Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/758

722 HARVARD LAW REVIEW have intended that an administrative delay, due to the rush of business or to negligence in the Land Department and lasting perhaps for years, should change the substantive rights of the parties.^ "Legislative bodies rarely take into consideration the period between the time when, under the law, executive officers should perform clerical duties, and the time when such duties are actually performed." * While the terms of the enactment are unambiguous, the courts are not precluded from correct- ing the legislative misstatement, "The intention of the lawmaker is the law," ^^ anything in the terms of the statute to the contrary notwith- standing." A far more fascinating problem is raised by Mr. Justice Holmes' opinion. He says: . "My question is: When land has left the ownership and control of the United States and is part of the territory of a State not dififerent from any privately owned land within the jurisdiction and no more subject to legislation on the part of the United States than any other land, on what ground is a previous law of Congress supposed any longer to affect it in a way that a subsequent one could not? This land was levied upon, not on the assertion that any lien upon it was acquired be- fore the title passed from the United States, but merely as any other land might be attached for a debt that Rossi [the creditor] had a right to col- lect, after the United States had left the premises. I ask myself what the United States has to do with that. There is no condition, no reserved right of re-entry, no reversion in the United States, saved either under the Idaho law as any private grantor might save it, or by virtue of ante- cedent title. All interest of the United States as owner is at an end. It is a stranger to the title. Even in case of an escheat the land would not go to it, but would go to the State. Therefore the statute must operate, if at all, purely by way of legislation, not as a qualification of the grant. If § 2296 is construed to apply to this case, there is simply the naked assumption of one sovereignty to impose its will after what- ever jurisdiction or authority it had has ceased and the land has come fully xmder the jurisdiction of what for this purpose is a different power. It is a pure attempt to regulate the alienability of land in Idaho by law, far as may be necessary to cut off intervening claimants. Stark v. Starrs, 6 Wall. (U. S.) 402 (1867). 8 Section 2324, Revised Statutes, provides: "On each claim located after May 10, 1872, and until a patent has been issued therefor, not less than one himdred dollars' worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made during each year. . . ." Plaintiff had a final certificate but no patent for his land, and had failed to do the one hundred dollars' worth of work during a year. Held, that he did not have to do the work after obtaining the certificate. Benson Mining Co. t;. Alta Mining Co., note 6, supra. Accord, Aurora Hill Con. Min. Co. v. 85 Mining Co., 34 Fed. 515 (1888); Deno V. Griffin, 20 Nev. 249 (1889). See Sickels, Mining DEasiONS, 377, 384. It is interesting to note that an exemption in the Timber-Culture Act similar to that in the Homestead Act covers only "debts contracted prior to the issuing of the final certificate." Act of March 3, 1893, c. 208, 27 Stat, at L. 593, 5 U. S. Comp. Stat. 1916, §5116. 9 Per Keaton, J., in Flanagan v. Forsythe, note 4, supra. 10 Per Swayne, J., in Smythe v. Fiske, 23 Wall. (U. S.) 374, 380 (1874). " United States v. Kirby, 7 Wall. (U. S.) 482 (1868); Lionberger v. Rouse, 9 Wafl. (U. S.) 468 (1869); Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S. 457 (1892); Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U. S. 197 (1903)-