Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/749

 134 FEDKBAL REPORTES. �of the country, whieh before had no jurlsdicUon whatever over the subject- matter. The very institution of these suits in the name and by the authority of the goveniment, was well calculated to produce, and undoubtedly did pro- duce, a general distrust of such titles, and a wide-spread if not a well-f ounded alarm." Id. 85-6. �It is a still more "startling proposition," that any citizen at his own option, 13 years after a claim for confirmation of a Mexican grant bas been presented to the proper tribunals of tfae country, and nearly tbree years after the decree of confirmation bas been affirmed by the supreme court of the United States, and pending the survey and final location, and during the ordinary delays incident to issuing a patent, can by a mere entry or trespass upon the lands so claimed, and in litigation between the government and the claimant, acquire a status that will enable him to attack and avoid the whole proceed- ings, and for his own benefit control the title vested by the patent under the grant, in which grant he bas no interest In this case there is no attack on the genuineness of the grant. It is only the location of the grant that is assailed. Upon the inviolability of the location, Mr. Justice Field, with the concurrence of the circuit and district judges in U. S. v. Flint, 4 Sawy. 61, said: �'^As to the alleged error in the survey of the claim, it need onlybe observed that the whole subject of surveys upon conflrmed grants, except as pro- vided by the act of 1860, which did not embrace this case, was under the con- trol of the land department, and was not subject to the supervision of the courts. Whether the survey conforms to the claim conflrmed, or varies from it, is a matter with which the courts have nothing to do; that belongs to a department whose action is not the subject of review by the judiciary in any case, however erroneous. The courts can only examine into the correctness of a survey when, in a contre versy between parties, it is alleged that the sur- vey made infringes upon the prior rights of one of them ; and can then look into it only so far as may be necessary to protect such rights. They cannot order a new survey, or cliange that already made." �This was said in a case where the United States was complainant in the bill. A fortiori must this be true as to a party having the status of the complainant in this bill. In the conclusions stated by Hqffman, J., in U. S. v. Flint, 4 Sawy. 84, 85, and especially in 1, 2, 3, and 6, I fully concur. See, also, pages 86, 87. The government, to carry out the provisions of the treaty, committed this whole mat- ter to other and special tribunals, except so far as brought before tue ordinary courts for review or appeal. The circuit courts, in the exer- cise of their general and ordinary jurisdiction, had nothing to do with ��� �