Opinion of the Court.

sitting as a board, together with such documentary evidence and testimony of witnesses as the said claimant relies upon in support of such claims; and it shall be the duty of the commissioners when the case is ready for hearing to proceed promptly to examine the same upon such evidence and upon the evidence produced in behalf of the United States, and to decide upon the validity of the said claims."

We think that counsel put too limited a signification on the words of section 8, that the claim shall be "by virtue of, any right or title derived from the Spanish or Mexican government." The words of course were descriptive of the class of claims of which the Board of Land Commissioners was given jurisdiction. They made a special tribunal of the board limited to hear a particular class of claims, but not limited to the questions of law and fact which could arise in passing on and determining the validity of any claim of the class. The power to consider whatever was necessary to the validity of the claim-propositions of law or propositions of fact-the fact of a grant, or the power to grant, was conferred. If there should be a wrong decision the remedy was not by a collateral attack on the judgment rendered. The statute provided the remedy. It allowed an appeal to the District Court of the United States, and from thence to this court. Legal procedure could not afford any better safeguards against error. Every question which could arise on the title claimed could come to and receive judgment from this court. The scheme of adjudication was made complete and all the purposes of an act to give repose to titles were accomplished. And it was certainly the purpose of the act of 1851 to give repose to titles. It was enacted not only to fulfil our treaty obligations to individuals, but to settle and define what portion of the acquired territory was public domain. It not only permitted but required all claims to be presented to the board, and barred all from future assertion which were not presented within two years after the date of the act. Sec. 13. The jurisdiction of the board was necessarily commensurate with the purposes of its creation, and it was a jurisdiction to decide rightly or wrongly. If wrongly a corrective was afforded, as we have said, by an appeal by the claimant or by the United States to the

Opinion of the Court.

District Court. Sec. 9. Indeed, the proceedings in the District Court were really new, and further evidence could be taken. Sec. 10. Upon the confirmation of the claim by the commissioners or by the District or Supreme Court, a patent was to issue and be conclusive against the United States. Sec. 15.

Further general discussion we do not think is necessary. This court has had occasion heretofore to consider the statute and the jurisdiction of the Board of Land Commissioners. Beard v. Federy, 3 Wall.-478; More v. Steinback, 127 U. S. 70.

In considering what was involved in the inquiry into the validity of a claim to land under the act, this court said in More v. Steinback, quoting United States v. Fossatt, 21 How. 445:

"It is obvious that. the answer to this question must depend in a great measure upon the state and condition of the evidence. It may present questions of the genuineness and authenticity of the title, and whether the evidence is forged or fraudulent; or it may involve an inquiry into the authority of the officer to make a grant, or whether he was in the exercise of the faculties of his office when it was made. .

The plaintiff in More v. Steinback depended upon a patent of the United States issued to one Manuel Antonio Rodrigues de Poli, dated August 24, 1864. It recited the proceedings taken before the Land Commissioners under the act of March 3, 1851; the filing of his petition in March, 1852, asking for the confirmation of his title to a tract of land known as the Mission of San Buena Ventura, his claim being founded upon a sale made on the 8th of June, 1846, by the then governor of the department of the Californias; the affirmation of the decree successively by the District Court of the Southern District of California, and by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the survey of the claim confirmed. It was contended that the sale to Poli of the ex-Mission San Buena Ventura was illegal and void, and hence no title passed to the patentee on its confirmation, and in support of the contention, United States v. Workman, 1 Wall. 745, was cited.

Replying to the contention, the court said by Mr. Justice Field:

Opinion of the Court.

"In that case (United States v. Workman) it was held that the departmental assembly of California had no power to authorize the governor to alienate any public lands of the department, and that its own power was restricted to that conferred by the laws of colonization, which was simply to approve or disapprove of the grants made by the governor under those laws. But it does not follow that there were not exceptional circumstances with reference to the sale to Poli, which authorized the governor to make it. We are bound to suppose that such was the case, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, from the fact that the validity of his claim under it was confirmed by the Board of Land Commissioners, by the District Court of the United States, and by this court on appeal. The question of its validity was thereby forever closed, except as against those who might be able to show a prior and better title to the premises."

