In point of fact the provision was construed by the Department to
include all voluntary selections: lands, says the circular of the
General Land Office of July 8, 1838, "which settlers have selected
with a view of building thereon a village or city."
It seems to me that the same considerations which induced this
construction of the word "selection" in the act of 1838, dictate a
similar construction of the same word in the subsequent act. Besides
which, when a word or words of a statute, which were of uncertain
signification originally, but which have been construed by the proper
authority, are repented in a subsequent statute, that is understood as
being not a repetition merely of the word with the received
construction, but an implied legislative adoption even of such
construction.
II. The second question is of the construction of the act of 1844,
supplemental to that of 1841; and as the construction of the elder
derives aid from the language of the later one, so does that of the
latter from the former. The question is divisible into sub-questions.
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