Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/651

 ADAM8 V. OEB KNOB OOPPER 00. 639 �in a eonveyance like the one iiow befbre the court, there should be a, clause providing for a cesser of the estate, and reserving a right of re-entry for a breach of the condition in order to enable the grantor to avail himself of a forfeiture for a breach. ' �-It is a well-settled rule of the common law that the breach or non-performance of a condition annexed in the grant of a freehold estate does not cause an immediate cesser of the estate without a re-entry or claim by the grantor or his heirs, for the purpose of enforcing a forfeiture, although the grant may contain express words declaring it ipso facto void. As a free- hold, at the common law, ccyuld only be created by the noto- riety of livery of seizin, there vt&B needed a corresponding notoriety in order to determine it. This rule was not applicable to estates for years, as they ■commenced without livery of seizin, and could determine without re-entry. As, under the fetatutes of uses, devises, and grants, the ceremony of livery of seizin is dispensed with in the creation of freehold estates, it •would seem that the ceremony of re-entry for the breach or non-perforuiaince of a condition ought to be dispensed with; but the oldrule of the common law is still preserved, uponthe principle that an estate commenced by a solemn act, viz., a grant, must be defeated by an act equally solemn, upon the maxim of the coihmon law, eo ligamine quo ligatur. �At the bdinmon law there is a distinction between a condi- tion that defeats an estate but requires a re-entry, and a limitation or condition in law that determines the estate without entry. Words of limitation circumsoribe the continu- ance of the estate and mark the period which determines it. Under certain conveyances, owing their existence to the stat- iites to which we have above referred, in which livery of seizin is dispensed with in the creation of freehold estates, a condition may be antiexed to such estate, and upon a breach of the same the estate will immediatfely cease as to the first taker ahd pass over to a thifd person, to whom limited, and take effect in possession without entry. It is not necessary for me to consider these doctrines of limitations and condi- tional limitations, as the terms of the grant before us are irj ��� �