can this court determine whether it is or is not the purpose of the defendant ever to return to California? If it should not, then complainant would have lost his present remedy, without obtaining the other.

An injunction will, therefore, be granted on the present motion, prohibiting the defendant from accepting from the Government of the United States a patent for the land in controversy, to continue in force till the final hearing of the cause.

ANDREW WYLIE.

No. 263 B.

Decision of the Secretary of the Interior in the case of the Soscol Rancho. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

Washington, D. C., January 4, 1867. Sir-I have received your report of the 18th of September last, and the papers therewith transmitted, upon the appeal of sundry claimants, under the general pre-emption laws, from the decision of your office, rendered on the 14th day of August last, in cases No. 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 26, 30, 32, 33, 37, 38, 39, and 40, of what is known as the "Soscol Ranch," in the State of California.

Your decision awards the rights to enter tracts in controversy to the parties claiming under the act entitled "An act to grant the right of preemption to certain purchasers on the 'Soscol Ranch,' in the State of California," as they have proved all the facts necessary to bring themselves within its provisions.

This is in conformity with the ruling of my predecessor in previous similar cases. I have been earnestly invited to reconsider the questions

involved.

Able and elaborate briefs have been filed by the respective parties; and, after a full and careful examination, I am of the opinion that your decision ought to be affirmed.

The act which I have cited "bears date the third of March, 1863, and directs the lines of the public surveys to be extended over the tract of country known as the 'Soscol Ranch,' and to have approved plats thereof duly returned to the proper district land office."

It then provides "that after the return of such approved plats to the district office, it may and shall be lawful for individuals, bona fide purchasers from said Vallejo (who claimed by grant from the Mexican government, and whose claim had been decided against by the Supreme Court of the United States), or his assigns, to enter, according to the lines of said surveys, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, the land so purchased, to the extent to which the same had been reduced to possession at the time of said adjudication of said Supreme Court, joint entries being admissible by coterminous proprietors to such an extent as will enable them to adjust their respective boundaries."

All claims within the purview of the act are to be "presented to the Register and Receiver within twelve months after the return of such surveys to the district land office, accompanied by proof of bona fide purchase under Vallejo of settlement, and the extent to which the tracts claimed had been reduced into possession at the time of said adjudication."

Municipal claims and lands reserved and occupied for military, naval, and other public uses, or which might thereafter be designated by the

President for such uses, and mineral lands are excepted from the operation of the act. There are no other exceptions.

The fifth and last section of the act then provides "that any claim not brought before the Register and Receiver within twelve months, as aforesaid, shall be barred, and the lands covered thereby, within any other tracts within the limits of said 'Soscol Ranch,' the titles to which are not established under this act, shall be dealt with as other public lands."

The foregoing recital presents all the substantial provisions of the law, and all which are deemed necessary to the proper consideration and decision of this case. A number of persons, not purchasers from Vallejo, or his assigns, at some time after the decision of the case by the Supreme Court, and before the passage of the above-recited law, entered upon the land and made improvements thereon, and they now claim to have acquired rights of pre-emption, under the general pre-emption laws, to the tracts respectively occupied by them, not exceeding in extent one hundred and sixty acres. And it is insisted that, notwithstanding the law above referred to, these parties are entitled, under the general pre-emption laws, to a preference of purchase of the tracts so settled upon and occupied by them. It is insisted that these parties had acquired vested interests in the tracts of land so occupied, of which Congress could not, by subsequent legislation, deprive them, and that this act must receive such a construction by this department as will give effect to the general pre-emption laws in behalf of such settlers. In other words, it is contended that if the act was intended to preclude the class of settlers referred to, and to give the exclusive right of entry, in the first place, to the claimants under Vallejo and his assigns, that then the law is to that extent unconstitutional; that it was not within the constitutional competency of Congress to pass it, and that, notwithstanding the law, the rights of claimants under the general pre-emption laws, should be protected and enforced.

If it was really the intention of the legislative department to give to the purchasers from Vallejo and his assigns an exclusive prior right to the land which they had purchased, and reduced to possession before the decision by the Supreme Court, without respect to quantity, then I am clearly of opinion that the executive department of the Government is bound by that intention, and that it would be transcending the powers of an executive officer to assume that the law was so far in conflict with constitutional provisions as to warrant him in declaring it unconstitutional and void. That is a judicial function which I cannot assume to exercise. I can only inquire what the law is, and am bound to accept as law all acts which have regularly passed the two houses of Congress and received the approval of the President, and am not at liberty to inquire whether, under the Constitution, Congress possessed the authority to enact such a law or not. I am, then, in the decision of this case, simply to construe and execute the law as Congress intended it should be, and that intention I am to derive from the language which they have thought proper to adopt to express it, and from that alone, if it be free from doubt and ambiguity.

