such just claims as had not been reported by the commissioners was acknowledged by the passage of laws opening the courts to claimants but for a limited period. If the plantiff had availed himself of his privilege under the law and had succeeded in proving his claim, he would have been entitled to the land. But as he neglected to institute proceedings, his certificate and the location and survey thereon did not, after the 1st of January, 1844, constitute a claim against tlie Government, and consequently did not operate as a bar to the patent of defendants, and cannot of their own force affect the rights of the latter.

It was not necessary that there should have been a distinct declaration in the law of limitation that if certificates were not sued upon within the fixed period they should be forever barred; that the surveys thereon should be void. With or without this declaration, they were not after that period cognizable by the officers of the Government. They could not be'asserted in a court of justice, and they fell into the mass of unrecommended certificates, and were subject to their legal disabilities.

It is contended by the counsel of the appellees, in an argument distinguished generally for its clearness and logical accuracy, that the rights of the defendants are protected under the 20th section of the general provisions of the Constitution, which declares in effect that the rights of property and of action shall remain precisely in the situation in which 'they were before-the adoption of the Constitution. The extent of the operation of this section is that if the rights were of a character to be beyond the control of legislation before the adoption of the Constitution, they should so continue; if otherwise, they should be subject to the action of the legislative authority in like manner as they had been under the Constitution and laws of the Republic. The provision can have but slight influence on the rights of the parties in this controversy, except so far as they may come in aid of the general principles of law invoked to-support the rights of the defendants.

The point in dispute must be determined by the 2d section of the Xlth article of the Constitution; and did this conflict with the 20th section of the general provisions, tlie former must govern, as it specially regulates the subject-matter, and is equally with tlie other the behest of supreme authority. This authorizes suit to be had to re-establish the certificate, but does not declare that this confirmation shall have relation back to tlie original location, so as to overreach a patent issued previous to the date at which the Constitution went into operation.

Nor is there any principle or rule of law or equity under which this confirmation could have had retroactive operation, so as to clothe the plaintiff with the superior equity to the land. We have already said that the land was open to location at the time of the survey and patent of the defendants. The confirmation of the plaintiff’s certificate shows that he had an existing dormant equity upon the conscience of the political authority; hut he had no right which was recognized in law or which could he enforced in a court of justice at the date of the location, survey, or patent of the defendants. There was no existing bar to the acquisition of the fee hy the defendants or to its relinquishment by the Government; and consequently the title of the defendants cannot be impeached hy the subsequent confirmation of the plaintiff’s inchoate title to the land.

The doctrine by which a junior patent or confirmation (as in this case) is held to have relation bade to the inception of the right and take dignity accordingly, and thus overreach any patent which may have been previously granted for the same land, hut on a junior equity, applies only in cases where the prior equity is valid in law or, in other words, the subject of cognizance by the officers of the Government at the date of the elder patent. This doctrine is explained with such clearness and precision in the case of Les Bois v. Brammell (4 How. U. S. R., 462) that I will transcribe a portion of tiie opinion. The plaintiff (Les Bois) claimed under a concession dated in 1802, but for want of prosecution her claim stood barred in 1829. The land was confirmed to the defendant, Brammell, in 1831, and subsequently, in 1836, the concession of Les Bois was declared to be valid and confirmed. “It is insisted,” says the court., “that the confirmation of 1836 established the original validity of Les Bois’s title; and the confirmation having operated on the concession of 1802, therefore, by relation, it overreaches the confirmation of the town commissioners of 1812 and 1831.

“The doctrine of relation in an action of ejectment, by which the legal title by patent is made to take date from the entry or inception of the title, is familiar in some of the States and has been acted on in this court. It applies where both litigant parties have a grant. The case of Ross v. Borland (1 Pet. R., 655) was of this description. There the younger patent was founded on the best right in equity, standing in advance of either patent, and the equities were tried at law.

“But if the elder or better equity had not been carried into a grant, a court of equity might have administered the same measure of justice, and decreed the land from the patentee, whose legal title was founded on the inferior equity.” “The plaintiff admits her grant, of itself, is insufficient to authorize a recovery, and that she must go behind it; and there she is met by the objection that her claim had no standing in a court of equity or law up to the date of its confirmation, and depended on the political power.”

And it was held that the confirmation did not reach back to the original concession, so as to exclude grants of the same land made in the intermediate time. The rule is applicable to this case. The confirmation cannot restore the original validity of the plaintiff’s claim, so as to impair the right of the defendants, acquired at a time when the claim of the plaintiff formed no bar in law or equity to the location and completion of their title. (Barry v. Gamble, 3 How. R., 55; Choteau v. Eckhart, 2 How. R., 352; Strother v. Lucas, 12 Pet. R., 448; Mills v. Stoddard et al., December Term, 1849, Sup. Ct. H. S.)

"VVe will consider very briefly whether the title of the defendants can be affected by the provision that “ relocations on such survejrs shall not he disturbed until the certificates are established as above directed.”

This is a negative pregnant with an affirmative that such relocations shall be disturbed after confirmation of the original certificate, and, in my judgment, prohibits after such confirmation patents to be issued on any such relocations or resurveys. The exercise of such power over the public domain would not transcend the ordinary limits of legislative authority. The plaintiff, as is shown by the subsequent confirmation of his certificate, had a dormant right to the land, and as long as the fee remained in the Government, it could be rightfully transferred to the claimant, who liad the prior equity, if this could be done by legislative authority, a fortiori, could it be ordained by the convention in the exercise of supreme sovereignty. But these principles have no application to titles such as the defendants’, where the fee in the land had been relinquished by the Government anterior to the passage or at least the operative force of the' constitutional provision.

Note 77. — Hawks v. Thompson, ante, 6.

Note 78. — It was competent for the Legislature to create a tribunal to examine and decide apon the legality of their certificates, and approve them before they should be recognized as valid claims against the Government; and to limit the time within which they must be presented for such approval. (Peck v. Moody, 23 T., 93; Durrett v. Crosby, 28 T., 687.)

Note 79. — Hughes v. Lane, G T., 289.

Note 80. — Howard u ¡Perry, 7 T., 259; Hamilton v. Avery, 20 T., 612.

Note 81. — Jennings v. De Cordova, 20 T., 508.

And the clause in the Constitution, if susceptible of a different interpretation, cannot be construed to divest or annul the perfect rights which by operation of and in conformity with the laws had vested in the defendants. To have annulled perfect rights was beyond doubt within the powers of the convention; but this cannot be assumed to have been their intention unless embodied in express terms or be the result of unavoidable implication.

We have deemed it proper to express these conclusions on the points embraced in this opinion to dispense with the necessity and avoid the expense of a second appeal. There are other points of interest in the record, and collateral questions of importance have suggested themselves in the course of this examination. But on these we forbear the expression of an opinion as not essential to the decision of this controversy.

It is ordered that the appeal be dismissed and the same be certified to the court below.

Appeal dismissed.