patent is surrendered to you. If the correction of the entry is authorized, you will, before the money is refunded, or the change of entry noted. on your books, require the party to execute, upon the patent, a relinquishment in the following form:

"Know all men by these presents, that, in pursuance of the provisions of the act of Congress, approved on the 24th day of May, 1828, entitled 'An act supplementary to an act entitled an act providing for the correction of errors in making entries of lands at the land offices, passed March third, eighteen hundred and nineteen,' and in order that a patent may be granted to me for the of section in township

of

range in lieu of the tract herein mentioned, I hereby surrender and relinquish unto the United States of America all my right, title, and interest of, in, and to, this patent, and to the land therein described. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto signed my name, and affixed my seal, this 183

day of

Signed, sealed, and delivered, in presence of

At the foot of the above relinquishment, you will give a certificate, stating the precise cause of the error.

The act of March 3, 1853, provides for the correction of errors in the location of military bounty land warrants, and declares the provisions of the act 3d March, 1819, and the act of the 24th May, 1828, applicable to errors in such locations.

In all cases where patents have been issued, you will require a certificate from the county clerk, or other officer having charge of the books in which any conveyance, &c., of the land is required to be recorded to give it validity, stating that the records of such office do not exhibit any conveyance, or other incumbrance, of the land in question. The deed of relinquishment must be executed, acknowledged, and recorded in accordance with the laws of the State in which the land is situated.

Whenever the change of entry is ordered, the certificate of purchase will be cancelled, and retained in this office.

The Receiver will take a receipt from the purchaser for the purchase money of the tract erroneously entered, as if the same was refunded, which receipt will be a voucher to the receiver's credit, to be introduced into the proper monthly and quarterly accounts in the following manner, viz :

'By this amount refunded to the General Land Office, dated the the quarter of section No. range No. containing

in township No.

agreeably to instructions from -, being the purchase money of in township No. - of acres, erroneously entered by him, quarter of sec

"" of range No.

and again charged to me, in the purchase of the tion No.The Receiver's receipt for the purchase money of the corrected entry is, as well as the register's certificate of purchase, to bear a new number. By this proceeding the corrected entry becomes an original transaction, and will appear as such in all your accounts.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Jos. S. WILSON, Commissioner.

The Register and Receiver of the Land Office at

No. 287 B.

Form of application for repayment.

Commissioner of the General Land Office, Sir:-I hereby make application for repayment of the purchase money paid on entry of the of section

township

issued at

-, range bearing date the

as per certificate No. day of 18

the same having been adjudged invalid and cancelled.

ha not sold, assigned,

to be the person who subscribed the foregoing application, who, being duly sworn on oath, declare that nor in any way encumbered the title to the tract of land described in said application.

Subscribed and sworn before me, this

18—

NOTES.

day of

A. D.

1st. If the affidavit is sworn to before a Register or Receiver, no revenue stamp is required; otherwise, if made before a clerk or notary, and if made before a justice of the peace, the certificate of the clerk of the county or county court, showing official character, must be attached, with the appropriate revenue stamps.

3d. If the application is made by an assignee or by a legal representative, it must be supported by satisfactory proof of assignment, or of the right of such representative to present the claim.

3d. Where the title has become a matter of record, a deed of relinquishment of title duly executed and recorded, with the certificate of the Recorder showing what appears upon his records touching the title, and that the same is fully restored to the United States, must be filed.

4th. Transmit to General Land Office through the Register and Receiver.

TITLE XI.

Swamp Land Selections.

No. 288 B.

The State of Iowa entitled to purchase money of swamp lands entered with cash prior to 3d March, 1857. The State is also entitled to indemnity in land for lands located with warrants or scrip, prior to that date. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE,

April 20, 1866.

Sir-I have given to the legislation referred to in your letter of the 30th day of January last, relative to the "swamp grant" to the State of Iowa, careful consideration.

I am of the opinion that the State has a good legal claim; first, to the purchase-money of the public lands therein, which were entered with cash prior to the passage of the act of March 3, 1857, and which she may be able to prove, to the satisfaction of the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior, were swamp lands within the true intent and meaning of the act of September 28th, 1850; and, second, to indemnity. in land, for the public lands therein which were located, with warrants or with scrip, prior to the passage of the act of March 3, 1857, and which she may, in like manner, show were swamp lands within the true intent and meaning of the statute of 1850.

In reviewing the legislation adduced by the State in support of her claim, I have diligently sought for the intention of Congress in the words of the statutes. This I have done, not only because to look elsewhere for the intent of the legislature is to violate a fundamental canon of statutory construction, but also because I have keenly felt that, in a case of this character, speculation in regard to the meaning of Congress, based upon considerations extraneous of the statute, would not advance, but only retard, the discovery of that meaning.

The act of September 28, 1850, "to enable the State of Arkansas and other States to reclaim the swamp lands within their limits," I dismiss with the remark that in my view of the present question, it is not important to determine the character and effect of the grant made by that statute. The present question arises upon the construction and effect of the two subsequent statutes of March 2, 1855; and March 3, 1857. If the claim of the State of Iowa is not maintainable upon these laws, it must fall. If they support it, I know no subsequent legislation which invalidates it. It is needed, therefore, to look critically into the acts of 1855 and 1857; and I propose now to state very briefly what, according to my legal view, is found in those laws.

The act of March 2, 1855. "An act for the relief of purchasers and locators of swamp and overflowed lands," (10 Stats., 634) contains two

sections. The 1st section authorizes all persons who had made entries of public lands, claimed as of that character, with cash or warrants, before the issuing of patents for the same lands to the States, to demand their patents.

