The first inquiry now submitted is, whether, admitting the act and resolution to be executed, looking to the mere award itself, the claim may not be re-examined, to ascertain if errors of fact exist to be rectified? I think not. The questions submitted to your predecessor by the resolution of 1846 were combined questions of law and fact. Over each his jurisdiction was made complete and exclusive. That jurisdiction, too, was quasi judicial, and, for the purposes of conclusiveness, was as perfect and absolute as if it had been declared to be so by the resolution itself. It was not the purpose of Congress to leave the subject open. The interest of the claimant, as well as of the government, required that the claim should be finally disposed of. The resolution was designed to accomplish that end; and it did it, by submitting the whole subject to the Secretary. It necessarily follows that his decision upon all matters of fact connected with the claim is as final as it is upon all questions of law involved in it. There is no power in his successor, or in any other department of the government, to review his decision, upon the grounds of error either as to the one or the other. It has more than once been judicially held that decisions of this character are final. The safety of the government and the desired certainty of the law alike establish the soundness of the doctrine. Errors in calculations may be corrected, but not errors of decision upon controverted facts. As to these, the matter is past relief. The decision stands as the law of the case, ever binding and conclusive, until Congress thinks proper by law to reopen it. I answer your first question, therefore, by saying that it is not your right, and of course not your duty, to review the decision of your predecessor, upon the ground assumed in the inquiry. Secondly, what is the new evidence which would materially change the result, (the former decision,) is not specifically stated; nor does it appear why it was, and whose fault it was, that it was not at the time brought to the knowledge of the department. If it was a document emanating from the claimant, and was relevant to his case, it was his duty to have laid it before the Secretary. And if it did relate to his claim, and was in his possession or under his control, and not produced, he cannot now invoke it in aid of a re examination of the claim. The omission was his fault, and, however prejudicial it may have been to him, he must abide by it. These are principles so well settled in cases of motions for new trials at law, or for rehearing or reviews in equity, that they require no authority. But, independent of this, the second ground upon which, in my former opinion, I advised you that the decision of Mr. Secretary Walker was final, is altogether fatal upon the present point. It was, that, conceding the mere decision ought not in itself to have been final, yet the claimant, receiving by himself or attorney the amount allowed by it, made it final. By the very letter of the award, that sum, when received, was to be in full discharge of all and every claim Mr. Sibbald might have had, either under the law or resolution. Good faith demanded that the money should not be taken, except, as it was awarded, as a perfect acquittance and discharge of the claim. The claimant had no right to receive it upon other terms. He is not to be permitted to take the benefit of the award so cautiously intended to be conclusive upon him, as well as the United States, and afterwards to repudiate that very conclusiveness. In law and in jus tice, his receipt is an admission that thereby his claim against the government is finally settled. If I am right in this view and I have no doubt upon the point-Mr Sibbald is now estopped from denying that the decision of your predecessor of the 3d of June, 1847, was a perfect and final execution of the authority conferred upon the department, either by the law of 1842 or the resolution of 1846. No evidence, therefore, either new or old, and whether originally known or afterwards discovered, can affect the question. The whole matter is, in my judgment, terminated, and can never be reviewed, unless under some future act or resolution of Congress. I have the honor to be, with high regard, your obedient servant, REVERDY JOHNSON. Hon. Wм. M. MEREDITH, Secretary of the Treasury. GRANT OF LANDS TO INDIANA FOR WABASH AND ERIE CANAL. Whatever might under other circumstances have been the effect of a non-compliance on the part of Indiana with the provisions of the second section of the act of 27th May, 1821, upon the right of the State to the ninety feet of land on each side of the Wabash and Erie canal, the forfeiture has been waived by the passage of the acts of 2d March, 1827, 27th February, 1841, 3d March, 1845, and of 9th May, 1848, recognising the continuing efficacy of the original grant, and evincing the intent to waive every antecedent cause of forfeiture to which the act of 1824 may have been subject; so that the State of Indiana has a title to the ninety feet on each side of the said canal, as absolute as she would have had in the contingency of a full performance. Such of the feeders of the said canal as are navigable, are to be regarded as constituent portions of the work contemplated in the acts of Congress, and are comprehended in the grants for its construction. