People ex rel. Attorney-General v. Folsom

The Federal Government has not only the right of eminent domain, hat the fee, and the prime and uncontrolled right of disposition of the territory, all of Which are attributes of sovereignty.

The Territory of California passed to the United States, subject to the power of the Federal Government to establish a Territorial Government, or erect the ■same into a State. It was garrisoned and held by United States troops and governed by United States officers. Every acre of land not the property of Mexican citizens passed to it, and the power of the Federal Government to acquire territory, either by purchase or treaty, is undisputed.

Sovereignty can never be in abeyance, and until there was some local government organized, either by the people of the territory, or some other competent authority, the United States, upon the doctrine of necessity, succeeded to, and represented the Government of Mexico, so far as the same could be exercised within the purview of the Constitution.

The United States, after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, did not become vested with authority to prosecute any claim for a forfeiture or escheat that had accrued in California to the Mexican Government.

An alien may hold real estate against every one, and even against the Government, until office found.

Laws regulating the admission of foreigners and aliens, and placing them under peculiar disabilities, and especially those relative to escheats, are political in their character.

The policy of the Government of the United States has been to encourage the immigration of foreigners, and to this extent a system of pre-emption has been adopted in all the Territories and new States, in which there is no discrimination between foreigners and native citizens.

Foreigners can hold property in all the Territories, and may inherit, in the absence of legislation upon this subject.

By the civil law, as well as the common law, the King cannot take upon himself the possession of an estate said to have escheated, until the fact is judicially ascertained by a proceeding in the nature of an inquest of office.

The Mexican law of escheats did not remain in force in California until the ratification of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

This law was abrogated by the conquest of the country by the Americans, as far as citizens of the United States and aliens were affected.

Twelve days before the ratification of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Leidesdorff, a naturalized citizen of Mexico, died, seized of certain lands in San Francisco, and Anna M. Sparks, his mother and heir, through whom the defendant claims title, was not at the time of his death a citizen of the United States or of Mexico, hut was a subject of Denmark, and never resided in Mexico or the United States. Held, that in order that the United States should take any interest in the land, it was necessary that the forfeiture should have been ascertained, either by the United'States or by Mexico.