315
PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
obeyed and carried out, in order that the same may be submitted to· Congress should any Legislative action on the subject be necessary. Yours respectfully [Endorsed] .Mirabeaw B. Lamar Letter to the Hou. Lewis P. Cook Secretary of the Navy 26th January 1840 No. 1699 1840 Jan. 27, M. B. LAMAR, AUSTIN, [TEXAS]. VETO OF BILL CONCERNING FRAUDULENT LAND CERTIFICATES [AND ·ro PROVIDE FOR ISSUING PATENTS TO LEGAL CLAil\IANTS] 44 , Executive Department, Austin 27th. January, 1840 To the Honorable, the House of Representatives: I have had under consideration a bill, 45 entitled "An Act to detect fraudulent land certificates, and to provide for issuing Patents to legal claimants", and am reluctantly constrained to return it with- out my approval. Having long been of the opinion that frauds of the most unblushing character had been, and were still being practiced in many parts of the Republic in obtaining certificates and other evidences of incipient titles to lands in the country, and believing that the character, interest and credit of the nation required that some law should be passed, which would pro.vide a remedy for the evil, I haYe more than once presented the subject to the consideration of Congress, and respectfully solicited their actiol). in reference to it_; and it is a matter of deep regret to mP, that when that action had been made, I should find provisions in the bill of a character which utterly precludes my assent. Among the various attempts to filch the public domain, it is said that none have been practiced to a greater extent than by some of those whose claims .are founded upon documents, purporting to be orders of survey, which issued before the closing of the laud offices by the Con· sultation. It is understood that the Boards of Land Commissionerl'l have, in many instances, refused to grant certificates upon these orders of survey because the parties applying for them could not, or would not make the proofs required by the law; and that appeals lrn.ve been taken from the decisions of these Boards to the District courts, and that in most, if not all of the cases, the juries have found in favor of the claimants, ·upon the ground that the act of Congress requiring the proofs was unconstitutional. From these decisions appeals have been taken, and are now pending before the Supreme court, but if the eighth (8th.) section of the bill under consideration becomes a law, the juris- diction of that court is immediately taken away, and every case hereto- "Copy. In no. 361, p. 202. The original is in: the Texas archives, House Journal, 4th Texas Congress, Secretary of State Department. See also no. 1701. "This bill was passed over the Presi<icnt's veto, but was later amended by repealing the 8th section of the act. See Gammel, H. P. N., Laws of Te{lJ(Js, II, 313, 317.
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