pare and present the claim. This was the first time the claim was brought legally to the notice of the Government.

On the 20th April, 1832, Congress passed an act reserving the Salt and Hot Springs from entry or location, or for any appropriation what

ever.

The Department of the Interior was much embarrassed in the dispo sition of these conflicting claims. The opinion of the Attorney-General was invoked. He decided in favor of the Langlois claim, on the 29th April, 1850, but it does not appear that the Filhiol claim was prepared for his action at the time. But before the patent could issue caveats were filed and suspended the issuance; and no patent has issued from the Government since that time.

It does not appear that any steps were taken for the settlement of these claims from the year 1850 to 1870. In 1870 Congress passed the act authorizing the different claimants to have their titles adjudicated in the United States Court of Claims, and allowing them two years to bring suits.

On the 26th day of May, 1824, (4 U. S. Stat., p. 52, sec. 1,) Congress authorized claimants to lands in Missouri, under any French or Spanish grant, concession, warrant, or order of survey, legally made, granted, or issued before the 10th March, 1804, and which was protected or secured by the treaty between the United States and France on 3d April, 1803, might petition the district court of Missouri and have such claims established.

By the fourteenth section of this act the same provision was applied to similar claimants in the Territory of Arkansas, and was to continue in force until 1830.

This act was revived by section one, act of June 17, 1844, (5 U. S. Stat., 676,) and continued in force five years from date of its passage.

The Supreme Court of the United States held these acts only conferred jurisdiction on the courts to hear and determine upon imperfect grants. (9 Howard, p. 127; 11 Howard, p. 609.)

It is contended that the Filhiol grant, assuming the existence of such grant, did not fall within the jurisdiction of the court, as it was not an "imperfect grant," but a perfect grant which had been lost, mislaid, or suppressed. The jurisdiction of the court being limited by statute, it, perhaps, would not have stretched the jurisdiction far enough to have set up and established the existence of the missing grant so as to give effect to it. The whole train of decisions on kindred questions show that the courts of the United States have confined themselves quite rigidly to the authority conferred by act of Congress.

On the 22d June, 1860, Congress passed an act for the final adjustment of private land-claims in the States of Louisiana, Florida, and Missouri, but by a singular omission did not include Arkansas. This act authorized the courts to determine the cases according to equity and justice.

In 1801 Spain, by the treaty of Saint Ildefonso, ceded the territory of Louisiana to France. By treaty of April 30, 1803, France ceded Louisiana to the United States, the United States claiming the river Perdido as the eastern boundary, while the Spaniards claimed the Mississippi as the western boundary, and held possession to the Mississippi, except the island of New Orleans, until 1810, when the United States took possession by force.

Spain continued to make grants and concession of lands to persons within the disputed territory until 1810, but both Congress and the courts declared all such grants made after the treaty of Saint Ildefonso

in 1801 actually void. These parties claimed also that the United States were bound to perfect any incomplete titles according to the stipula tions of the treaty of cession of the Floridas by Spain February 22, 1819. But Congress and the courts in like manner held that this treaty did not embrace the disputed lands.

After Congress and the courts had been worried more than a half century with these claims, and the mind' of Congress being affected with the idea that many of these claims rested upon a well-grounded equity, by the act of June 22, 1860, enlarged the jurisdiction of the courts to cases of equity as well as law.

Parties came in under this act and had their claims adjudged valid which had been previously adjudged void.

The case of the United States vs. Lynd (11 Wallace R., 632) embodies the history of the congressional and judicial proceedings in these

cases.

This committee has been unable to perceive any reason why Congress did not extend the provisions of the act of 1860 to private land-claims in the State of Arkansas. To remedy the omission, however, Congress passed the act of 1870, which opened the doors of the Court of Claims to claimants from Arkansas, and within the two years allowed by the act the claimants have all commenced their proceedings, except the Filhiol heirs.

The committee might indulge in some criticisms on the want of due diligence on the part of the Filhiol heirs; but the want of diligence is more apparent than actual.

From necessity their appearance in court must be by attorney. They were timely in the employment of such attorney; but their attorney, as charged by them, was delinquent. Whether this delinquency of the attorney was from accident or design, we do not think ought to be visited upon the claimants as a forfeiture of their rights, whatever they may be. There have been great embarrassments from the want of proper tribunals to determine the various perplexing questions growing out of private land-claims. The claimants could not be held responsible for the defects of these tribunals. Ancestors have spent their lives pursu ing their claims through land-offices, through cabinet-offices, through Congress, and through the inferior and appellate courts without success, and have left their descendants to renew the contest under the disadvantage of loss or weakening of evidence from lapse of time.

After the purchase of the Floridas, in 1819, and the extinction of all the asserted claim of Spain to any part of the territory between the Perdido and Mississippi Rivers, and the extinction of Indian titles, Congress has manifested a liberal disposition by the passage of different remedial acts, (even extending to cases previously adjudicated, as in the Lynd case, 11 Wallace.)

Your committee, keeping in the line of this liberal policy, feel warranted in recommending the passage of the bill. They do so the more readily as the contest is still pending in the Court of Claims, where the rights of all parties may be finally settled by the judgment of the court.

1st Session.

Nɔ. 26 4.

BISMARCK LAND-DISTRICT, DAKOTA.

MARCH 26, 1874.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. PHILLIPS, from the Committee on the Public Lands, submitted the following

REPORT:

[To accompany bill H. R. 994.]

The Committee on the Public Lands, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 994) to establish the Bismarck land-district, in the Territory of Dakota, beg leave to submit the following report:

The bill is necessary for the public business and the interests of the settlers. To this report is appended a letter from the Commissioner of the General Land-Office recommending the passage of the bill.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND-OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., March 10, 1874.

SIR: Referring to my letter to you of the 26th ultimo, in regard to bill H. R. 994, to establish the Bismarck land-district, in Dakota, I have to state that, upon examination, I find that the power to discontinue a land-district is vested in the President; consequently, it will not be necessary to include in said bill the clause providing for the discontinuance of the Springfield land-district, as suggested in my letter of the above

date.

I would further state that said bill No. 994 meets with my approval, and I therefore recommend that it become a law.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. W. A. PHILLIPS,

House of Representatives.

WILLIS DRUMMOND,

Commissioner.

The committee report the same back, and recommend its passage.

CONGRESS

TWO ADDITIONAL LAND-DISTRICTS IN KANSAS.

MARCH 26, 1874.—Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. PHILLIPS, from the Committee on the Public Lands, submitted the following

REPORT:

[To accompany bill H. R. 203.]

The Committee on the Public Lands, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 203) to create two new land-districts in Kansas, have had the same under consideration and make the following report:

This bill is to create two new additional land-districts in Kansas. Each of these will be about one hundred and sixty miles long. There are two railroads running through Kansas from east to west. Each of these traverses the center of one of the proposed districts, thus placing the business of the settlers in the most accessible shape. No arrangement save this can prevent long and expensive overland journeys from being taken. As matters now are, it often costs the settler as much to travel to the land-office with his witnesses and attend center cases, as the whole minimum price of the land.

The creation of these districts entails no expense, as no rents are paid, and the emoluments are from fees, which, when in excess of a certain amount, lapse. These offices should be created solely for the convenience of the settler. The settlement of the country included has just actively commenced, and, from indications, will be mostly taken in the next few years.

Your committee, therefore, report the bill favorably and recommend its passage with the following amendment: Insert after line 11, “and shall, in addition, include the district of land lying in Rice and Reno Counties as at present organized."