Page:United States Reports, Volume 60.djvu/34

 a patent had been subsequently issued by the State, could be revoked, so as to destroy the title conferred by the patent. The question would have been different, if, after the passage by Congress of the act of 1849, the United States had granted the land away from the State of Louisiana. Such was not the case; and as both the acts of 1834 and of 1849 were grants of land to the State, we cannot go behind the patent which the State has granted.” From this it is clear that there was no decision against the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States, &c., &c., in the highest court of Louisiana; and that inasmuch as no error can be assigned or regarded as a ground of reversal, other “than such as appears on the face of the record, and immediately respects the questions of validity or construction,” &c., therefore, there was no right to a writ of error in this case, and that the case must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. 1 Statutes at Large, p. 85, sec. 25; Almonester v. Kenton, 9 Howard, 1.

Mr. Chief Justice TANEY delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana.

It appears that a petitory action was brought by Scudday, the defendant in error, against Shaffer, the plaintiff in error, to recover a quarter section of land described in the pleadings.

The defendant in error derives his title in the following manner: By the eighth section of an act of Congress of the 4th September, 1841, the Government of the United States granted to each of the several States specified in the act, and among them to Louisiana, 500,000 acres of land, for the purposes of internal improvement. The act provided that the selections of the land were to be made in suth manner as the Legislature of the State should direct, the locations to be made on any public lands, except such as were or might be reserved from sale by any law of Congress, or proclamation of the President of the United States. The ninth section of the act provided that the net procceds of the sales of the lands so granted should be applied to objects of internal improvement within the State, such as roads, railways, bridges, canals, and improvement of water-courses and draining of swamps. An act of the Legislature of Louisiana of 1844 provided that warrants for the location of the lands should be sold in the same mauner as the lands were located; and it was made the duty of the Governor to issue patents for the lands located by warrants, whenever he should be satisfied that they had been properly located. The defendant in error, being the holder of such a warrant, located it on