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562; Vance v. Burbank, 101 U. S. 514 (25; 929); | has a direct interest, or is under an obligation
U. S. v. Schurz, 102 U. S. 401 (26: 173); Quinby
v. Conlan, 104 U. S. 426 (26: 802); Marquez v.
Frisbie, 101 U. S. 476 (25: 801); Lansdale v.
Daniels, 100 U. S. 118 (25: 589.)

If the heirs of Philbrook had a valid claim court. they might abandon it.

House v. Talbot, 51 Tex. 467; Thornton v. Murray, 50 Tex. 161; Minter v. Crommelin, 59 U. S. 18 How. 87 (15: 279); MacKay v. Easton, 86 C. S. 19 Wall. 630 (22: 214); Fremont v. U. S. 58 U. S. 17 How. 542 (15: 241); French v. Fyan, 93 U. S. 172 (23: 813); Grignon v. Astor, 43 U. S. 2 How. 319 (11: 283).

Even if it had not thus been authoritatively settled, it would have been difficult, upon principle, to reach any other conclusion. The public domain is held by the Government as part of its trust. The Government is charged with the duty and clothed with the power to protect it from trespass and unlawful appropriation, and, under certain circumstances, to invest the individual citizen with the sole possession of the title which had till then been common with Danley v. Rector, 10 Ark. 212; Shall v. Biscoe, all the people as the beneficiaries of the trust. 18 Ark. 165; Hornor v. Hanks, 22 Ark. 583; If a patent is wrongfully issued to one individChapman v. Chapman, 59 Pa. 214; Cumber-ual, which should have been issued to another, land Valley R. R. Co. v. McLanahan, Id. 23. or if two patents for the same land have been The claim is barred by the Statute of Limi-issued to two different individuals, it may proptations and this fact appears on the face of the bill.

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[345]

ment, to the end that their previous engagement that both the State and the Attorney-General
be fulfilled by the transfer of a clear title,-the
one intended for the purchaser by the Act of
Congress." Unless, therefore, it appears on the
face of the bill that the claim set up has no
equity, or that there are valid defenses to the
suit, the jurisdiction of the court to entertain
it cannot be denied.

Next, as to the defense of the Statute of
Limitations, laches, and lapse of time.

The grounds on which the court below sus-
tained the demurrer were (1) that, distinct from
and independent of the Statute of Limitations
and the laches of the public officers of the Gov-
ernment, the lapse of time constitutes good
defense to this suit, upon those principles of
equity which would be administered as between
two citizens litigating in this tribunal; and (2)
that the United States is bound by the same law.
The counsel for the complainant maintain
that this conclusion, upon which the decree of
dismissal rests, is erroneous, and contrary to the
decisions of this court and of every Circuit and
District Court in the United States.

are only nominal actors in the proceeding. The
bondowner, whoever he may be, was the pro-
moter and is the manager of the suit. ***
And while the suits are in the names of the
States, they are under the actual control of in-
dividual citizens, and are prosecuted and car-
ried on altogether by and for them."

In the case of United States v. Nashville, C.
& St. L. Railway Company, supra, in which it
was decided that the Statute of Limitations of
the State of Tennessee was no defense to an
action of the United States upon certain nego-
tiable bonds held by them for public use, Mr.
Justice Gray is careful to say: "This case
does not present the question what effect the
statute may have in an action on a contract in
which the United States have nothing but the
formal title, and the whole interest belongs to
others; ' and cites Maryland v. Baldwin, 112
U. S. 490 [28: 822]; Miller v. State, 38 Ala. 600.

