Page:United States Reports, Volume 60.djvu/35

 the land claimed in the suit. The location having been approved by the Secretary of the Interior, and a certificate to that effect granted by the register, the Governor of Louisiana issued a patent to the plaintiff, bearing date 12th November, 1852.

The opposing title of plaintiff in error is derived under an act of Congress of March 2d, 1849, and certain acts of the Legislature of the State, passed to carry into effect the act of Congress. The first section of the act of Congress of 1849 declares, “that to aid the State of Louisiana in constructing the necessary levees and drains to reclaim the swamp and overflowed lands therein, the whole of the swamp and overflowed lands which are or may be found unfit for cultivating, shall be, and the same are hereby, granted to the State.”

The second section provides, that as soon as the Secretary of the Treasury shall be advised by the Governor of Louisiana that the State has made the necessary preparations to defray the expenses thereof, he shall cause a personal examination to be made, under the direction of the surveyor general thereof, by experienced and faithful deputies, of all the swamp lands therein which are subject to overflow and unfit for cultivation, and a list of the same to be made out and certified by the deputies and the surveyor general to the Secretary of the Treasury, who shall approve the same, so far as they are not claimed and held by individuals; and on that approval the fee simple to said lands shall vest in the State of Louisiana, subject to the disposal of the Legislature thereof, provided, however, that the proceeds of said lands shall be applied exclusively, as far as necessary, to the construction of the levees and drains aforesaid.

On the 21st of March 1850, the Legislature of Louisiana passed an act to enable the Governor to have the swamp and overflowed lands selected; and, in 1852, they passed an act, giving a preference in entering such lands to those in possession of or cultivating them, and the time of entering them was further extended by an act of 1853. The plaintiff in error entered this land on the 18th day of July, 1853, by virtue of a preference-right claimed under that act of the Legislature. He was permitted to make this entry at the State land office, in consequence of the Secretary of the Interior having, on the 14th of April, revoked his approval to the State under the act of 1841, of this and other lands which had been located under warrants sold by the State, in conformity to the act of the Legislature of 1844.

The reason assigned by the Secretary of the Interior was, that these locations had been made subsequent to the passage of the act of Congress of 1849, granting to the State all the swamp and overflowed lands. He states, in his opinion, that he considered the words used in the first section of that act as