The 2d section required to be paid over to the States respectively the purchase money of such of these lands as had been sold and purchased, and provided indemnity in like amount of the public lands for such as had been located by warrant or scrip, upon due proof that any of the lands thus purchased or located were swamp lands within the meaning of the act of 1850. I think that the provisions of this act applied only to past cases of sales and locations. The phraseology employed does not embrace any other. There may be good grounds on which to contend that Congress ought, in justice to the States for whose benefit the act of 1850 was passed, to have provided a permanent measure of indemnity, embracing not only past, but also future cases of sales. However that may be, the inquiry here and now is what Congress did, not what it ought to have done; and looking at the words and the words only, of the statute for an answer to that question, I cannot discover in them the expression of an intention to give the States the money realized by the Government on sales of swamp lands within their limits, occurring subsequently to the date of the enactment.

I now come to the statute which presents the only difficulty in the case, the act of March 3, 1857. (11 Stats. 251.) Without that law the claim of the State could not be sustained. It is, to say the least of it, a most ambiguous act. This, together with the fact that your department seems always to have regarded it as adverse to the right of the State, in respect to her present claim, has caused me no little anxiety in giving construction to it. The opinion of the land office, affirmed by eminent gentlemen at the head of the Interior Department, on a question touching the interpretation of a law of this character, especially when that opinion has become a rule of action in the administration of the department, is undoubtedly entitled to great respect. I should be inclined to give it controlling effect in a case where a doubt arose which could only be resolved by the view that had received the sanction of the department. This, however, I am always to consider-that my duty, in every case submitted to me, is to give my own opinion on the question it presents. I have no right to adopt that of any one else, unless it is agreeable to my views of the law. The fact that my opinion, on a question of statutory interpretation, is disapproved by the authority of contemporaneous construction in the department whose duty it is to execute the statute, ought in every case to induce me to review the grounds of my own judgment with more than ordinary care and caution; to take time for reflection; to consider well all the opposing views; and, finally, in a proper case, to give the department the benefit of any reasonable well-founded doubt as to the proper view of the case. Contemporanea expositio est fortissima. But, if after this has been done, I am not able to concur in the view of the department, my duty is, as I have suggested, to give what I am requested and required to give my own opinion on the question. That opinion, however, may or may not be adopted. It is always a question of administrative discretion whether it shall be. The department has the right to respect it, or refuse. to act on it, in a proper case, without submitting the subject to the consideration of Congress. With these general observations, I proceed to state the views which I entertain in regard to the construction and effect of the act of March 3, 1857.

I cannot concur with the land office in the opinion that the right of the

State to the indemnity provided by the second section of the act of 1855, in connection with the proviso to the act of 1857, depends upon whether the selections of, as swamp and overflowed lands, were made and reported to the Commissioner of the General Land Office prior to the passage of the act of 1857. In the construction of a statute, it is an established rule, that the intention of the legislature is to be deduced from a view of the whole, and of every part, of the statute, taken and compared together. No part of it should be made void; full sense and meaning must be given to every clause and provision. As Lord Kenyon said, in regard to a will, "One spells as it were every word, to get at the intention." If the statute contain an enacting clause, a saving clause, and a proviso, they must all be taken into view, and construed together. The saving clause is not to be rejected, unless it is directly repugnant to the body of the act, and cannot stand without rendering the act inconsistent and destructive of itself. If the statute contain a proviso, it must be held not to repeal the purview, unless flatly repugnant to, and manifestly inconsistent with the purview. The real intention must govern in every case, and prevail over the literal sense of the terms. But the intention must be such as the legislature has used fit words to express, and the spirit is to be collected from the letter. 'The longer I sit here," said Sir John Coleridge, "the more I feel the importance of seeking only the meaning of a statute according to the fair interpretation of the words, and acting on that." (6 A and E., 7.)

"In its

I have endeavored to obey these canons in giving construction to the act of 1857. We have in that act an enacting clause and a proviso, so called, to be considered. The office of a proviso is to take special cases out of the general enactment, and provide specially for them. abuse," says Dwarris, "it contains all unconnected matters, and disposes. of whatever is incapable of combination with the rest of any clause. "The meaning of this proviso, however, is equally clear, on the face of it, whether we regard it as containing what that part of an act regularly ought or ought not to contain. It would have been more regular, perhaps, if the proviso had, in this case, constituted a separate section of the statute. But that is unimportant. No different effect can be given to it from that which it would receive if it stood apart from the purview. Now, what are the provisions of the body and the proviso of the statute? The first declares, "that the selection of swamp and overflowed land, granted to the several States, heretofore made and reported, so far as the same shall remain vacant and unappropriated, and not interfered with by an actual settlement under any existing law of the United States, be, and the same are hereby, confirmed, and shall be approved and patented, to the said several States, in conformity with the provisions of the act aforesaid (1850) as soon as may be practicable after the passage of this law." There is not a word in all this provision which has any reference or relation to swamp lands which may have been purchased by private individuals, or located by warrant or scrip, prior to the date of the act, or to any right, claim, or demand of the States to, upon, or in respect to, such lands, or the proceeds thereof, or other equivalent land. It provides only for the issuing of patents to the States, and the lands for which patents are directed to be issued are swamp lands, which are vacant, unappropriated, and unsettled, and which were selected and reported to the Government as of the character of lands granted by the act of 1850, prior to the 3d of March, 1857. Under this provision, the State could maintain no claim to the moneys realized on sales of swamp lands made before or after that date, whether the lands sold were selected and reported as being of that description