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFIce, SIR: The claim of the State of Indiana to certain lands to aid in the construction of the Wabash and Erie canal presents two questions, upon which you have requested the opinion of this office. The first is, whether a failure to comply with the provisions of the 2d section of the act of 26th May, 1824, (4 Stat. at Large, 47,) under the circumstances stated in the letter of Mr. Charles S. Frailey, a clerk in the General Land Office, to the Commissioner, under date 27th October, 1849, forfeits the right to the ninety feet on each side of the canal, granted by that act; and the second, whether the feeders of the canal, stated to be ten and a quarter miles long, are to be considered as the canal, for the purpose of such grant of ninety feet, in like manner as the admitted main trunk of the work. First. Is the grant made by the act of 1824 forfeited by the facts as sumed in this inquiry? The view which I take of the question renders it unnecessary to inquire what would be the effect of the assumed failure to comply with the conditions imposed by the 2d section of the act of 1824, upon the grant. It may be conceded and it is but conceded for argument's sake-that without some legal or equitable proceeding upon the part of the United States to enforce the forfeiture, the mere omission to fulfil the conditions would of itself operate as a forfeiture and annul the grant. But thus conceding, I am decidedly of opinion that neither by mere force of the original failure to comply, nor by any proceeding which the United States or any other party might have resort to, to enforce the forfeiture because of such failure, could the grant be annulled. There is no principle better settled, than that forfeitures of this description may be waived as well after as before they have attached. They are imposed for the benefit of the party who stipulates for them; it is for his advantage they are to inure; it is his grant which is to be extinguished, so as to reinvest in him the subject granted, whatever that may be, whether mere franchise or corporeal property. This being the purpose, he, the grantor, may expressly or impliedly waive it. If, after the cause of forfeiture occurs, he deals with the grantee as if the property granted was his, the grantee's; if he makes with him other contracts, whether in the form of additional grants or otherwise, necessarily implying the continuing existence of the original grant, the law infers, whatever his intention in fact may have been, that he abandons the cause of forfeiture, and agrees not to enforce it. Such acts estop him from denying the validity of the grant. For a doctrine so well settled, it is hardly necessary to cite an authority. It will be found, however, well stated, and the learning upon the subject exhausted, in the cases of the Canal Company vs. the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, 4 Gill. & John., 1; and the State of South Carolina vs. the Bank of Charleston and others the Bank case, S. C., 512. Has there been such a waiver in the present instance? I have no doubt upon the point. The acts of 2d March, 1827, (4 Stat 236,) 27th February, 1841, (5 Stat. 414,) 3d March, 1845, (5 Stat. 731,) and of 9th May, 1848, (Sssion acts, p. 22,) each one of them was a recognition of the continuing efficacy of the act of 1824, and together operate not merely by way of legal inference, but as demonstrative that Congress intended in fact to waive any and every antecedent cause of forfeiture to which the original act may at any time have been subject. I am clear, then, without resorting to circumstances of waiver existing in pais, and independent of the acts referred to, that the act of 26th May, 1824, is now as perfect a grant as it would have been if each and every one of its conditions had been fully and in due time performed. It follows, of course, that, in my judgment, the State of ludiana has as absolute a title to the ninety feet on each side of the canal, as she would have had in the con. tingency of such performance. Second. How are the acts of 26th May, 1824, and 2d March, 1827, as concerns the second question submitted to me, to be construed? The words of the parts of these acts which the question involves are, of the first, these: "That the State of Indiana be, and is hereby, authorized to survey and mark through the public lands of the United States the route of a canal, by which to connect the navigation of the rivers Wabash and Miami of Lake Erie; and ninety feet of land on each side of said canal shall be reserved from sale on the part of the United States, and the use thereof forever be vested in the State aforesaid for a canal, and for no other purpose whatever." Of the second, the words are: "That there be, and hereby is, granted to the State of Indiana, for the purpose of aid. ing the said State in opening a canal to unite, at navigable points, the waters of the Wabash river with those of Lake Erie, quantity of land equal to one half of five sections in width on each side of said canal, and reserving each alternate section to the United States, to be selected by the Commissioner of the Land Office, under the direction of the President of the United States, from one end thereof to the other; and the said lands shall be subject to be disposed of by the legislature of said State for the purpose aforesaid, and no other." The doubt is, whether feeders of the canal through their whole length, or in part, are to be considered as the canal, within the meaning of these two grants. The Commissioner of the Land Office thinks they are not. He construes the cession in the first act, of "ninety feet of land on each side of said canal," as a grant of a right of way for the main trunk only; and he gives the same limit to the cession of 1827 Indiana insists upon a different construction; she maintains that the feeders for their entire length of ten and a quarter miles are a portion of the canal, within the meaning of the grants; or, if not, that those at St. Joseph's and Peru, in length seven miles, being navigable, and used as a part of the canal, are so to be considered. I concur with the State in this latter view. The error into which