Messenger v. Mason

MOTION to dismiss a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa. The case was thus:

Mason sued Messenger in one of the county courts of Iowa, to recover the possession of certain land in that State. He relied upon a judgment in partition of the tract, rendered in the District Court of the Territory of Iowa, in April, 1841, in pursuance of a law of that Territory.

The defendant objected to the admission of the record of judgment on the ground that the law under which the proceedings were had was unconstitutional and void.

The objection was overruled, the record admitted, and a verdict and judgment rendered for the plaintiff. On an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Territory, by the defendant, the judgment was affirmed, and the case was brought here as within the 25th section of the Judiciary Act.

The certificate from the Supreme Court of Iowa certified:

'That on the final hearing, the validity of the partition law of Iowa Territory, approved January 4th, 1839, was drawn in question, on the ground that the same was in conflict with the Ordinance of 1787, the Constitution of the United States, the treaties and laws thereof, that the objections thereto were overruled, and the statute held to be valid.'

The Territory of Iowa, it should be stated, was not a part of that to which the Ordinance of 1787 originally applied, but was a part of the Louisiana purchase. Prior to June 12th, 1838, it was part of the Territory of Wisconsin. The act, however, of the date just mentioned, which set it off and made its organic law, incorporated into its laws, indirectly, many of the provisions of the ordinance by extending to its inhabitants the rights and privileges theretofore secured to the Territory of Wisconsin by its organic law, among which were those found in the ordinance. But the section that conferred these rights and privileges upon the new Territory of Iowa, provided that they should be subject 'to be altered, modified, or repealed' by its governor and legislative assembly.

Mr. Mason now moved to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction, submitting that the certificate did not present any Federal question, and that the case was not within the 25th section.

Mr. Wills, contra, insisted that it was plain enough by the certificate that a right set up under the Ordinance of 1787 had been denied to his clients in consequence of the partition law of Iowa; and as the Ordinance of 1787, made by the Congress of the Confederation, was continued in force by an act of the Congress of the United States, that a Federal question was thus raised.

Mr. Justice NELSON delivered the opinion of the court.