of each case. Where there are conflicting claims, the parties may be left to liquidate and settle them in the judicial tribunals. Where the controversy is exclusively between the government and the individual claimant. who has received or who holds the certificate of purchase, it would seen to be equitable and just, as the government cannot be sued, that it should institute some appropriate legal proceeding for the purpose of trying and determining the validity of the claim. When this is not done, the claim. ant must appeal to the legislature, who of course have the power at any time (and that, whether a suit has been brought or not) to dispose of any part of the public lands, and to direct the Executive to issue the proper evidence of title. I am, &c., To the SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. B. F. BUTLER. TO WHOM LAND SCRIP OUGHT TO BE DELIVERED. Land scrip issued pursuant to the act of the 30th of May, 1830, for the relief of certain officers and soldiers of the Virginia line and navy, must be made out in the names of the persons prima facie entitled to it. If there be equitable assignees of the whole or any part of the scrip which may be issued, and they shall claim the same in hostility to the parties originally entitled, the scrip, if delivered at all, ought to be delivered to the parties originally entitled, their heirs, devisees, or other agent or agents, as contradistinguished from persons claiming interests, as assignees or otherwise, by contract. But where the department sees that the just claims of other persons will be liable to be defeated by such delivery of the scrip, it may lawfully suspend the actual delivery until claimants can have time to apply to a court of equity for an injunction; and, if it be procured, to retain the scrip until the rights of the parties can be judicially determined. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, SIR: In your letter of the 30th ultimo, after alluding to the circumstances which led to the general employment of attorneys in fact by persons having claims under the act of the 30th of May, 1830, for the relief of certain officers and soldiers of the Virginia line and navy, and of the continental army during the revolutionary war, and informing me that, where the character of the attorney is unexceptionable, it has been the invariable practice to deliver to him the scrip, when prepared, that he might settle his agency with his principal, leaving it to other tribunals to scrutinize, when necessary, the merits of disputed contracts, you state the following case: "Recently, a case is presented where a first attorney, having established the services of a captain, and proved the identity of his heirs, obtained for them a land warrant, and filed it in the proper office; after which, those heirs executed another power of attorney, and the substitute of that attorney has demanded the scrip prepared in the case, denying the correctness of the practice that has prevailed, and appealing from the decision of the Commissioner of the General Land Office as erroneous." With a view of disposing of this case, and of deciding as to the accuracy of the practice objected to, you request my opinion on the following point: "Whether a contract with heirs, by which an attor ney undertakes to establish their right to the bounty of the government, for a specified portion of what he may get, vests such an interest in the attorney that his authority cannot be abrogated without cause, and as ought to be recognised and enforced here." The first section of the act of the 30th of May, 1830, treats the land warrants previously granted as assignable; but the proviso to the fourth section enacts "that all certificates or scrip to be issued in virtue of any warrant hereafter to be granted shall be issued to the party originally entitled thereto, or his heir or heirs, devisee or devisees, as the case may be." It appears, from the papers in the case on which your question arises, that the land warrants which are now the subject of dispute were all granted to the heirs of Captain Joseph Mitchell, after the 30th of May, 1830. Your question must, therefore, be decided by this law-by its provisions, if they meet the point in controversy; by its spirit, if it be not expressly provided for. So much, at least, is certain: the scrip to be issued in this case must be made out in the names of the heirs or devisees of Captain Mitchell, the party originally entitled. They are also the persons to whom, or to whose order, it is prima facie to be delivered. But, although it is plain that land warrants granted after the 30th of May, 1830, cannot be assigned in such manner as to pass the legal title to the assignee, and to authorize the making out of the scrip in his name, yet I am of opinion that third persons may, by purchase and by other means, acquire an equitable interest in such warrants, and in the scrip to be issued thereon; in other words, there may be a valid equitable assignment of an interest in the subject. The case put in your question is one of this nature. I perceive no legal objection to a contract with heirs, by which an attorney undertakes to establish their right to the bounty of the government, for a specified portion of what may be recovered, provided