Nor Do They Require
Of Me To Attempt To Make Application Of Them To Any Actual Case,
Conflict Of Right, Or Controversy Either Between Private Individuals
Or Such Individuals And The Government.
It is true that, accompanying your communication, there is a great
mass of representations, depositions, arguments, and other papers,
Which show that the questions propounded by you are not speculative
ones, and that, on the contrary, they bear, in some way, on matters of
interest, public or private, to be decided by the Department. But
those are matters for you, not for me, to determine. You have
requested my opinion of certain points of law, to be used by you, so
far as you see fit, in aid of such your own determination. I am thus
happily relieved of the task of examining and undertaking to analyze
the voluminous documents in the case: more especially as your
questions, while precise and complete in themselves, derive all
needful illustration from the very instructive report in the case of
the present Commissioner of Public Lands and the able brief on the
subject drawn up in your Department.
I. To return to the questions before me: the first is in substance
whether the words in the act of 1841, " portions of the public land
which have been selected as the site for a city or a town," are to
be confined to cases of such selection in virtue of some special
authority, or by some official authority?
I think not, for the following reasons:
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