The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1885-01-29
The Brown Land Bill.
Picl:ens Sentinel.

Mr.. EDITOR: I notice that the Green.
will Daily News of the 4th instant com.
ments rather unfavorably on what has
been said by the Pickens Sentinel, and
endorsed by the ANDERSON INTELL1.
GENcER. in regard to the Brown Land
Bill, which was rejected by the House at
The recent sitting of the Legislature.
The Ncms closes what it has to say with
these words: "The Legislature refused
to grant this perfectly proper request and
permit transaction which would GER
iainly have allowed the widow and chill
dren of an honest Suuth Carolina citizen
to realize on property honestly inherited
from him, and would probably have been
of immense benefit to the State, because
it did not know anything more about the
matter than our esteemed contemporaries
DE-, and, like them, undertook to act
without taking the trouble to learn"
If these remarks are Just, the action of
the House in rejecting the Bill
was unjust. 1t acted, the News
says, without taking the trouble to
learn what it was doing IF legisla.
tive body is not convinced that it is right
to adopt given proposition, is certain
ly safest to reject it. 1t was the duty of
those who desired the passage of the
Bill, to inform the Legislature of its
merits, but no such information was CIV
en-. Yet that supine body, the South
Carolina Legislature, which undertook
to act without taking the trouble to learn"
did learn as follows: In the year l794a
certain party obtained from the State a
grant for one hundred and thirty acres of
land, lying in the upper portion of Oco-
nee and Pickens Counties. Its claimed,
on one hand, that this land has come
from the original grantee by descent, sale,
assignment, &C., down to the heirs of &.
w. Brown; but these say there is a miss
ing link in their chain of title, and they
asked FOR the passage of this bill to rem.
edy this defect. On the other hand it
was learned" that there is an entirely
different party claiming the land in ques'
ton, under the same grant of 1894.
With this party / conyersed several times
while in Columbia. He stated that if
the rights required under the original
grant had been forfeited for non n.payment
of taxes, he was willing and ready to pay
whatever was right for The States claim.
It is clear, that it would have been very
improper for the legislative power of the
State to have interlered, in what is now
or will soon be, a contest between indl-
viduals over rights which apparently
conflict, and that too, without any knowl-
edge as to the legal status of the respec-
tive claimants.
As the Legislature did not have time
to do "al that it should have done,"
as a legislative body, it should not have
wasted time in dischargiug the functions
of Circuit Court.
The Legislature also learned" or at
least heard that when this grant Of 1894
was made, the land office had been closed
by an Act of the General Assembly and
was to remain closed for four years.
There is a preamble to this act which
among other things recites that many
persons were obtaining grants for large
areas of land with no intention Of i'm
proving them. This grant, therefore,
may be void on its face. Almost the
entire scope of country covered by the
grant of 1874, has been recovered by
junior grants from the State, whose
officers it seems have ignored the said
grant.
Tie House acted also under the vague
impression that there is already a law by
which forfeited lands can be redeemed,
and that it is the prerogative of the sink
ing fund commission to dispose of vacant
lands.
Moreover, itseems to me, thatit would
be bad precedent for State which has
courts for the adjustment of claims, and
the trial OF titles, to undertake, by legis.
lative enactment, to bridge over the
cha-n,s made by the statute of limita-
lions and the careessness of individuals.
If the able editors of the Sentinel and
the INTELLIGEHcER spoke without
knowing, in my humble judgment, they
spoke we'll.
Respectfully,