than the entire State, has received from Congress for internal improvement, considerable over a million of acres. Indiana, also less in extent than Michigan, has received from the same source for the same purpose, more than a million and a half of acres― upwards of three fold the quantity granted to this State for that object.

Under these circumstances, your committee believe that Congress cannot, with a proper regard to equity and consistency, withhold the grant contemplated by the resolution. On every principle of justice and policy, we are authorized to ask and to receive.

The resolution is reported back with an amendment and its passage recommended.

H. STONE, Chairman.

E. L. CLARK,

R. B. DIMOND,

J. P. KING.

Joint Resolution relative to the Public Works of the State of Michigan.

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan, That our Senators and Representatives in Congress be and they are hereby requested, to endeavor to obtain from the general government a grant of alternate sections of land on the line of our unsold public works, to aid in their construction, upon the basis of a bill that has heretofore passed the Senate of the Uni ted States.

Resolved, That his Excellency, the Governor of this state, be and he hereby is requested to transmit a copy of said resolution to each of the Senators and Representatives in Congress, from this state.

No. 4. S

1848.

REPORT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL RELATIVE TO THE TITLE TO THE CAPITOL BUILDING AND GROUNDS IN THE CITY OF DETROIT.

To the Legislature of the State of Michigan:

In obedience to a joint resolution approved March 17, 1847, by which the Attorney General was requested to examine into the title of the State to the building then occupied by the Legislature, and to the lot on which the same is situated, and report the facts and his opinion thereon to the next legislature, the undersigned respectfully reports:

That in 1805 the Territory of Michigan was organized, and the seat of government established at Detroit. In June, 1805, after the organization of the Territory, the old town of Detroit was consumed by fire, and in 1806 the Congress of the United States passed an act, authorizing the Governor and Judges of the Territory to lay out a town, including the whole of the old town of Detroit and ten thousand acres adjacent, except such parts as the President of the United States should direct to be reserved for the use of the military department; authorizing them to examine and finally adjust all claims to lots therein, and give deeds for the same, to grant to every person or his legal representatives, who, not owing allegiance to any foreign power, and being above the age of seventeen years, did, on the 11th day of June, 1805, when the fire occurred, own or inhabit a house in the same, a lot in said town.This act provided that the land remaining of the said ten thousand acres, after satisfying the aforesaid claims should be sold by the Governor and Judges, and the proceeds thereof applied by them towards building a court house and jail in the town of Detroit. Under this act the Governor and Judges in 1807, laid out the city of Detroit, and a plan thereof was, on the 18th day of April in that year, by them adopted and made a public record. This plat exhibits

several pieces of ground, marked thereon “sections” and numbered from one to thirteen. These pieces of ground for the most part, and such is the case with section eight, upon which the capitol, as it has been of late called, stands, are not surrounded by streets, but appear to be open spaces of different forms and sizes, and upon which the lots of the city are bounded.

The purposes for which these sections were designed are not marked on them, nor do they appear from the map, nor from any thing accompanying it. Out of the proceeds of the ten thousand acre tract a jail was built in 1819 upon section seven, and in 1824, from the same fund, the building in question was erected on section eight. After its completion the Territorial legislature held its sessions in it; the convention which framed the constitution set there; upon the organization of the State Government the legislature assembled there and continued there to hold its sessions until the removal of the seat of government.

By the 3d section of an act of Congress approved August 29, 1842, it is enacted, that any land or other property, remaining, except the court house and jail created under the act of 1806, after satisfying all just claims provided for in the first section of that act, is vested in the mayor, recorder and aldermen of the city of Detroit.

The foregoing is a summary, but I believe correct, statement of the enactments of Congress, and of the acts of the Governor and Judges having a material bearing upon the question submitted to me. That question is, what title has the State to this lot and building? I have not been able in any view I have taken of the facts in the case, to come to the conclusion that the State has or ever had any title to either.

The next year after the organization of the territory, and the establishment of its seat of government at Detroit, Congress made the provision above referred to, for the erection of a court house, and directed it to be built at the seat of government, or in other words, in Detroit. It was beyond question, to be built for the accommodation of the territorial judges, and other territorial officersofficers of the general government; it was to be built out of monies derived from sale of government lands; it was to be built upon

grounds belonging to the governmeat, to be designated for that purpose by the Governor and judges of the territory, who, for this purpose were the mere agents of the government. Such were the poses and the means for, and by which this building was erected, and, so it was used during the territorial government.

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How did this state acquire any title to this property? We have it not by any grant from the general government. We have not been in possession long enough, if that possession be adverse, and if it could avail us any thing against the government, (which it could not,) to make it the basis of title.

Whether this property belongs to the general government; or, whether by the laying out of the town of Detroit, by the Governor and judges, under the act of Congress of 1806, and the sale of the lots fronting on this piece of ground, it then being one of the open public spaces designated upon the town plat, it was dedicated to the public, does not come within the scope of this inquiry. I will, however, say that the supreme court of this state, in the case of Briscoe and another, vs. the auditors of the county of Wayne, has determined that the jail in Detroit, which, as we have seen, was built under the same authority, by the same means and under the same circumstances, was a nuisance, public and private, upon the ground that it was built upon one of these open spaces-a decision unquestionably correct, and founded upon well settled principles of law, unless there should be something in the circumstances of the case, growing out of the express direction contained in the grant of these lands, to appropriate a part of their proceeds to the erection of a court house and jail, for the use of the general government, in the town of Detroit, to take it out of the operation of these principles.

Did the government intend that these buildings should be put upon grounds dedicated to the public or to the town of Detroit? *or, did it intend that the ground upon which they might be built should be reserved, and still remain the property of the general government? This, however, is a question between the city of Detroit and the government—a question perhaps not much considered in the decision of the supreme court above referred to; but one upon which the act of Congress of 1842 would seem to be expres