the Commissioner has, I think, fallen, is in reading the terms in each grant, of "each side of the canal," as meaning only the main trunk of the work. The words used do not necessarily require such a limited interpretation; nor, looking to the character of the enter prise, and the objects to be accomplished, can they properly receive it. Canal navigation between distant extremes was to be attained. To promote the object, Congress passed the acts of 1824 and 1827, and the subsequent acts. Wherever the boats are to pass, whether it be over the main trunk, or feeder, if each was to be navigated from or to either extreme, or from or to intermediate points on the route, that is, in the view of these cases, in my opinion, the canal. What makes this more manifest are the terms in the act of 1827, directing the alternate sections of land granted by it to be selected, &c., from one end thereof of the canal to the other. The entire distance traversed as canal was to form the line for the location of the sections granted or reserved. No interval of space was contemplated as excepted from the grant. The whole, from one end to the other, was to be the line upon which the surveys and selections were to be made. In my opinion, then, what are called the feeders, to the extent, and no further, that they are navigated as constituent parts of the canal, are to be considered as the canal under both the acts of 1824 and 1827. Those feeders not so navigated, or collateral canals, if there be any, are not, I think, included in either grant. They are not parts of the canal, within the meaning of the term canal as used in either law. The conclusion I have arrived at on each of the questions referred to me is, I believe, warranted by a more strict interpretation of the acts of Congress upon which they depend. But if it were otherwise, and such a result could only be reached by a liberal construction, I should have given it with as clear a conviction that it would but accomplish the obvious purpose of Congress. The work itself was one of almost incalcu lable value. Its great extent and consequent cost were known to be, in all probability, beyond the unassisted means of Indiana, whilst its great national importance commended it to the favor and patronage of the gen eral government. If accomplished at all, it was to be in part by her aid, and in a spirit of enlarged patriotism the aid was evidently rendered. To bring to the construction of laws so originating a nice and limited criti cism, would be as unjust to the spirit by which the legislature was ani mated as it might prove fatal to the great enterprise in which Indiana had embarked. No narrow rules of interpretation should be suffered to limit laws so passed. They should be executed by the aid of the same liberal light which produced them. And I repeat, that I should, therefore, not have hesitated to construe them as I have done upon the points before me, even if they had been much less free of doubt than I think they are. I have the honor to be, with regard, your obedient servant, REVERDY JOHNSON. Hon. THOMAS EWING, Secretary of the Interior. EFFECT OF ERRONEOUS PAYMENTS AT THE TREASURY. The payment of a liquidated demand against the government to a person not authorized to receive it, does not relieve the government from responsibility to make payment to the proper claimant. There is no distinction in principle between such a case and that of an individual debtor, who, instead of paying his creditor, has made payment to a third person, to whom the money was not owing. If accounting officers err, designedly or by mistake, in making payments, the loss must fall on the United States. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, SIR: The question you have submitted to me, in the case of Captain John Rogers, I have considered. The original liability of the United States for the claim, under the act of the 5th of July, 1832, (4 Statutes at Large, 563,) is conceded. The doubt is, whether its having been heretofore paid to persons who were not the heirs is, as against the latter, a bar. I think not. The act of 1832 gave a vested interest to the parties for whose benefit it was passed in the amount of the relief granted. Each became entitled to his respective share as an absolute right, not to be extinguished except by payment to himself or agent. It was, of course, not in the power of the accounting officers to defeat it by any act or mistake of theirs. The United States, by force of the act, were made the debtors, and were to continue such until discharged by payment to the actual creditor. I can see no distinction between such a debtor and an ordinary individual debtor. That the liability of the latter is never discharged by payment to a wrong person, all will admit. And the same rule will apply to the former. The accounting officers in such cases are only to be considered as the agents of the United States, and not of the creditor. If they err, designedly or by inistake, the loss must fall on the United States, by whom they are selected, and for whom they act, and not upon third parties. A payment so erroneously made is simply void as a payment. The debt remains until it is in fact liquidated by properly accounting with the true creditor. This principle has been maintained. by my predecessors; and on the 21st January, 1835, it was maintained and acted upon by the then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Woodbury, in the case of the representatives of John Baily, arising under the act referred to of 1832. This decision was in these words: Being satisfied that the evidence upon which the claim of John Baily was allowed and paid was forged and fraudulent, and that the persons who received the money were not the representatives of Captain John Baily, but another |