Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-12-08
THE TITLE TO ARLINGTON
The Supreme Court DecisiOn-The Title
Still in the Heirs of the Lats Sonfeder-
ate General Lee.

ATE Oenefal Lee.
Wq9k34QEop Special to Ne,e York WorLd.
Ihe Supreme Court in deciding against
the dissent of Chief Justice Waite and
justices Gray, Bradley and Woods that
| GENERAL bees heirs still own the 100
acres ON Arlington Heights. which. under
9 special act of Congress, the government
bought for $26, 800 at a tax sale for a tax of
only $92 O7, have paid eX-Judge William
ID. Shlpman. the counsel for the ee estate.
the distinguished and verY unusual com
pliment of adopting into the opinion of the
| court nearly all the language of his very
elaborate brief of forty-six printed
pages, which he FLED in addition to
making an oral argument, General Lee
took the property through his wife. a
daughter of George Washington Parke
Custis, who owned the Arlington estate
for many years. Judge Shipman began
the suit in ejectment against the Sunagio-
tendent of the cemetery as Ialninal de-
fendant, but the government interpleaded
and defended The Lee heirs recovered
possession below and the United states
apPeaiea-settiag aIG;e.H Td II up the right Of SOW
answered;
The notion that Tublic officers n,
agents VINO are Created and governed bv
Ia" ~Idid shut out all judicial inquiry in
/ to the character Of their acts by invoking
the mystic but omnipotent power of SOW
ereign prerogatiYe, and interpos-
ing that between them and their
victims, had not, at that period.
taken root or even terminated, 1t is
due TO the character of the illustrious iu
rists and lawyers who took part in most
of the cases which / have cited, and to the
age in which they lived, TO say that the
atmosphere in which their lives had been
spent was not one in which this idea of
sovereign prerOgative could sprOut and
grow to the pOrtentOus dimensions now
claimed for it. Some of them had DeriIed
their lives and estates to found a govern
ment which would secure the person and
property of the citizen against arbitrary
power, and the rest had been Graded and
nursed by the spirit which rejects its
yoke. And disguise this question as we
may, robe it in any drapery of official
and professional language VIC may
select, the doctrine cOntended for nv
the Attorney General here is a plea for
the extension of executive and the con
traction Of judicial power by exempt
ing executive acts from judicial scrutiny
Wnere those acts touch the property Of a.
private citizen. Such a doctrine is in
deadly hostility to the declared object of
the Federal Constitution to establish
justice and secure the blessings
OF liberty to the people of the United
States and their pOsterity. 1t is doc
trine in conflict with the fundamental
principles of liberty; and the whole lite
nature which records the struggles of peO-
pies against the domination of arbitrary
executive power glows with the spirit
which repUdiates it with scOrn."
These principles Justice Miller, for the
court, apply to the facts established by
the verdict that the law of Virginia as to
taxes made no payment of tax valid un-
less paid personally by the owner, and
that when the time for payment came
General Lee was beyond hostile lines.
Much of intendment as to the relations of
secession with the government and as to
the status of citizens in the Confederacv
towards the continuing State laws NAV
possibly lie behind this decision-which
may be the reason why the strong Re-
publican element of the court dissented
from Judge Shipman's views as accented
by majority of the court. The United
States Will now endeavor to acquire .
valid title to the Arlington estate. either
by direct purchase from the Lee heirs or
by instituting condemnation proceedings
under the law relating 10 eminent
domain,