MILITARY AND NAVAL LAND BOUNTIES.

BOUNTY LAND GRANTS-NUMBER OF WARRANTS AND ACRES.

The following table shows the bounty-land grants under the acts of 1847, 1850, 1852, and 1855, which included nearly all the wars the United States has been engaged in, and all operations thereunder to June 30, 1880:

Statement, under acts of 1847, 1850, 1852, and 1855, showing the issues and locations with bounty-land warrants, and the number outstanding, from the commencement of operations under said acts to June 30, 1880.

2, 535, 940

CHAPTER XV.

TWO. THREE, AND FIVE PER CENT. FUNDS.

GRANTS TO STATES OF PORTION OF NET PROCEEDS FROM SALES.

Congress, by several acts of dates given below, granted and allowed to the several States containing public lands, with the exception of California, two, three, and five per cent. upon the net proceeds of the sales of public lands therein. These allowances were in lieu of State taxation of United States public lands within said States, and in many instances took effect from the date of admission into the Union.

Alabama, September 4,1841, and March 2, 1855..

Mississippi, September 4, 1841.

Missouri, February 28, 1859.

Ohio, April 30, 1802, and June 30, 1802.

Indiana, February 1, 1816, and April 19, 1816..

Mississippi, March 1, 1817, and July 4, 1836.

Illinois, April 18, 1818.

Missouri, March 6, 1820.

Alabama, March 2, 1819, and July 4, 1836.

Louisiana, act February 20, 1811...

Michigan, June 23, 1836..

Arkansas, June 23, 1836.

Florida, March 3, 1845.

Iowa, March 3, 1845, and December 28, 1846.

Iowa, March 2, 1849.

Colorado, March 3, 1875..

Per cent.

2

2

2

3

3

3

3

3

3

5

5

Nebraska, April 19, 1864.

Nevada, March 21, 1864.

Oregon, February 14, 1859.

Minnesota, February 26, 1857, and May 11, 1858.

Wisconsin, August 6, 1846, and May 29, 1848....

10 10 10 10 10

Statement of the amounts which have accrued to the following named States on account of the two, three, and five per cent. upon the net proceeds of the sales of public lands to June 30, 1880, inclusive.

TAXATION OF PUBLIC LANDS.

Under the present practice, after the register's certificate and receiver's receipt have been issued for lands purchased of or acquired from the United States, the authorities of the States or Territories in which they lie list them for taxation although no patent has issued. Prior to this only the value of improvements is taxed, not the land, as the fee is in the United States. States containing public lands renounce their right to tax the public domain at the time of their admission into the Union. A State may tax land after it has been entered and paid for, although no patent has been entered (issued) therefor. (Carroll v. Safford, 3 How., 441; Levi v. Thompson, 4 How., 17; Carroll v. Perry, 4 McLean, 25; Astrom v. Hammond, 3 McLean, 107; Witherspoon v. Duncan, 4 Wall., 210; S. C., 21 Ark., 240.)

CHAPTER XVI.

INDIAN RESERVATIONS FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

EXTINGUISHING THE INDIAN TITLE TO LANDS.

Preliminary to survey of lands within the public domain the United States requires the extinction of the Indian title or Indian right of occupancy thereof. Without this being done the surveys will not be made.

The ninth article of the Articles of Confederation declared

The United States in Congress assembled have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the States: Provided, That the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated.

Under this, September 22, 1783, Congress issued a proclamation prohibiting and forbidding all persons from making settlements on lands inhabited or claimed by Indians without the limits or jurisdiction of any particular State, and from purchasing or receiving any gift or cession of such lands or claims without the express authority and direction of the United States in Congress assembled.

It further declared that every such purchase or settlement, gift or cession, not having the authority aforesaid should be "null and void,” and that no right or title should accrue in consequence of any such purchase, gift, cession, or settlement.

INDIAN OCCUPANCY TITLE TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN-HOW EXTINGUISHED.

From the organization of the National Government it has been the rule of the Nation to purchase the occupancy right from the Indians, generally giving them more value in the compensation than the use of the ceded lands is worth to the Indians. The Government has never attempted to survey and dispose of lands prior to their cession by the Indians.

The civil status of the Indians has been defined by a long series of statutes and court rulings.

