Baty v. Sale

Citations

• 43 Ill. 351

Syllabus

<p>1. Pre-emption eights. Individuals rely for the protection of their rights on the law, and not upon the regulations and proclamations of the departments of government, or officers who have been designated to carry the laws into effect.</p> <p>2. It is therefore sufficient to comply with the requirements of the law itself in the pre-emption of land, to entitle a party to his rights under that law, and any other conditions superadded by the commissioner of the general land-office, cannot affect his rights.</p> <p>3. Hence, where a claim for pre-emption was filed, and the lands were afterward withdrawn from market for a short period, a failure by the preemptor to comply with a rule of the general land-office requiring the applies tion to be renewed in such cases could not affect his rights, there being nothing in the law itself to require such a renewal. The officers of the land office are powerless to annex conditions or provisions to the law.</p> <p>4. To avail himself of the benefits of the pre-emption laws, a person must comply with the conditions they impose. It is a favor bestowed only on the terms prescribed by the statute.</p> <p>5. Computation of time under the pre-emption lams. Under the act of September 4,1841, section 15, where a person settles upon and improves a tract of land, subject at the time to private entry, files his declaration of intention within thirty days thereafter, and then within twelve months after the date of such settlement, makes proof and payment as therein required, he may thus become the purchaser. The manifest intention is to give the pre-emptor an entire year, while the land was subject to entry, within which to make his final proof and to complete his purchase.</p> <p>6. Hence, where land was temporarily withdrawn from the market, after a party had filed his declaration of an intention to pre-empt it, the officers of the land-office did right in excluding the time the land was not subject to entry, in computing the year within