If that language be clear and unambiguous, I am not at liberty to resort to any extraneous aids in its construction. It is only when a law is doubtful when it is susceptible of two or more meanings or constructions

that resort may be had to extrinsic facts and circumstances in exploring the will and intention of the legislature. Such resort is never admissible for the purpose of first introducing uncertainty, and then, to remove such uncertainty, giving to the law an interpretation not only not in harmony with, but in direct contravention of, the natural import of the

language in which the law is expressed. In this case the language of the law is clear, explicit, and unambiguous, and I have only to give it its natural and obvious meaning, and execute it according to that meaning, and my duty will be performed.

The law distinctly declares that "bona fide purchasers from Vallejo or his assigns shall have the right to enter according to the lines of survey, at $1.25 per acre, the lands so purchased to the extent to which the same had been reduced to possession at the time of the adjudication of the Supreme Court." But from this general provision it excepts municipal claims and lands reserved and occupied for military, naval, and other public uses, or which may thereafter be designated by the President for such uses, and mineral land. But it makes no exception of lands claimed by other persons, not being such purchasers, under the general pre-emption laws. It takes no cognizance of them-it recognizes no existing right in them. It clearly intended, if there were such occupants, that their claims should be postponed to the claims of the purchasers from Vallejo and his assigns. Upon a well-known general principle the expression of some exceptions is the exclusion of all others; and the intention to exclude all except the purchasers from Vallejo and his assigns, until their claims were satisfied, is made still more pointed and manifest by the provision of the fifth section of the act, "that any claim not brought before the Register and Receiver within twelve months shall be barred, and the lands covered thereby, with any other tracts within the limits of said 'Soscol ranch,' the titles to which are not established under this act shall be dealt with as other public lands." The intention that they should not be so dealt with, except to the extent that claims were not made or not sustained by such purchasers, could not be more distinctly expressed.

And this view of the law is greatly strengthened by the provision of the fourth section, "that all claims within the purview of this act shall be presented to the Register and Receiver within twelve months," &c.

Now what claims are within the purview of this act? Claims derived by bona fide purchase from Vallejo or his assigns, which had been reduced to possession at the time of the adjudication by the Supreme Court, and none other. No other claims are mentioned or hinted at. No other could be presented or adjudicated; and if others had been presented the Register and Receiver would have been compelled to reject them, for they were not within the purview of the law, and the law gave no authority to receive and consider them. It was not claims within the purview of some other law-the general pre-emption law, for instance-but of this law, and this law alone, that could be presented and acted upon by the Register and Receiver, and if they could not, under this law, hear and decide upon cases arising under the general pre-emption laws, clearly I cannot, for my jurisdiction is derivative and appellate only.

"to

But, it is said, the true interpretation of the act of 1863 is, " to give the Vallejo claimants a right to enter their lands, in so far as that right does not conflict with rights previously acquired under prior laws," meaning the pre-existing pre-emption laws.

But this interpretation is directly contradicted by the language of the law. It expressly gives to the purchasers from Vallejo or his assigns a priority of right over all others, except municipal claims and military, naval, and other public reservations and mineral lands, and forbids the "Soscol ranch" from being dealt with as other public lands until said purchasers shall have had their claims adjudicated or have made default in the presentation of them; and it was only the residue, after these claims

were satisfied, that was remitted to the condition of other public lands and subjected to the operation of the general pre-emption laws.

I do not inquire whether this was right. I do not ask whether Congress possessed the constitutional power to do this. I am forbidden to enter upon any such inquiry. My duty, and my whole duty, is to ascertain the meaning of the law, taking where, as in this case, the language is unambiguous, its plainest and most obvious sense, and then to execute it in that sense. I have no such judicial function or authority as would justify me in refusing to execute the law, or to execute it in a sense not authorized by its terms, because I may think it in conflict with the constitution or with the fundamental principles of equity and justice. If I may do this in one instance, I may in all.

If I may do it, all other executive officers may do the same thing, and the greatest confusion and uncertainty be introduced into the administration of the laws.

Yet this is what I am asked to do.

