Opinion of the Court. There can be no doubt that all the powers conferred, and all the trusts imposed, were annexed to the office of executors, and not to a distinct office of trustees. And, taking the whole will together, it is quite clear that the legal title of the executors and trustees did not absolutely terminate upon the expiration of twenty years from the death of the testator, because it was necessary, for the purpose of enabling them to execute the trusts and to carry out the provisions of the will, that the legal title should be and continue in them until they had, by sale or otherwise, settled the estate, and conveyed to the devisees severally their shares in the estate or its proceeds. The testator doubtless intended that after the expiration of the twenty years the estate should cease to be held and managed by his executors and trustees as a whole, and should be divided into four parts to be held in severalty by or for his residuary devisees. But he intended, and expressly provided, that the division should be made by his executors and trustees; and therefore their trust estate could not terminate until they had made the division and conveyed the shares. McArthur v. Scott, 113 U. S. 340, 377; Kirkland v. Cox, 94 Illinois, 400; Perry on Trusts, $$ 305, 315, 320. Whether, in case of unreasonable delay on their part to make the division, a court of equity might have compelled them to do so, is a question not presented by this record. The decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois in Kirkland v. Cox, above cited, is much in point. In that case, the testator devised and bequeathed all his estate, real and personal, to trustees, to control and manage it, and to make such disposition of it as should in their judgment increase its value; to pay to his daughter such instalments as they should deem sufficient for her support until she reached the age of thirty-five years, and then to convey the estate to her in fee; authorizing them, however, if she should be then married to a man whom they thought unworthy, to continue to hold the title in trust during his life; and further providing that, if she died without issue, the whole estate, after paying certain legacies, should "be divided equally between" three charitable corporations. It was held that the powers conferred on the trustees implied Opinion of the Court. a power to sell the lands and convert them into money or interest-bearing securities; and, therefore, that the trustees took and held the title in fee simple, notwithstanding the death of the daughter before reaching the age of thirty-five years, the court saying: "The power implied to sell is to sell the whole title and to this is essential the power to convey that title, requiring, as a condition precedent, a fee simple estate in the trustees. The property is devised to the trustees to sell and convey if they deem it advisable, or to hold and control until it is to be transferred as directed; and in the contingency that has arisen, it was intended that it should be the duty of the trustees to make the equal division of the property between the corporations designated and convey it accordingly - for the grant to these corporations is in severalty, and not as tenants in common, and their title must necessarily rest on. the conveyance of the trustees." 94 Illinois, 415. The cases cited against this conclusion differ widely from the case at bar. The two most relied on were Minors v. Battison, 1 App. Cas. 428, in which the facts were very peculiar, and there was much diversity of opinion among the judges before whom it was successively brought; and Manice v. Manice, 43 N. Y. 303, in which the construction adopted was the only one consistent with the validity of the will under the statutes of New York. 2. From this view of the nature and duration of the estate of the trustees, it necessarily follows that by the terms of the fourth and fifth clauses of the will, devising and bequeathing to the testator's brother and nephew, respectively, "after the expiration of the trust estate vested in my executors and trustees," "one fourth part of all my estate, both real and personal," (after the payment of debts and legacies, which he charged upon the real estate,) no legal title in any specific part of the estate, and no right of possession, vested in either of them, until the trustees had divided the estate and conveyed to each of them one fourth of the estate or of the proceeds of its sale; but, on well settled principles, an equitable estate in fee in one fourth of the residue of the testator's whole property vested in the brother and in the nephew respectively from the death of Opinion of the Court. the testator. Cropley v. Cooper, 19 Wall. 167; McArthur v. Scott, 113 U. S. 340, 378, 380; Phipps v. Ackers, 9 Cl. & Fin. 583; Weston v. Weston, 125 Mass. 268; Nicoll v. Scott, 99 Illinois, 529; Scofield v. Olcott, 120 Illinois, 362. To the suggestion that the will violated the rule against perpetuities, which prohibits the tying up of property beyond a life or lives in being and twenty-one years afterwards, it is a sufficient answer that after twenty years from the death of the testator, and after the death of the widow and daughter, (if not before,) the title, legal and equitable, in the whole estate would be vested in persons capable of conveying it. Waldo v. Cummings, 45 Illinois, 421; Lunt v. Lunt, 108 Illinois, 307. 