Page:United States Reports, Volume 60.djvu/33

 except such as is or may be reserved frem sale by any law of Congress.”

This court has decided in the cages above cited, and particularly in that in 15 Howard, that the act of 1841 vested no present title in the State of Louisiana, but was a mere authority to enter lands in the same manner as individuals could enter them; and that the entry under a location made by virtue of a State warrant, and backed by a State patent, did not confer the fee in the land, which is only divested by a patent issued by the United States.

Now, although the Secretary of the Interior approved the location, he did so under the mistaken supposition that the land was “public land,” whereas, in point of fact, Congress had already conveyed title to it by the grant in the swamp-land law of 1849.

Before any patent was issued by the United States, therefore, Scudday’s entry was revoked under the authority which has been universally conceded to exist in the offices of the Land Office, since the decision of thie court, made thirty years ago, and never subsequently called in question. Chotard v. Pope, 12 Wheaton, 587.

The case may be summed up in few words, as follows:

1st. Shaffer claims title under a grant made by statute of the United States, vesting the fee in him as fully as a patent would, if issued directly to him. Strother v. Lucas, 12 Peters, 454: Chouteau v. Eckhart, 2 Howard, 344.

2d. Scudday claims under an inchoate title from the United States, not only still incomplete, but which it is impossible ever to render complete, and his title has been erroneously preferred by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, only because he holds a patent from the State.

But no State authority can confer a right in land sufficient to eject a patentee under the United States. Bagnell v. Broderich, 13 Peters, 436.

Mr. Taylor objected to the jurisdiction of this court, upon the following ground:

1. By reference to the decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, it will be seen that the question raised as to the construction of the act of 1849 was not decided by the court. The court expressly said that they “not consider it necessary to decide that question.” “The construction of the act of 1849, by the Secratary of the Interior, may be strictly correct, and yet it does not follow that the location of a warrant, under the internal-improvement law of 1841, which had been approved by the proper department of the Government, and for which