Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/116

 108 FEDERALISTS companied him in all his journeys, though not in this ascent, designs publishing. FEDERALISTS, a political party in the United States who claimed to be the peculiar friends of the constitution and of the federal govern- ment. Their opponents, the republicans, they called anti-federalists, and charged them to a certain extent with hostility to or distrust of the United States constitution and the general government. The republicans, however, stren- uously denied the truth of these charges. The federalist party was formed in 1788. Its most distinguished leaders were Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jay, and Marshall ; and the leading federalist states were Massachusetts and Con- necticut, supported generally, though not uni- formly, by the rest of New England; while Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Burr, George Clin- ton, and Gallatin led the opposition. In the contests of the French revolution, the federalists leaned to the side of England, the republicans to that of France. The former were defeated in the presidential election of 1800, when the republican candidates were elected, Jefferson president, and Burr vice president. Their op- position to the war of 1812, and above all the calling of the Hartford convention, completed their destruction as a national party. In 1816 Monroe, the republican candidate for president, received the electoral votes of all the states with the exception of Massachusetts, Connec- ticut, and Delaware, which gave 34 votes against him, while from the other states he re- ceived 183. At the next election in 1820 the federalist party was disbanded, Monroe receiv- ing every electoral vote except one. FEDOR. See FEODOK. FEE, a law term, derived probably from Sax. feh, or more accurately feoh, compensation or payment. As landed estates were given by the northern conquerors of the Roman prov- inces to their nobles and soldiers as compen- sation or wages for military service, fee came to mean the estate itself. It was Latinized into feudum or feodum, from which the word feudal arose, because it was this tenure of land which characterized what is called the feudal system. The derivation and original meaning of this word are not certainly known, but what we have given is, we think, supported by the best reasons. In law, estate does not mean the land, but the title which a man has in the land ; so the word fee is now used to signify, not the land, but the kind of estate or tenure by which it is held. The word fee alone means an estate without qualification or limitation; hence the phrase fee simple means the highest estate held of any superior or lord, or by any tenure or service, or strictly speaking, by any tenure whatever ; and the word simple means only that nothing is added to limit or condition the word fee. Hence an estate in fee and an estate in fee simple are the same thing. This is an absolute estate of inheritance ; or an estate which a man holds, descendible to his heirs for ever. There is no event by which it FEE must be terminated or defeated, and no limita- tion or restriction by force of which it must descend to a certain heir or heirs, in exclusion of the rest. A fee simple may be acquired by descent or by purchase. In law, purchase means every mode of acquiring land except descent ; hence if land be given to a man, or devised to him, and he takes by gift or by devise, still he is said in law to take by pur- chase. The essential words in any instrument by which a man should take land in fee, whether by will or deed, are, to the grantee, or devisee, and "his heirs." For if land be given to a man without the word " heirs," he takes only an estate for his own life, and at his death (if there be no remainder over) it reverts to the grantor or his heirs ; and at common law there are no words which could supply the want of these u words of inheritance," as they are called, where there could be heirs. Thus, if land were conveyed or devised to a man " and his successors," he took only an estate for life ; but if these words were used in a deed or devise to a corporation, they were the proper words to create a fee simple, be- cause a corporation should have perpetual suc- cession, but cannot have heirs. If land be granted or devised to A, B, and C, as trustees, then also the word successors would in general carry a fee. The ancient severity of the rule requiring words of inheritance is now relaxed somewhat in England, and more in the United States (in some of the states by statute), es- pecially in respect to wills and trusts. In wills, any words distinctly indicating the purpose of the testator to devise all his estate and interest in a piece of land, are always held now to carry a fee simple ; and in trusts, if one has land given to him with power to sell, this is held to be a power to convey in fee simple. In deeds it is always better to add the words of inheri- tance, but the word " assigns " is not necessary to give the power of transfer, although usually added. There may be a fee simple not only in lands, but in franchises and liberties ; and in England, in dignities and the rights and priv- ileges attached to them ; and even in personal property, as in an annuity. Fees may be less than fee simple, and they are so whenever not simple ; that is, whenever the fee is in any way restrained or diminished. A qualified fee, technically so called, is one in which, by an original limitation, the land goes to a man and his heirs general, and yet is not confined to the issue of his own body ; as if it be given him and to his heirs on the part of his father or a certain ancestor. A determinable fee is a fee which may continue for ever, but which may be determined by the happening of some event which is uncertain. Instances usually given of this are lands conveyed or devised to a man and his heirs until an infant shall attain a cer- tain age, or until such a person shall be mar- ried, or shall have children. A conditional fee means either a fee to which at its origin some condition was annexed, which being