Page:United States Reports, Volume 60.djvu/36

 importing a grant in presenti, and as confirming a right to the land, though other proceedings were to necessary to perfect the title; and that when the title was perfected, it had relation back to the date of the grant. His approval to the State, of the location of the land in controversy, under the internal-improvement law of 1841, was revoked, but the land was at the same time approved to the State, as having a vested title to it, under the act of 1849, and taking effect from the date of the passage of the act.

The controversy between the parties arises upon these two patents, both granted by the State of Louisiana—the one to Scudday, under the grant made by the act of Congress of 1841, for the purposes of internal improvement; the other to Shaffer, under the grant made the act of 1849, for the purpose of draining the swamp lands.

The case came regularly befere the Supreme Court of the State; and that court, after stating that it was unnecessary to decide whether the construction placed upon the act of 1849, by the Secretary of the Interior, under which he revoked his approval of Scudday’s location, was erroneous or not, proceeded to express their opinion as follows:

“It is certain (say the court) that the Legislature could not have disposed of the land as belonging to the State, under the provisions of that act, [the act of 1849,] until she had complied with the conditions imposed on her the act of Congress, and until the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury; but if she had not chosen to avail herself of the given to her to appropriate these lands as swamp lands defraying the expenses of locating them, she had still the right of locating them under the internal-improvement law of 1841, which was unconditional. The construction of the act of 1849, by the Secretary 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 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 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 1841 and of 1849 were grants of land to the State, we cannot go behind the patent which the State has granted. The patent can only be attacked on the ground of error or fraud. It is true that a patent issued against law is void; but in the present case the patent and all the proceedings on which it was based were in conformity to