In the former case it was held that a suit in the name of a State for the benefit of parties interested is to be regarded as a suit in the name The principle that the United States are not of the party for whose benefit it is brought. bound by any Statute of Limitations, nor Mr. Justice Field, delivering the opinion of the barred by any laches of their officers, however court, said: "The name of the State is used gross, in a suit brought by them as a sovereign from necessity when a suit on the bond is prosGovernment to enforce a public right or to ecuted for the benefit of a person interested, assert a public interest, is established past all and in such cases the real controversy is becontroversy or doubt. U. S. v. Nashville, C. tween him and the obligors on the bond;" and & St. L. R. Co. 118 U. S. 125 [30: 83], and the case was decided upon a consideration of cases there cited. But this case stands upon a the merits as if the party interested was alone different footing, and presents a different ques- named as plaintiff. And he cited, approvingtion. The question is, Are these defenses avail-ly, the following language in McNutt v. Bland, able to the defendant in a case where the Gov-43 U. S. 2 How. 9 [11: 159]: "As the instruernment, although a nominal complainant par- ment of the state law, his (the Governor's) name ty, has no real interest in the litigation, but has is in the bond and to the suit upon it; but in allowed its name to be used therein for the sole no just view*** can he be considered a liti [346] benefit of a private person? gant party. Both look to things, not names; It has not been unusual for this court, for the to the actors in controversies and suits, not to purposes of justice, to determine the real par- the mere forms or inactive instruments used in ties to a suit by reference not merely to the conducting them in virtue of some positive law.” names in which it is brought, but to the facts In Miller v. State, the other case cited by Mr. of the case as they appear on the record. Justice Gray, the court said: "As laches is not Thus, in the case decided at this term, Re Ayers, to be imputed to the Government, the Statute 123 U. S. 492, 493 [31: 225], the court held of Limitations does not apply to the State unthat the State of Virginia, though not named less it be clear from the Act that it was intendas a party defendant, was the actual party ined to include the State. *** In our opinion, the controversy. Mr. Justice Matthews, who delivered the opinion, said: "It is, therefore, not conclusive of the principal question in this case that the State of Virginia is not named as a party defendant. Whether it is the actual party *** must be determined by a consideration of the nature of the case as presented on the whole record." So in the cases of New Hampshire v. Louisiana and New York v. Louisiana, 108 U. S. 76 [27: 656], the court looked behind and through the nominal parties on the record to ascertain who were the real parties to the suit. Chief Justice Waite, in delivering the opinion of the court, used the following language: "No one can look at the pleadings and testimony in these cases without being satisfied, beyond all doubt, that they were in legal effect commenced, and are now prosecuted, solely by the owners of the bonds and coupons. *** The bill, although signed by the attorney-general, is also signed, and was evidently drawn, by the same counsel who prosecuted the suits for the bondholders in Louisiana, and it is manifested in many ways

the rule that the Statute of Limitations does not
run against the State has no application to a
case like the present, when the State, though a
nominal party on the record, has no real inter-
est in the litigation, but its name is used as a
means of enforcing the rights of a third party,
who alone will enjoy the benefits of a recovery."

In Moody v. Fleming, 4 Ga. 115, 118, which
was a case where a party was applying for a
mandamus in the name of the State, the court
said: "It is insisted that here the State is a
party, moving the contest, and setting up a
right to have this survey certified, and that the
tenant will not be protected by his possession,
because the Statute of Limitations does not
run against the State. We have decided, and
the decision is sustained by unbroken masses of
authority, that the Statute of Limitations does not
run against the State. The answer, however,
to this argument is this: The State of Georgia
is not the real party to the proceeding. ***
The process is in the name of the State, but the
right asserted is a private right; the issue is be-
tween two of the citizens of the State."

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[348]

Applying these principles to this case, an in- | years ago, the complainants in this bill could
spection of the record shows that the Govern-have instituted their action. The death of the
ment, though in name the complainant, is not parties charged with the fraud, and also of
the real contestant party to the title or prop- most, if not all, of the witnesses having per-
erty in the land in controversy. It has no in-sonal knowledge of the transaction; the fact
terest in the suit, and has nothing to gain from that a city has been built upon the land in
the relief prayed for, and nothing to lose if the question; the occupation of large portions of it
relief is denied. The bill itself was filed in the by hundreds of innocent purchasers, the home-
name of the United States, and signed by the steads of many families covering other por-
attorney-general, on the petition of private indi- tions of it; the uninterrupted possession main-
viduals; and the right asserted is a private right, tained for more than a generation, all resting
which might have been asserted without the upon faith in the patent issued by the United
intervention of the United States at all.
States Government,-constitute reasons more
than sufficient for the refusal of the court to
set aside such patent at the suit of a party who
has so long slept upon his alleged rights.
For the reasons herein stated, the decree of the
court below is affirmed.

In his letter to the United States District At-
torney upon the subject, the attorney-general
directs that that officer shall sign his (the attor-
ney-general's) name to the bill, when the attor-
neys for the petitioners shall present such a
bill, and file the same in the proper court; and
that after the suit is commenced these attorneys
for the petitioners will have the management
of the case. Accordingly the subsequent pro- LOUIS D. DE SAUSSURE, Piff. in Err., [216]
ceedings in the case have been conducted ex-
clusively by these attorneys, who, in the plead-
ings, describe themselves as attorneys for the
petitioners and beneficiaries of the suit.

We are of the opinion that when the Government is a mere formal complainant in a suit,

v.

PETER C. GAILLARD, Treasurer of
CHARLESTON COUNTY.

(See S. C. Reporter's ed. 216-234)

jurisdiction of this court.