More fully on the point of the effect of the patent it was said in Beard v. Federy:

"This instrument is, therefore, record evidence of the action of the government upon the title of the claimant. By it the government declares that the claim asserted was valid under the laws of Mexico; that it was entitled to recognition and protection by the stipulations of the treaty, and might have been located under the former government, and is correctly located now, so as to embrace the premises as they are surveyed and described. As against the government this record, so long as it remains unvacated, is conclusive. And it is equally conclusive against parties claiming under the government by title subsequent. It is in this effect of the patent as a record of the government that its security and protection chiefly lie. If parties asserting interest in lands acquired since the acquisition of the country could deny and controvert this record, and compel the patentee, in every suit for his land, to establish the validity of his claim, his right to its confirmation, and the correctness of the action of the tribunals and officers of the United States in the location of the same, the patent would fail to be, as it was intended it should be, an instrument of quiet and security to its possessor. The patentee would find his title recog

Opinion of the Court.

nized in one suit and rejected in another, and if his title were maintained, he would find his land located in as many different places as the varying prejudices, interests, or notions of justice of witnesses and jurymen might suggest. Every fact upon which the decree and patent rest would be opened to contestation. The intruder, resting solely upon his possession, might insist that the original claim was invalid, or was not properly located, and therefore he could not be disturbed by the patentee. No construction which will lead to such results can be given to the fifteenth section. The term 'third persons,' as there used, does not embrace all persons other than the United States and the claimants, but only those who hold superior titles, such as will enable them to resist successfully any action of the government in disposing of the property."

Plaintiffs in error deny the applicability of Beard v. Federy to the case at bar. We think it is applicable. They attempt to distinguish More v. Steinback. We think it cannot be distinguished. That case, it is said, depended upon the possible presence of "exceptional circumstances with reference to the sale to Poli which authorized the governor to make it (the grant)." And it hence contended that the court felt itself "bound to suppose such was the case in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. And taking for granted," counsel further say, "as it had to do, the jurisdiction of the board of commissioners that confirmed the Poli claim, the court could reach no other conclusion. But the very thing which this court was compelled to assume in the case of the Poli claim (namely, the jurisdiction of the land commissioners), for the want of evidence to the contrary, is the thing which in this case we offered to prove in the court below did not exist; but we were denied that privilege, and this denial we insist was error."

But how was it attempted to be shown that such jurisdiction did not exist? It was attempted to be shown, as declared in the assignment of error, by "the petition of said de Celis before the board of land commissioners for the confirmation of his claim to the land, together with copies of the grant from Governor Pico to him, and the decision of confirmation by the board."

Syllabus.

There is nothing in either of those papers which show that exceptional circumstances with reference to the sale to de Celis did not exist. The petition makes a claim of title based on "a deed of grant dated the seventeenth day of June of the year eighteen hundred and forty-six, by Pio Pico, constitutional governor of the Californias, thereto duly authorized by the supreme government of the nation and by a decree of the departmental assembly of April third, eighteen hundred and forty-six."

The decision of the board recites that Pio Pico testified that he had special instructions from his government to make the grant, and the decision further recites that "the genuineness of the grant is clearly established and the circumstances under which it was made so clearly explained as to leave no doubt but it was done in good faith."

The papers offered in evidence therefore, instead of showing the non-existence of special circumstances with reference to the sale to de Celis, which authorized the governor to make it, affirm the existence of those circumstances, and the contention of plaintiffs in error is reduced to this dilemma: The papers ruled out, the validity of the grant will be implied. The papers ruled in, the validity of the grant will be shown.

Judgment affirmed.

GUSMAN v. MARRERO.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF

LOUISIANA.

No. 223. Submitted December 3, 1900.-Decided January 7, 1901.

The purpose of the proceeding in this case was to deliver from the custody of the sheriff of the parish of Jefferson, Louisiana, a person who was under sentence of death for the crime of assault with intent to commit rape, of which he was convicted. The contention of the appellee was that this was not an application for habeas corpus, nor for a writ of mandamus, but was an ordinary action. The appellant not only concedes the fact, but asserts it. It follows necessarily that he has no cause of action. The same result would follow if the court regarded the proceeding as one in habeas corpus.

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