Shanks v. Dupont

THIS was a writ of error from the supreme court of appeals in law and equity, in and for the state of South Carolina.

The suit arose out of a partition of a tract of land in the state of South Carolina; the right of the plaintiffs in error to a moiety having been denied on the ground of their alienage, and their consequent incapacity to inherit the same.

The case was argued at January term 1829, by Mr Cruger and Mr Wirt for the plaintiffs in error; and by Mr Legar e for the defendants; and was held under advisement to this term.

The facts of the case are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

The counsel for the plaintiffs in error contended, that Ann Shanks, the mother of the plaintiffs in error, was a British subject, and that her title was protected by the treaty of 1794. The decree of the court of the state of South Carolina was therefore erroneous, and should have been in favour of the plaintiffs, for a moiety of the land of which Thomas Scott died seised.

The defendants in error insisted, that the decree of the state court ought to be affirmed, because Mrs Shanks was an American citizen, capable of holding by the laws of South Carolina; so that there was no interest or title in her, to which the ninth article of the treaty of 1794, by which the titles of British subjects, holding lands in this country, were saved from the disabilities of alienage, could in any wise attach.

Mr Justice STORY delivered the opinion of the Court.