it be fairly made. Agencies of this sort grow out of the very nature and circumstances of these cases; and, when fairly made and faithfully executed, they are, no doubt, highly beneficial to the parties intended to be provided for by the act of Congress. In every such instance, the attorney or agent must be regarded as having a vested equitable interest in the land warrants, and in the scrip to be issued thereon, which cannot be abrogated by the party with whom he has contracted, and which the appropriate courts of equity will, no doubt, protect and enforce. To a certain extent, equitable interests of this nature may and ought to be recognised and protected in your department. Where the existence and extent of such interests are not disputed by the party originally entitled, the scrip, though made out in the name of such party, may be delivered to the equitable assignee. Where the party originally entitled is not before the department, except as represented by persons elaiming by equitable assignments from him, I think the department may look into their respective claims, not with a view of adjudicating thereon, (for it has no judicial power in the premises,) but for the purpose of ascertaining whether the claims, or either of them, are of such presumptive validity and fairness as to make it discreet and just to deliver the scrip, or any part thereof, to either or both the contending parties. Your question, however, looks to an entirely different case: it supposes a contest between the equitable assignee and the party originally entitled, his heirs and devisees; and when you ask whether the interest of the former ought to be recognised and enforced here, I understand you as in quiring whether so much of the scrip as may be required to satisfy that interest ought to be delivered to him notwithstanding the objections of the other party. This question will be satisfactorily answered by a proper regard to the meaning and effect of the word issued in the provisions above quoted. What, then, are we to understand by that word, as used in the statute?: Does it merely mean that the certificates or scrip shall be made out or filled up in the name of the party originally entitled? and if it be sa made out and filled up, may it yet be delivered, without his consent, and notwithstanding his remonstrances, to a party claiming under a contract some interest therein? or does it also require its actual delivery to the party originally entitled? The word itself is of equivocal import. In common parlance, and in its legal use, it sometimes means the making out and sending forth of a writ, order, address, or other document, without including the idea of the delivery thereof to any person in particular. At other times, as when we say that a writ was issued to the sheriff, or an order issued by the com. manding officer to one of his inferiors, we usually mean, not only that the writ or order was sent forth, but that it actually reached the party to whom it was directed. The word itself being thus ambiguous, we must recur to the design and spirit of the provision; or, as the old common lawyers technically expressed it, we must look at the old law, the mischief and the remedy, and give the word such an interpretation as will most effectually suppress the mischief and advance the remedy. By the old law, as recognised in the first section, these land warrants were assignable; and when an assignment had been made, the certificates or scrip were accordingly to be made out in the name of the assignee, and, as matter of course, were also to be delivered to him. The mischief of this state of things was, that the party originally entitled was sometimes induced to execute an assignment of his interest, upon an inadequate consideration, or perhaps without any consideration whatever. The remedy proposed by Congress was to render the title of the party originally entitled inalienable as between the government and himself, so that the legal title should, at all times, remain in him; leaving all per sons who might, under contracts with him or otherwise, have equitable claims thereon, to look to his own honor and good faith, or to the aid of the courts, for the satisfaction of those claims. It is obvious that if the scrip be delivered to a person claiming as an assignee, or otherwise in hostility to the party originally entitled, the latter will, in some respects, be subjected to the very mischief which the proviso was intended to suppress. The restricted interpretation of the word issued is therefore to be avoided; and, for the like reason, we must give to that word the most comprehensive definition of which it is susceptible. In other words: the scrip, if delivered at all, must be delivered to the party originally entitled, his heirs, devisees, or other agent, as contradis tinguished from all persons claiming an interest, as assignee or otherwise, by contract with such party. Whenever, therefore, the party originally entitled, or his representatives, and an attorney or other persons claiming an interest by contract in the warrants, and in the scrip to be issued thereon, are both before the department, and each demands the scrip, I am of opinion that, if it be From the department, it must, according to the true spirit and of the