1. Who may sue under a state statute, and when, and under what circumstances, are questions for the exclusive determination of the state tribunals, whose judgment thereon is not subject to review by this court, unless the statute denies or injuriously affects a right claimed by a party under the Constitution or laws of the United States.

not for the purpose of asserting any public Review of state judgment—federal question—
right or protecting any public interest, title, or
property, but merely to form a conduit through
whom one private person can conduct litiga-
tion against another private person, a court of
equity will not be restrained from administer-
ing the equities existing between the real par-
ties by any exemption of the Government de-
signed for the protection of the rights of the
United States alone. The mere use of its name
in a suit for the benefit of a private suitor can-
not extend its immunity as a sovereign govern-
ment to said private suitor, whereby he can
avoid and escape the scrutiny of a court of
equity into the matters pleaded against him by
the other party, nor stop the court from ex-
amining into and deciding the case according
to the principles governing courts of equity in
like cases between private litigants.

These principles, so far as they relate to general Statutes of Limitation, the laches of a party, and the lapse of time, have been rendered familiar to the legal mind by the oft-repeated enunciation and enforcement of them in the decisions of this court. According to these decisions, courts of equity in general recognize and give effect to the Statute of Limitations as a defense to an equitable right, when at law it would have been properly pleaded as a bar to a legal right. They refuse to interfere to give relief when there has been gross negligence in prosecuting a claim, or where the lapse of time has been so long as to afford a clear presumption that the witnesses to the original transaction are dead, and the other means of proof have disappeared.

We think the court below justly and wisely applied the principle to the case under consideration in sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the bill. The rights of the Philbrook heirs, the real parties to this case, which are set up in this bill, originated in 1815. The acts of Beebe perpetrating the alleged fraud were prior to 1838. The alleged illegal action of the Land Department occurred in 1839. More than 45

2. Where the state court based its judgment, not
pendent ground, this court will not take jurisdic-
on a law raising a federal question, but on an inde-
tion of the case, even though it might think the
position of the state court an unsound one,
jud ment, it must appear affirmatively, not only
that a federal question was presented for decision
to the state court, but also that the decision of such
question was necessary to the determination of the
cause, and that it was actually decided, or that the
judgment as rendered could not have been given
without deciding it.
[No. 205.]

3. To give this court jurisdiction to review a state

Argued April 4, 1888. Decided April 30, 1888.

IN ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State
of South Carolina, to review a judgment of
that court, affirming a judgment of the Court
of Common Pleas of that State in favor of de-
fendant, in an action to compel moneys illegal-
ly collected to be refunded. Dismissed for
want of jurisdiction.

Reported below in 21 S. C. 560.

Statement by Mr. Justice Matthews:

The complaint in this case, filed in the Court of Common Pleas in the County of Charleston, South Carolina, alleged that the plaintiff [217] was the owner and holder of three bonds of the State of South Carolina, two, designated by the numbers 850 and 851, for $500 each, and one, by the number 2290, for $1,000; that thereby the State of South Carolina promised to pay to the bearers the sums therein named on the 1st day of July, 1893, with interest at the rate of six per cent per annum, payable semi-annually, on the 1st day of January or July of each year, on the presentation of the

proper coupons, thereto annexed, bearing the
signature of the state treasurer, said coupons
being receivable in payment of all taxes due
the State during the year in which they mature,
except for the tax levied for the public schools,
the words following being indorsed on each of
the said bonds, viz.: "The payment of the in-
terest and the redemption of the principal of
this bond is secured by the levy of an annual
tax of two mills upon the entire taxable prop-
erty of the State. The faith, credit, and funds
of the State are hereby solemnly pledged for
the punctual payment of the interest, and re-
demption of the principal, of this bond, by the
Act of General Assembly approved December
22, 1873;" and upon each of said coupons was
endorsed the following: "State of South Caro-
lina. Receivable in payment of all the taxes
except school tax;" that the plaintiff became
the holder for value of the three bonds men-
tioned in the year 1878, and of all the coupons
thereto annexed, including the coupon which
matured on each, respectively, on the 1st day
of January, 1882; that notwithstanding the
contract of the State expressed in the Act of
December, 22, 1873, recited in said consolida-
tion bonds, the General Assembly of South
Carolina, by an Act entitled "An Act to Raise
Supplies and Make Appropriations for the Fis-
cal Year Commencing November 1, 1881, ap-known as the 'bond commission.'
proved February 9, 1882, has prohibited the
county treasurers of the State from receiving
the coupons of said bonds in payment of the
taxes levied by the said Act, which last men-
tioned Act the plaintiff charges to be void as
repugnant to article 1, section 10, of the Con-
stitution of the United States, forbidding the
States to pass any law impairing the obliga-
tion of contracts.

collected and ought to be refunded, and that a
certificate of record thereof be issued accord-
ingly to the plaintiff; that he have such further
relief in the premises as the nature of the case
may require and to the court may seem meet
and proper."