I am asked to say that, when Congress declared that "bona fide purchasers from Vallejo or his assigns should have the right to enter, according to the lines of surveys, the land so purchased to the extent to which the same had been reduced to possession," they did not mean that; but that they meant to say that the pre-emption right was conferred upon such purchasers only "to whom Congress had a constitutional right to grant the privilege, and to the extent to which Congress might grant it, and to such as brought themselves by purchase, possession, and settlement within the provisions of this law, and of the system of pre-emption laws already established," &c.

But this would not be to interpret and execute a law, but to make and substitute a new law for the one made by Congress; for it is not claimed that any such terms and conditions are found in the law which Congress did actually make. If they get there at all it will be by my interpretation. I would be greatly overstepping the boundaries of my powers and duties so to interpolate.

The argument is that the settlers, who were not purchasers, had acquired vested rights under the general pre-emption laws which Congress could not constitutionally divest, and that if the law under consideration intended to divest them and to give the purchasers from Vallejo or his assigns a priority of right over such settlers, then the law is, to that extent, unconstitutional, and that in such case I ought to seek for another meaning in the law, which would avoid such a consequence, although that meaning should be contrary to the plain import of the language of the law.

I agree that it is my duty to construe the law and to execute it according to my understanding of the intention of the legislators who made it; but in seeking that intention there are plain rules by which I must be governed and from which I cannot depart. Even the courts, whose latitude of construction is much larger than mine, are bound by the same rules.

Where the language of a law is clear and unambiguous even a judicial tribunal cannot put upon it a forced construction contrary to the natural and obvious sense of such language. It may deny the authority of the legislature and declare the law unconstitutional, but in construing it the plain import of its language must be accepted as its true interpretation. An executive officer must take the law as it is, and execute it as it is, without questioning the authority of the legislative department which enacted it. We cannot declare it unconstitutional, either in whole or in

part, nor supplement it so as to give it a meaning and effect not derivable. from its terms.

Now, if the act under consideration be taken just as it is, and construed without reference to or aid from extrinsic circumstances, I do not understand counsel to deny that the natural and obvious meaning to be derived from the language in which it is couched is to give to the purchasers from Vallejo or his assigns a priority of right over the settlers claiming under the general pre-emption laws. Indeed, it is because this is the only meaning to be extracted from the language of the law that I am urged to explore the title of the act, the reports of committees, the general pre-emption laws, &c., in search of another and different construction.

The most enlightened and experienced judges have often lamented that courts of justice have departed from the plain construction of the words of statutes.

Thus, in Edrick's case (5 Rep. 118), the judges said "that they ought not to make any construction against the express letter of the statute, for nothing can so express the meaning of the makers of the act as their own direct words."

So Ashurst, justice, said "it is safer to adopt what the legislature have actually said than to suppose what they meant to say." (1 Tr. Rep. 51.) And whenever the intention of the legislature can be indubitably ascertained, courts are bound to give it effect, whatever may be their opinion of its wisdom and policy.

In the case of Fisher v. Blight (2 Cranch, 389), quoted by the able and distinguished gentleman who has filed a brief on behalf of the claimants under the general pre-emption laws, Chief Justice Marshall said: "That the consequences are to be considered in expounding laws, where the intent is doubtful, is a principle not to be controverted, but it is also true that it is a principle which must be applied with caution, and which has a degree of influence dependent on the nature of the case to which it is applied."

And again, in the same case: "Where the intent is plain, nothing is left to construction. Where the mind labors to discover the design of the legislature, it seizes everything from which it can be derived; and in such case the title claims a degree of notice and will have its due share of consideration."

In the case of Litchfield v. Dubuque and Pacific Railroad Company (23 Howard, 88), quoted by the same learned counsel, the Supreme Court of the United States said: "If the words admit of different meanings it would be right to adopt that which is more favorable to the interests of the public," and that this rule is "intended to prevent parties from inserting ambiguous language for the purpose of taking by ungenerous interpretation that which cannot be obtained by express terms."

Now, these rules clearly forbid me to give to the law the construction which is contended for. I would be doing precisely what the court admonishes us to avoid-" inserting ambiguous language for the purpose of taking by ungenerous interpretation that which cannot be obtained by the express terms of the law."

But it is said that this is a pre-emption law, and to be construed and executed in connection and harmony with the system of pre-emption laws previously existing. I concede it to be a pre-emption law, but it is no part of the general system of pre-emption laws. It is a special law for a special case, limited to the "Soscol Ranch," and having no effect on operation outside of that. When the lands in that ranch, to which it ap