In the cases of the Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (5 Peters, 1), and Worcester v. Georgia (6 Peters, 515), the Indian tribes residing within the United States were recognized in some sense as political bodies, not as foreign nations nor as domestic nations, but still possessing and exercising some of the functions of nationality; but by act of Congress of March 3, 1871, it was provided that hereafter no recognition by treaty or otherwise should be made by the United States of the claim of any Indian tribe as being an independent nation, tribe, or power. They hold a relation of wardship to the General Government and are subject to its control. A State legislature has no jurisdiction over the Indian territory contained within the territorial limits of the State; but in the case of New York v. Dibble (21 Howard, 366), it was -decided that the State holds the sovereign police authority over the persons and property of the Indians, so far as necessary to preserve the peace and protect them from imposition and intrusion.

In regard to right of soil it was settled in the case of the United States v. Rogers (4 Howard, 567), that the Indian tribes are not the owners of the territories occupied by them. These are vacant or unoccupied public lands belonging to the United States.

In the case of Johnson v. McIntosh (8 Whaton, 543), it was held that the Indian tribes were incompetent to transfer any rights to the soil, and that any such conveyances were void ab initio, the right of property not subsisting in the grantors. The right of making such grants was originally in the Crown, but by the treaty of 1783 it was surrendered to the United States. In previous pages has been shown the process by which several of the States originally composing the American Union divested themselves of this right by transferring both territorial jurisdiction and title to the soil by cession to the General Government. In the case last mentioned Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the court, thus grounded the right of the Government upon prior discovery:

The United States, then, have unequivocally acceded to that great and broad rule by which its civilized inhabitants now hold this country. They hold and assert in themselves the title by which it was acquired. They ma ntain, as all others have maintained, that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest, and gave also a right to such a degree of sovereignty as the circumstances of the people would allow them to exercise. The power now possessed by the Government of the United States to grant lands, resided, while we were colonies, in the Crown or its grantees. The validity of the titles given by either has never been questioned in our courts. It has been exercised uniformly over territory in possession of the Indians. The existence of this power must negative the existence of any right which may conflict with or control it. An absolute title to lands cannot exist at the same time in different persons, or in different governments. An absolute must be an exclusive title, or at least a title which excludes all others not compatible with it. All our institutions recognize the absolute title of the Crown, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and recognize the absolute title of the Crown to extinguish that right. This is incompatible with an absolute and complete title in the Indians.

We will not enter into the controversy whether agriculturists, merchants, and manufacturers have a right, on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they possess, or to contract their limits. Conquest gives a title which the courts of the conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals may be respecting the original justice of the claim which has been successfully asserted. The British Government, which was then our government, and whose rights have passed to the United States, asserted a title to all the lands occupied by Indians within the chartered limits of the British colonies. It asserted also a limited sovereignty over them, and the exclusive right of extinguishing the title which occupancy gave to them. These claims have been maintained and established as far west as the Mississippi River by the sword. The title to a vast portion of the lands we now hold originates in them. It is not for the courts of this country to question the validity of this title or to sustain one which is incompatible with it.

Although we do not mean to engage in the defense of those principles which Europeans have applied to Indian title, they may, we think, find some excuse if not justification, in the character and habits of the people whose rights have been wrested from them.

The title by conquest is acquired and maintained by force. The conqueror prescribes its limits. Humanity, however, acting on public opinion, has established, as a general rule, that the conquered shall not be wantonly oppressed, and that their condition shall remain as eligible as is compatible with the objects of the conquest. Most usually they are incorporated with the victorious nation, and become subjects or citizens of the government with which they are connected. The new and old members of society mingle with each other; the distinction between them is gradually lost, and they make one people. Where this incorporation is practicable, humanity demands, and a wise policy requires, that the right of the conquered to property should remain unimpaired; that the new subjects should be governed as equitably as the old, and that confidence in their security should gradually banish the painful sense of being separated from their ancient connections and united by force to strar gers.

When the conquest is complete, and the conquered inhabitants can be blended with the conquerors, or safely governed as a distinct people, public opinion, which not even the conqueror can disregard, imposes these restraints upon him; and he cannot neglect them without injury to his fame and hazard to his power.

But the tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were fierce savages, whose occupation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn chiefly from the forest. To leave them in possession of their country, was to leave the country a wilderness; to govern them as a distinct people was impossible, because they were as brave and high-spirited as they were fierce, and were ready to repel by arms every attempt on their independence. What was the inevitable consequence of this state of things? The Europeans were under the necessity either of abandoning the country and relinquish

16 L O-VOL III