The answer of the defendant sets forth the
history of the legislation of the State of South
Carolina on the subject, subsequent to the pas-
sage of the Act of December 22, 1873, known
as the Consolidation Act, as follows:

The complaint further alleges that the de[218] fendant is the County Treasurer for Charleston County, whose duty it is to collect and receive the taxes due to the State of South Carolina upon the property situate in that county; that the plaintiff is the owner of property in said County upon which taxes were levied under the provisions of the Act to raise supplies for the fiscal year commencing November 1, 1881, in the sum of $153.86, of which sum $29.34 were levied by the said Act for the public schools; that on the 18th day of December, 1882, the plaintiff tendered to the defendant, as county treasurer, in payment of said taxes, $131.97 in cash, and the remainder, viz., $60, in the coupons of the said consolidated bonds Nos. 850, 851 and 2290, which matured on the 1st day of January, 1882; that the defendant wrongfully and illegally refused to receive the said coupons, and assigned as a reason therefor that he was forbidden so to do by the provisions of the said Act; whereupon the plaintiff paid to the defendant, under protest, the sum of $191.97 in legal tender notes of the United States, in pursuance of the provisions of an Act of the General Assembly of said State, approved the 24th of December, 1878, entitled "An Act to Facilitate the Collection of Taxes." Plaintiff therefore demands judgment "that it be adjudged that the amount of sixty dollars in United States currency, paid by the plaintiff to the defendant on the eighteenth day of December, 1882, was wrongfully and illegally

"Defendant, further answering, alleges that, subsequent to the passage of said Act, the General Assembly of the said State, by a Joint Resolution to Raise a Commission to Investigate the Indebtedness of the State,' approved June 8, 1877, provided a commission to make a complete and thorough investigation of the entire amount of consolidated bonds and certificates of stock which had been issued under the "Consolidation Act' aforesaid, and of the bonds, coupons and certificates of stock which had been surrendered to the state treasurer in exchange for the consolidated bonds and certificates of stock issued under said Act, and to report to the General Assembly any illegality or nonconformity to law in the issue of consolidated bonds and certificates of stock, and the grounds of the same, which commission is

"That the said commission made a report to the General Assembly of the result of the investigation made by them under the joint resolution aforesaid, with schedules annexed showing the different classes of bonds and certificates of stock which had been surrendered in exchange for consolidated bonds and certificates of stock, schedule 6 showing the consolidated bonds and certificates of stock which, in the judgment of the said commission, were not issued in accordance with law and were not authorized to be consolidated under the Consolidation Act.'

"And thereupon the General Assembly, by a Joint Resolution Providing a Mode of Ascertaining the Debt of the State and of Liquidating the Same,' approved March 22, 1878, created a special court, known as the Court of Claims,' to hear and determine any case or cases made up or brought to test the validity of any of the consolidated bonds or certificates of stock, or of any of the various classes of bonds or certificates of stock mentioned in the said report of the bond commission' as not issued in accordance with law.

"It was further provided by the joint resolution aforesaid that there should be the same right of appeal from the said 'court of claims' to the Supreme Court of South Carolina as from the circuit courts of the said State, and with a right of appeal, by writ of error or otherwise as provided by law, to the Supreme Court of the United States.

"That said special court should have the same right to enter judgment, issue execution, punish for contempt, and enforce its mandates as was then possessed by the Circuit Courts of the State of South Carolina.

"That the State should be represented in said special court by the attorney-general and two associate counsel to be selected by the joint vote of the General Assembly.

[219]

[220]

[221]

"That the attorney-general and his associates, | 26, 1868,' or the coupons of such bonds; the
with the consent of the creditors of the State, said bonds and coupons being absolutely void,
or so many of them as shall be necessary, might even in the hands of bona fide holders, because
make up a case or cases to be heard and deter-issued without any authority whatever.
mined in said court, in which, if practicable,
the State should be the defendant, to test the
validity of the said consolidated bonds, cou-
pons, and certificates of stock mentioned in
schedule 6 of the report of the 'bond commis-
sion,' bringing before the court the various
classes of vouchers which it is stated in the
said report impair the validity of the said con-
solidated bonds, coupons, or certificates of stock,
or any of them.

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[223]