Page:Dakota Territory Reports.djvu/57

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1. INDIAN COUNTRY:. The purpose and effect of the Non-Intercourse Act of 1834, was to declare and proclaim what was then Indian country; country in which the manners, customs and laws of the Indian tribes prevailed, and in which the United States should protect them in all their natural and guaranteed rights, and not to declare or maintain that to be Indian country, which was not in fact in the occupation and und^r the control of the Indians.

2. : . The policy of all branches of the government, from the earliest times, has been to protect all citizens in the occupation of ceded Indian country, and to secure cessions as fast as demanded by the increase of our own population, and when territory has once been solemnly ceded by the Indians, it has never afterwards been considered or treated as Indian country for any purpose.

3. : . Cessions by treaty, duly proclaimed by the President, have always been considered and treated by the people of the United States, as an invitation from the Executive department to all people to come, open and possess the ceded country.

4. : . The Non-Intercourse Act of 1834, wherein it fixed and determined the limits of the Indian country, was modified and changed by the treaty with the Dakota nation of Indians, made in 186S, as it had been by various other preceding treaties.

5. TRESPASS:. The suing out of legal process, and the delivery of the goods to the officer having it, is part of the same transaction, and in the eye of the law, wilfully set on foot and consummated by the party suing out the process, and he is liable to the party against whom the proceedings are instituted for the damages actually sustained.

6. : : . The rule as to what may be shown in mitigation of actual damages sustained in actions of trespass, should be limited to evidence of actual benefit received by the plaintiff, after the trespass, from the property taken.

7. : ; ; . If after the property has been taken in trespass from the owner, an execution against him is levied thereon and the property sold, and a judgment against the owner thereby satisfied, this may be shown in mitigation of damages, and the law will presume the assent of the owner to such application of the property as is for his benefit, to the extent of such benefit.

8. : ; ; . Where the verdict is only for actual damages sustained after deducting all benefits derived by the plaintiff from the return of some portion of the goods, it is incompetent to show in mitigation of damages that after the trespass was committed, and before the goods were returned, they