I Think The Practice Of The Land Office In This Respect, As Thus
Reported, Is Lawful And Proper:
It being understood, of course, that
thus the acts of alleged selection, possession, and occupation are
performed in perfect good faith.
Something is hinted, in the report of the commissioner, as to the
speculation-character of the proposed town settlement, and, in the
official brief accompanying your letter, as to the
speculation-character of the proposed agricultural preemption. I
suppose it must be so, if the land in question has peculiar aptitude
for municipal uses. But how is that material? The object, in either
mode of attaining it, is a lawful one. Two persons may lawfully
preempt a certain quantity of land under the general law, and intend a
townsite without saying so; or they may preempt avowedly for a town
site. As between the two courses, both having the same ultimate
destination, it would not seem that there could be any cause of
objection to the more explicit one.
So much for the first branch of the second question. As to the second
branch of it, the same line of reasoning leads to equally satisfactory
results.
The municipal preemptor, like the agricultural preemptor, is required
to take his land in conformity with "the legal subdivisions of the
public lands." I apprehend the import of the requirement is the same
in both cases. Neither class of pre-emptors is to break the legal
subdivisions as surveyed. The preemptor of either case may take
fractional sections if he will, but he is in every case to run his
extreme lines with the lines of the surveyed subdivisions.
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