Mr. Justice CAMPBELL, dissenting.
The concession, upon which the decree in favor of the United States was pronounced, is for ten square leagues, to be located in a district of country which contains above one hundred square leagues. To the concession there is no plan or design to indicate the place of location; nor was there any survey, delivery of judicial possession, occupancy, or improvement, at any time prior to the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. The conditions to the validity of a grant prescribed by the laws of colonization of Mexico, and which were specifically annexed to the grant under consideration, made these necessary.
The case of Smith v. The United States, 10 Pet. 326, and many others where the doctrine of that case was applied, is, in my opinion, conclusive of this. The claim arose on a petition of St. Vrain to the governor-general of Louisiana, in November, 1795, praying for a grant, in full property to him and his heirs, of ten thousand superficial arpens, with the special permission to locate in separate pieces, upon different mines, of whatever nature they may be, without obliging him to make a settlement; which grant, as prayed for, was granted by the governor-general, in February, 1796.
The court, in that case, collect some of the principles which had been employed by the court in the settlement of claims under the treaties of Florida and Louisiana. 'We have held,' they say, 'that, in ascertaining what titles would have been perfected if no cession had been made to the United States, we must refer to the general course of the law of Spain; to local usage and custom; and not what might have been done by the special favor or arbitrary power of the king or his officers.'
'It has also been distinctly decided,' they say, 'in the Florida cases, that the land claimed must have been severed from the general domain of the king, by some grant which gives it locality by its terms, by reference to some description, or by a vague general grant, with an authority to locate afterwards by survey, making it definite; which grant or authority to locate must have been made before the treaty of cession, (that is, 24th January, 1818.)
The court then coming to the case under consideration, describes it as a 'grant to vest in the petitioner a title in full property to all the lands in the province containing minerals, which he might at any time locate, in quantities to suit his own pleasure.' 'Its condition at the cession was precisely as it was at the date of the grant; there was no evidence that the grantee had done or offered to do any act, or made any claim or demand, asserting or affirming any right under the grant.' The court say, that, at the date of the surrender of Louisiana, 'there was not an arpen on which his right had any local habitation; until a location was made, it was a mere authority to locate, which he might have exercised at his pleasure, both as to time and place, by the agency of a public surveyor authorized to separate lands from the royal domain by a survey pursuant to a grant, warrant, or order of survey.
'At the time of the cession, nothing had been so severed, either by a public or private surveyor, or any act done by which the king could in any way be considered as a trustee for St. Vrain, for any portion of the ten thousand arpens; and there was no spot in the whole ceded territory in which he had, or could claim, an existing right of property. An indispensable prerequisite to such right was some act by which his grant would acquire such locality as to attach to some spot; until this was done, the grant could by no possibility have been perfected into a complete title. It is clear, therefore, that the integrity of the public domain had in no way been affected by this grant, (in March, 1804,) at the treaty of cession.'
Here was a grant, 'in full property,' from the highest political authority having the power to make grants-without condition or limitation as to the manner or time of the survey-pronounced invalid, for the reason that, when the sovereign parted with the territory, it had no definite location nor limit.