(Download) "Heydenfeldt v. Daney Gold and Silver Mining Company" by United States Supreme Court ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Heydenfeldt v. Daney Gold and Silver Mining Company
- Author : United States Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 01, 1876
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 72 KB
Description
The validity of the patent from the State under which the plaintiff claims title rests on the assumption that sections 16 and 36, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, and whether containing minerals or not, were granted to Nevada for the support of common schools by the seventh section of the Enabling Act, approved March 21, 1864, 13 Stat. 32, which is as follows: 'That sections numbered 16 and 36 in every township, and where such sections have been sold or otherwise disposed of by any act of Congress, other lands equivalent thereto, in legal subdivisions of not less than one quarter-section, and as contiguous as may be, shall be, and are hereby, granted to said State for the support of common schools.' This assumption is not admitted by the United States, who, in conformity with the act of Congress of July 26, 1866, 14 id. 251, issued to the defendant a patent to the land in controversy, bearing date March 2, 1874. Which is the better title is the point for decision. As it has been the settled policy of the government to promote the development of the mining resources of the country, and as mining is the chief industry in Nevada, the question is of great interest to her people. It is true that there are words of present grant in this law; but, in construing it, we are not to look at any single phrase in it, but to its whole scope, in order to arrive at the intention of the makers of it. 'It is better always,' says Judge Sharswood, 'to adhere to a plain common-sense interpretation of the words of a statute, than to apply to them refined and technical rules of grammatical construction.' Gyger's Estate, 65 Penn. St. 312. If a literal interpretation of any part of it would operate unjustly, or lead to absurd results, or be contrary to the evident meaning of the act taken as a whole, it should be rejected. There is no better way of discovering its true meaning, when expressions in it are rendered ambiguous by their connection with other clauses, than by considering the necessity for it, and the causes which induced its enactment. With these rules as our guide, it is not difficult, we think, to give a true construction to the law under consideration.