erally, or in any way affect it in this action. But the court overruled the objection and admitted the record. To this ruling an exception was taken.

The case being closed, the court instructed the jury substantially as follows: That a patent for a mining claim, since the passage of the act of Congress of 1870, could not embrace more than one hundred and sixty acres; that individuals and associations were, by that act, put upon the same footing, and that either might take that amount, but that by the mining act of Congress of 1872 an individual claimant was limited to twenty acres, whilst an association of persons could still take one hundred and sixty, as before; that the proceedings in the land office were allowed in evidence, in order to show whether the patent was issued upon locations made prior to 1870, and that they showed that the claim of Starr was based upon twelve or fifteen locations, some of which were prior to 1870, and some since then; and added, that "if Mr. Starr was the owner of these claims, if he had obtained them by purchase, and they were valid and regular locations, he would, under the act, be required, if he desired to obtain a patent for them, to make application for each one of them, to post the notice, as required by the statute, and give the publication, and file his plat and survey, and do all these things which are required in the several claims, upon each one of them. If he had done so, and his right had been supported as to all of them, and the patent had been issued for all of these claims, and each of them described in the patent, there would have been no objection to the patent; but it was not competent for him to consolidate these claims and put them all in as one claim, and upon notice given as one claim, and publication as one claim, and proceeding throughout as one claim embracing one hundred and sixty-four acres;" and that the officers of the land department had no authority in law to proceed in that way, and therefore the patent upon which the plaintiff relied was void and its title failed.

To the instructions given exceptions were taken. The jury thereupon found for the defendants, and judgment in their favor was accordingly entered. To review this judgment the plaintiff removed the case here by writ of error.

Mr. J. H. McGOWAN and Mr. WALTER H. SMITH, for plaintiffs in error.

Mr. FLETCHER P. CUPPY and Mr. THOMAS A. GREEN, for defendants in error.

Mr. ALLEN G. THURMAN, on behalf of certain interested parties, was heard by the court, in opposition to the judgment below.

Mr. JUSTICE FIELD, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court, as follows:

As seen by the statement of the case, the plaintiff relies for a reversal of the judgment upon three grounds: 1st, error in admitting the record of the proceedings of the land office to impeach the validity of the patent to Starr issued upon them; 2d, error in instructing the jury that a patent for a placer claim, since the act of 1870, could not embrace in any case more than one hundred and sixty acres; and, 3d, error in instructing the jury that the owner, by purchase of several claims, must take separate proceedings upon each one, in order to obtain a valid patent, and that it was not lawful for him to prosecute a single application upon a consolidation of several claims into one, or for the land officers, to allow such application and to issue a patent thereon.

We are of opinion that these several grounds are well taken, and that in each particular mentioned the court below erred.

The patent of the United States is the conveyance by which the nation passes its title to portions of the public domain. For the transfer of that title, the law has made numerous provisions designating the persons who may acquire it, and the terms of its acquisition. That the provisions may be properly carried out, a land department, as part of the administrative and executive branch of the government, has been created. to supervise all the various proceedings taken to obtain the title, from their commencement to their close. In the course of their duty the officers of that department are constantly called upon to hear testimony as to matters presented

for their consideration, and to pass upon its competency, credibility, and weight. In that respect they exercise a judicial function, and therefore it has been held in various instances by this court that their judgment as to matters of fact properly determinable by them, is conclusive when brought to notice in a collateral proceeding. Their judgment in such cases is, like that of other special tribunals upon matters within their exclusive jurisdiction, unassailable, except by a direct proceeding for its correction or annulment. The execution and record of the patent are the final acts of the officers of the government for the transfer of its title, and as they can be lawfully performed only after certain steps have been taken, that instrument, duly signed, countersigned, and sealed, not merely operates to pass the title, but is in the nature of an official declaration by that branch of the government to which the alienation of the public lands, under the law, is intrusted, that all the requirements preliminary to its issue have been complied with. The presumptions thus attending it are not open to rebuttal in an action at law. It is this unassailable character which gives to it its chief, indeed its only value, as a means of quieting its possessor in the enjoyment of the lands it embraces. If intruders upon them could compel him, in every suit for possession, to establish the validity of the action of the land department and the correctness of its ruling upon matters submitted to it, the patent, instead of being a means of peace and security, would subject his rights to constant and ruinous litigation. He would recover one portion of his land if the jury were satisfied that the evidence produced justified the action of that department, and lose another portion, the title whereto rests upon the same facts, because another jury came to a different conclusion. So his rights in different suits upon the same patent would be determined, not by its efficacy as a conveyance of the government, but according to the fluctuating prejudices of different jurymen, or their varying capacities to weigh evidence: Moore v. Wilkinson, 13 Cal. 478; Beard v. Federy, 3 Wall. 478, 492.