3. Nor is the estate of the residuary devisees affected by the nineteenth clause of the will, which is in these words: "It is my will that my trustees aforesaid shall pay the several gifts, legacies, annuities and charges herein to the persons named in this will, and that no creditors or assignees or purchasers shall be entitled to any part of the bounty or bounties intended to be given by me herein for the personal advantage of the persons named; and therefore it is my will that, if either of the devisees or legatees named in my will shall in any way or manner cease to be personally entitled to the legacy or devise made by me for his or her benefit, the share intended for such devisee or legatee shall go to his or her children, in the same manner as if such child or children had actually inherited the same, and, in the event of such person or persons having no children, then to my daughter and her heirs." The devise over in this clause cannot, indeed, by reason of the words "gifts, legacies, annuities and charges," and "bounty or bounties," in the preamble, be confined to the legacies and annuities given by the testator and charged on his real estate by clauses six to thirteen inclusive, and by' clause eighteen. So to hold would be utterly to disregard the comprehensive and decisive words, "devisees or legatees," "legacy or devise," and "share intended for such devisee or legatee," by which the testator clearly manifests his intention that the devise over shall attach to the shares of his real estate devised Opinion of the Court. to his widow, daughter, brother and nephew, respectively, by clauses two, three, four and five, except so far as its effect upon the shares of the daughter and the widow may be modified by the trusts created for their benefit by clauses twenty and twenty-two. The testator having declared his will that the devises of the shares shall be "for the personal advantage of" the devisees, and that "no creditors or assignees or purchasers shall be entitled to any part," and having directed the devise over to take effect "if either of the devisees shall in any way or manner cease to be personally entitled to the devise made for his benefit," the devise over of the shares of the brother and the nephew, if valid, would take effect upon any alienation by the first devisee, whether voluntary or involuntary, by sale and conveyance, by levy of execution, by adjudication of bankruptcy, or otherwise; or, at least, upon any such alienation before his vested equitable estate became a legal estate after the expiration of the twenty years. But the right of alienation is an inherent and inseparable quality of an estate in fee simple. In a devise of land in fee simple, therefore, a condition against all alienation is void, because repugnant to the estate devised. Lit. 360; Co. Lit. 206 b, 223 a; 4 Kent Com. 131; McDonogh v. Murdock, 15 How. 367, 373, 375, 412. For the same reason, a limitation over, in case the first devisee shall alien, is equally void, whether the estate be legal or equitable. Howard v. Carusi, 109 U. S. 725; Ware v. Cann, 10 B. & C. 433; Shaw v. Ford, 7 Ch. D. 669; In re Dugdale, 38 Ch. D. 176; Corbett v. Corbett, 13 P. D. 136; Steib v. Whitehead, 111 Illinois, 247, 251; Kelley v. Meins, 13 Mass. 231, and cases there cited. And on principle, and according to the weight of authority, a restriction, whether by way of condition or of devise over, not forbidding alienation to particular persons or for particular purposes only, but against any and all alienation whatever during a limited time, of an estate in fee, is likewise void, as repugnant to the estate devised to the first taker, by depriving him during that time of the inherent power of alienation. Roosevelt v. Thurman, 1 Johns. Ch. 220; Mandlebaum v. McDonell, 29 Michigan, Opinion of the Court. 77; Anderson v. Cary, 36 Ohio St. 506; Twitty v. Camp, Phil. Eq. (No. Car.) 61; In re Rosher, 26 Ch. D. 801. The cases most relied on, as tending to support a different conclusion, are two decisions of this court, not upon devises of real estate, but upon peculiar bequests of slaves, at times and places at which they were considered personal property. Smith v. Bell, 6 Pet. 68; Williams v. Ash, 1 How. 1. In Smith v. Bell, the general doctrine was not denied; and the decision turned upon the construction of the words of a will by which a Virginia testator bequeathed all his personal estate (consisting mostly of slaves) to his wife "to and for her own use and benefit and disposal absolutely; the remainder of said estate, after her decease, to be for the use of" his son. This was held to give the son a vested remainder, upon grounds summed up in two passages of the opinion, delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, as follows: "The limitation in remainder shows that, in the opinion of the testator, the previous words had given only an estate for life. This was the sense in which he used them." 6 Pet. 76. "The limitation to the son on the death of the wife restrains and limits the preceding words so as to confine the power of absolute disposition, which they purport to confer of the slaves, to such a disposition of them as may be made by a person having only a life estate in them." 6 Pet. 84. In Williams v. Ash, a Maryland testatrix bequeathed to her nephew all her negro slaves, naming them, "provided he shall not carry them out of the State of Maryland, or sell them to any one; in either of which events I will and devise the said negroes to be free for life." One of the slaves was sold by the nephew, and, upon petition against the purchaser, was adjudged to be free. As stated by Chief Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the court, and recognized in the statute of Maryland of 1809, c. 171, therein cited, "By the laws of Maryland, as they stood at the date of this will, and at the time of the death of the testatrix, any person might, by deed or last will and testament, declare his slave to be free after any given period of service, or at any particular age, or upon the performance of any condition, or on the event of any con |