It is not pleasant to contemplate loss threatened to any party acting
in good faith, caused by uncertainty in the language of laws or their
conflicting interpretation; and if there are persons occupying these
lands who labor under such disabilities as prevent them from appealing
to the courts for a redress of their wrongs, a plain statute, directed
simply to a remedy for such disabilities, would not be objectionable.
Should there be meritorious cases of hardship and loss, caused by an
invitation on the part of the Government to settle upon lands apparently
public, but to which no right or lawful possession can be secured, it
would be better, rather than to attempt a disturbance of titles already
settled, to ascertain such losses and do equity by compensating the
proper parties through an appropriation for that purpose.
A law to accomplish this very object was passed by Congress in the year
1873.
Valuable proof is thus furnished, by the only law ever passed upon the
subject, of the manner in which it was thought proper by the Congress
at that time to meet the difficulties suggested by the bill now under
consideration.
Notwithstanding the fact that there may be parties in the occupancy
of these lands who suffer hardship by the application of strict legal
principles to their claims, safety lies in noninterference by Congress
with matters which should be left to judicial cognizance; and I am
unwilling to concur in legislation which, if not an encroachment upon
judicial power, trenches so closely thereon as to be of doubtful
expediency, and which at the same time increases the elements of
litigation that have heretofore existed and endangers vested rights.
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