I. To return to the questions before me: the first is in substance
whether the words in the act of 1841,-- " portions of the public land
which have been selected as the site for a city or a town,"-- are to
be confined to cases of such selection in virtue of some special
authority, or by some official authority?
I think not, for the following reasons:
The statute does not by any words of legal intendment say so.
The next preceding clause of the act, which speaks of lands "included
within the limits of any incorporated town," implies the contrary, in
making separate provision for a township existing by special or public
authority.
The next succeeding clause, which speaks of land "actually settled or
occupied for the purposes of trade and not agriculture," leads to the
same conclusion; for why should selection for a town site require
special authority any more than occupation for the purposes of trade?
The general scope of the act has the same tendency. Its general object
is to regulate, in behalf of individuals, the acquisition of the
public domain by preemption, after voluntary occupation for a certain
period of time, and under other prescribed circumstances.
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