act of Congress, be delivered to the former. But I think, t in all cases where the department sees that the just claims of rsons will be liable to be defeated by such delivery of the scrip, awfully suspend the actual delivery until the claimant can have apply to a court of equity for an injunction. If he make out case as to procure an injunction, it will be proper in itself, and able to the usages of the department in analogous cases, to retain p until the rights of the parties can be judicially determined, and deliver it to such person as the court may direct. , among the before papers me, some allusion to my opinion in the Triplett. It is proper to observe, in respect to that opinion, that ntion was not called to the effect of the proviso above considered; any doubt suggested, in the case as stated to me, in respect to er and duty of the department to take notice of the interest of , under the contract with Rice. It was assumed by the departhat, had not Triplett been indebted to the government, the scrip share must have been delivered to him; and the question referred vas, whether it could be retained for the government debt. I held s could be done; and, on the principles of this opinion, I should ne to the same result. If the proviso applied to the case, still it vious that Triplett had an equitable interest in the scrip; and that ough to justify the United States in withholding the share to which equitably entitled, until his debt to them should be fully satisfied. ve the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, B. F. BUTLER. he Hon. LEVI WOODBURY, Secretary of the Treasury. PRE-EMPTIONS IN MISSOURI. of doubt, patents may be suspended until the question shall have been determined by petent tribunal. reason to doubt whether a pre-emption to an accumulation of land in the Mississippi allowed to exist. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 13th instant, ing various documents from the General Land Office, concerning a nder the pre-emption laws, on which my opinion is requested. ppears from the papers referred to me, that a person who has been ed to erect a dwelling on a small island or sand-bar opposite the part of the city of St. Louis, in the State of Missouri, has recently red to the land office for the district including that city, a claim re-emption right under the law of 1830, and the acts amending and ng the same; which claim has been allowed by the register and rer, and a certificate of purchase issued to him and assigned. This on is objected to by sundry inhabitants of the city of St. Louis, on us grounds, which are set forth at length in a communication to the ors and representatives in Congress, which is among the papers be fore me. I deem it unnecessary to enter at large into an examination of the numerous points suggested in the communication. In my lette of the 21st instant, I had occasion to express my opinion as to the powe of the Commissioner of the General Land Office to suspend the executio of letters patent until the direction of Congress or the decision of a com petent tribunal shall have been obtained; and I will only add, that, in m opinion, there is great reason to doubt whether a pre-emption could b legally allowed in the present case, even if the sand-bar or island itse could, under any circumstances, be the subject of a grant to individua by the government of the United States. I am, sir, &c., &c., To the SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. B. F. BUTLER. THE ISSUE OF SCRIP TO BE SUSPENDED IN CERTAIN CASES. The Treasury Department may suspend the issuing of all or any portion of the scrip claime on a warrant issued for a greater number of acres than may appear to be due, until the tru amount can be ascertained. SIR: In answer to the question proposed to me in your communication of the 15th ultimo, I have the honor to state that, in my opinion, it is competent for the Treasury Department to suspend the issuing of all of any portion of the scrip claimed on a warrant issued for a greater number of acres than may appear from the documents in the possession of the de partment to be due from the State of Virginia, until the truth of the case and the precise amount of the claim can be satisfactorily ascertained. It may, however, be proper to suggest, that the amount which the depart ment may admit to be due ought to be issued without delay; and that as the party holding the warrants is presumptively entitled, and as he cannot institute judicial proceedings against the government, some appropriate legal steps should be instituted by the United States in respect to the amount withheld for the purpose of determining the validity of the claim. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, B. F. BUTLER. To the Hon. LEVI WOODBURY, Secretary of the Treasury. POWERS OF REGISTERS OF LAND DISTRICTS. Under the act of the 19th February, 1833, registers of land districts are made judges of the validity of purchases made under the first section thereof; and the Treasury Department has no power to revise or reverse their decisions. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, April 30, 1836. SIR: In answer to the questions proposed to me in your letter of the 8th instant, I have the honor to state that, in my opinion, your depart |