Of course when we speak of the conclusive presumptions attending a patent for lands, we assume that it was issued in a case where the department had jurisdiction to act and exc

cute it; that is to say, in a case where the lands belonged to the United States, and provision had been made by law for their sale. If they never were public property, or had previously been disposed of, or if Congress had made no provision for their sale, or had reserved them, the department would have no jurisdiction to transfer them, and its attempted conveyance of them would be inoperative and void, no matter with what seeming regularity the forms of law may have been observed. The action of the department would, in that event, be like that of any other special tribunal not having jurisdiction of a case which it had assumed to decide. Matters of this kind, disclosing a want of jurisdiction, may be considered by a court of law. In such cases the objection to the patent reaches beyond the action of the special tribunal, and goes to the existence of a subject upon which it was competent to act.

acres.

These views are not new in this court; they have been either in express terms or in substance, affirmed in repeated instances. One of the earliest cases on the subject was that of Polk's Lessee v. Wendal, reported in 9th Cranch, where the doctrine we have stated was declared, and the exceptions to it mentioned. There the plaintiff brought an action upon a patent of North Carolina, issued in 1800, for five thousand The defendants relied upon a prior patent of the State for twenty-five thousand acres, issued in 1795 to one Sevier, through whom they claimed. Each patent embraced the lands in controversy, and they were situated in that portion of Tennessee ceded to the United States by North Carolina. On the trial it was contended that the elder patent was void on its face because it covered more than five thousand acres, the limit prescribed for a single entry by the laws of that State. Proof was also offered that the lands had not been entered in the office of the entry-taker of the proper county before their cession to the United States, and it was contended that the patent was therefore invalid. We shall hereafter refer to what the court said as to the alleged excess of quantity in the patent. At present we shall only notice the general doctrine declared as to the unassailability of patents in a court of law, and its decision upon the admissibility of the proof offered. It seems that a statute of 1777 directed the appointment in each county of an officer called an entry-taker, who was

required to receive entries of all vacant lands in his county, and, if the lands thus entered were not within three months claimed by some other party than the person entering them, to deliver to such person a copy of the entry, with its proper number, and an order to the county surveyor to survey the land. This order was called a warrant. Upon it and the survey which followed a patent was issued. If there were no entry, there could be no warrant, and of course no valid patent. The ninth section declared that every right claimed by any person to lands which were not acquired in this mode, or by purchase or inheritance from parties who did so acquire them, or which were obtained in fraud or evasion of the provisions of the act, should be declared void. In 1779 North Carolina ceded to the United States the territory in which the lands lie for which the patent to Sevier was issued, reserving, however, to the State, all existing rights, which were to be perfected according to its laws. The cession was accepted by Congress. The survey, upon which the patent to Sevier was issued, was made in 1795, and the plaintiff, to impeach the patent, offered, as already stated, to show that there had been no entry of the land in the office of the entry-taker of the county where it was situated, previous to the cession; that is, in substance, that the grantor had no authority to make the grant, the land having been previously conveyed to the United States. This offer was disallowed by the court below, and as judgment passed for the defendants, the case was brought to this court, where, as mentioned, the general doctrine as to the presumptions attending a patent, which we have stated, was declared, with the exceptions to it. Upon the general doctrines the court observed, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, that the laws for the sale of the public lands provided many guards to secure the regularity of grants and to protect the incipient rights of individuals and of the State from imposition; that officers were appointed to superintend the business, and rules had been framed prescrib ing their duty; that these rules were in general directory, and when all the proceedings were completed by a patent issued by the authority of the State, a compliance with those rules was presupposed, and that "every prerequisite has been 1erformed is an inference properly deducible, and which every