Trustees Internal Improvement Fund v. Root

Citations

• 63 Fla. 666

Syllabus

<p>1. By treaty of February 22nd, 1819, the Kingdom of Spain ceded “to the United States in full property and sovereignty, all the territories ................ known by the name of East and West Forida,” with an expressed provision that all the grants of land made by Spain before January 24th, 1S18, in said territories shall be ratified and confirmed to the persons in possession of the lands.</p> <p>2. Under the Treaty of February 22nd, 1819, the United States acquired the ownership of all the swamp and overflowed lands in the area now constituting the territorial limits of the State of Florida that had not previously been granted by Spain, and the admission of the State of Florida into the Union by the Act of Congress approved March 3rd, 1845, did not affect the proprietary rights of the United States in the lands within the State that have been ceded to the United States by Spain where such lands did not constitute the beds or shores of the navigable waters of the State.</p> <p>3. Tbe disposition of tbe swamp and overflowed lands granted to tbe State by Act of Congress of September 28, 1850, is within the legislative discretion, the obligation of the sovereign State to observe the condition of the grant that the lands “shall be applied, exclusively, as far as necessary, for the purpose of reclaiming said lands by means of levees and drains,” resting only in the sovereign relations of the two governments.</p> <p>4. In recognition of the purpose of the grant by the United States to the State of the swamp and overflowed lands within the State, the legislature by Chapter 610, Acts of 1855, placed the lands in the “Internal Improvement Fund of the State of Florida,” the lands being irrevocably vested in five trustees who are State officers, and their successors in office, “to hold • the same in trust for the uses and purposes,” stated in the act, among such uses and purposes being the requirement of Section 16 of the Act, Section 620, Gen. Stats., that the said trustee