Brown v. Grant/Opinion of the Court

by by John Marshall Harlan

United States Supreme Court

116 U.S. 207

Brown  v.  Grant

 Argued: January 4, 1886. ---

As all the parties to this suit are citizens of the state of Colorado, the circuit court was without jurisdiction, unless the suit is one arising under the constitution or laws of the United States. It is not clear upon what piecise ground the plaintiff contends that the suit belongs to that class. We suppose his claim to be that when the territory became a state, the property he had given to the former became his again, and that the provision in the constitution stitution of the state, 'that all property, real and personal, belonging to the territory of Colorado' at the adoption of that instrument 'shall be vested in and become the property of the state of Colorado,' deprived him of his property without due process of law; that is, it was thereby taken from him, for public use, without just compensation being first made, or in some legal mode secured, to him. Assuming that the suit, upon that basis, arises under the constitution of the United States, it is difficult to conceive of one in which the question has merit.

Before the execution of the deed of January 11, 1868, the territorial legislature had located the seat of government at Denver. It was there when the appellant's gift was made. The gift had direct reference to the territorial enactment authorizing commissioners to accept a conveyance of not less than 10 acres of land, without charge to the territory, and so as to vest in it an absolute fee-simple title. The title was so conveyed by Brown to the territory, 'its successors and assigns, forever,' for 'the purpose of erecting a capitol and other public buildings thereon only.' The deed was duly accepted; for, if the act under the authority of which the land was obtained, and the execution and registration of the deed, are not complete proof of such acceptance, surely the act of 1872 requiring the capitol building to be erected 'upon the ground [t]heretofore donated to the territory for that purpose by Henry C. Brown,' is ample evidence of that fact. It is idle to say that the territory never accepted the conveyance. Upon what legal ground, then, can the appellant defend his resumption of possession in 1879? His conveyance contained no condition under which he could demand the erection of a capitol building within any specified time, in default of which the property would revert to him. The territorial legislature wisely invested commissioners with authority to accept a conveyance of an absolute feesimple title, and reserved to itself the determination of all questions concerning the time within which the proposed buildings should be erected. And it cannot be said, in view of the allegations of the bill, that the territory did not move as rapidly in creating indebtedness that purpose as the public necessities permitted or the public interests required. If it were conceded that the removal of the seat of government from Denver, or the abandonment of this land as the site of capitol buildings, would, under all the circumstances, entitle Brown to claim the property, or compensation therefor, it is sufficient to say that no such state of facts now exists.

But the appellant contends that he made this gift upon the implied condition that the territory, not the state, should erect the public buildings in question. Apart from the fact that the terms of the deed are inconsistent with such a condition, the supposition cannot be indulged for a moment that the plaintiff did not look forward to the time when the territory would become one of the states of the Union,-an event which would necessarily tend to accomplish the very object that he had, as he avows, in making the donation, viz., to increase the value of other lands owned by him, of which the 10 acres in question formed a part. The reference in the deeds of 1868 and 1879 to the successors of the territory is persuasive evidence of the fact that the plaintiff contemplated the organization of its people as a state. Now that the state proposes to construct capitol buildings on the land donated for that very purpose, the plaintiff asks the intervention of a court of equity to prevent her agents from entering upon the premises until he receives compensation for what was in law a donation to the public as an organized body, whether under a territorial government or as a state. He is not entitled to such aid.

The suggestion that the clause of the constitution providing that the state is the owner of all the property which the territory held upon its becoming a state deprived him of his property, is not entitled to serious consideration. Unless otherwise declared by congress, the title to every species of property owned by a territory passes to the state upon its admission into the Union. The providion in the state constitution to that effect was only declaratory of what was the law. Judgment affirmed.

Notes