About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

United States v. Zephaniah Kingsley, The 476 (1838)

handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0095 and id is 1 raw text is: SUPREME COURT. THE UNITED STATES V. ZEPHANIAH KINGSLEY. A grant for land in Florida by Governor Coppinger, on condition that the grantee build a mill within a period fixed in the grant, declared to be void; the grantee not having performed the condition, or shown sufficient cause for, its non-perform- ance. Under the Florida. treaty, grants of land made before the 24th January, 1818, by his catholic majesty, or by' his lawful authorities, stand ratified and confirmed to the same extent that the same grants would be valid if Florida had remained under the dominion of Spain; and the owners of conditional grants, who have been pre- vented from fulfilling all the conditions of their grants, have time by the treaty extended to them 'to complete such conditions. That time, as Was declared by this Court in Arredondo's case, '6 Peters, 748, began to run in regard to individual rights from the ratification of the treaty; and the treaty declares, if the conditions are not complied with, within the.terms limited in the grant, that the grants shall be null and void. In the construction of the Florida treaty, it is admitted that the United States suc- ceeds to all those equitable obligations which we are to suppose would have in- fluenced his catholic majesty' to secure their property to his subjects, and which would have been applied by him in the construction'of a conditional grant, to make it absolute; and further, that the United States must maintain the rights of property under it, by applyifig the laws and customs by which those rights were secured, before Florida was ceded; or by which an inchoate right of property would, by those laws and customs, have been'adjudicated by the Spanish autho- rity to have become a perfect right. The capes decided by the Court relative to grants of land in Florida, reviewed and affirmed. ON appeal from the superior court of East Florida. In the district court of East Florida, in April, 1829, Zephaniah Kingsley presented a petition, claiming title to a tract of land'situ- ated on a creek emptying into the river St., John; which, he asserted was granted to him by Governor Coppinger, on the 20th of Novem- ber, 1816, while East Florida was held by the crown of Spain. The petition stated,.that in virtue of the grant, the petitioner had, soon after its date, entered and taken possession of the land, and was preparing to build a water saw-mill thereon, according to the condi- tion of the grant; but was deterred therefrom by the disturbed state of that part of the province of East Florida, and the occupancy of the 'land by some of the tribes 9f Florida Indians, who were wandering in all directions over the country.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most