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In 1776, Fincastle County was divided and the property then came under the jurisdiction of [[Kentucky County, Virginia]]. Upon the commencement of the [[American Revolutionary War]], [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|loyalist]] Sutherland abandoned his home in Virginia for [[Orkney]] in northern [[Scotland]]. Craig and the other parties in the suit redeemed [[Warrant of payment|treasury warrants]] issued in 1780 for acreage which included the Sutherland tract. Their claims were surveyed in 1785 and [[land patent]]s were issued prior to {{date|May 26, 1788|mdy}}. A little more than a month after admission to the [[United States]], the [[Virginia|Commonwealth of Virginia]] issued title for the 1,000 acres to Sutherland {{date|Aug 5, 1788|mdy}}.<ref name=Wheaton />{{RP|595-96}}
In 1776, Fincastle County was divided and the property then came under the jurisdiction of [[Kentucky County, Virginia]]. Upon the commencement of the [[American Revolutionary War]], [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|loyalist]] Sutherland abandoned his home in Virginia for [[Orkney]] in northern [[Scotland]]. Craig and the other parties in the suit redeemed [[Warrant of payment|treasury warrants]] issued in 1780 for acreage which included the Sutherland tract. Their claims were surveyed in 1785 and [[land patent]]s were issued prior to {{date|May 26, 1788|mdy}}. A little more than a month after admission to the [[United States]], the [[Virginia|Commonwealth of Virginia]] issued title for the 1,000 acres to Sutherland {{date|Aug 5, 1788|mdy}}.<ref name=Wheaton />{{RP|595-96}}


William Radford [1759 - {{Death date and age|1803|3|9|1759|7|1|mf=yes}}] had served as a [[privateer]] during the war.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Mordy|first1=David L. and James C.|title=William radford, Revolutionary Patriot of the Continental Marines|journal=The Smithfield Review|date=2011|volume=XV|pages=23-34}}</ref> He settled in [[Richmond, Virginia]] and purchased thousands of acres of land for speculation, mostly in what became the [[Kentucky|Commonwealth of Kentucky]].<ref name=Mordy>{{cite journal|last1=Mordy|first1=David L. and James C.|title=William Radford, Revolutionary Patriot of the Continental Marines|journal=The Smithfield Review|date=2011|volume=XV|url=http://www.smithfieldplantation.org/pages/history/reviews.html|accessdate=24 July 2014}}</ref>{{RP|23-34}} On {{date|Feb 13, 1799|mdy}}, Radford bought Sutherland's 1,000 acre deed for $3,000. Upon Radford's death four years later, his lands were divided among his six children. Son John Radford [{{Birth date|1785|5|27}} - {{Death date and age|1817|4|15|1785|5|27|mf=yes}}] inherited the Sutherland tract. John relocated his young family near [[Maysville, Kentucky]] in 1808 to manage his properties. The Sutherland land dispute moved through the courts with John Radford winning at each level.<ref name=Yates>{{cite book|last=Yates|first=Robert Somerville Radford|title=A History of William Radford of Richmond, Virginia|year=1986|publisher=Amundsen Publishing Company|location=Decorah, Iowa}}</ref>{{RP|3-1}}
William Radford [1759 - {{Death date and age|1803|3|9|1759|7|1|mf=yes}}] had served as a [[privateer]] during the war. He settled in [[Richmond, Virginia]] and purchased thousands of acres of land for speculation, mostly in what became the [[Kentucky|Commonwealth of Kentucky]].<ref name=Mordy>{{cite journal|last1=Mordy|first1=David L. and James C.|title=William Radford, Revolutionary Patriot of the Continental Marines|journal=The Smithfield Review|date=2011|volume=XV|url=http://www.smithfieldplantation.org/pages/history/reviews.html|accessdate=24 July 2014|pages=23-34}}</ref> On {{date|Feb 13, 1799|mdy}}, Radford bought Sutherland's 1,000 acre deed for $3,000. Upon Radford's death four years later, his lands were divided among his six children. Son John Radford [{{Birth date|1785|5|27}} - {{Death date and age|1817|4|15|1785|5|27|mf=yes}}] inherited the Sutherland tract. John relocated his young family near [[Maysville, Kentucky]] in 1808 to manage his properties. The Sutherland land dispute moved through the courts with John Radford winning at each level.<ref name=Yates>{{cite book|last=Yates|first=Robert Somerville Radford|title=A History of William Radford of Richmond, Virginia|year=1986|publisher=Amundsen Publishing Company|location=Decorah, Iowa}}</ref>{{RP|3-1}}


== Objections ==
== Objections ==

Revision as of 20:36, 28 March 2015

Craig et. al. v. Radford
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided March 12, 1818
Full case nameCraig et. al. v. Radford
Citations16 U.S. 594 (more)
3 Wheat. 594, 4 L.Ed. 467
Holding
Decree affirmed with costs
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Marshall
Associate Justices
Bushrod Washington · William Johnson
H. Brockholst Livingston · Thomas Todd
Gabriel Duvall · Joseph Story
Case opinion
MajorityNo dissenting opinion

Craig et. al. v. Radford, 16 U.S. 594 U.S. U.S. 594/3 Wheat. 594/ 3 Wheat. 594 (1818) is a United States Supreme Court decision delivered by Justice Bushrod Washington on March 12, 1818. The dispute rose from a suit in chancery to establish clear title to land which had been granted first to one party in 1774 and then again, in parts, to other parties in 1780. Radford won the suit in the Kentucky Circuit Court but Craig et al. appealed before the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court decree.

Background

A land warrant to William Sutherland was issued by the Governor of the Colony of Virginia John Murray (also known as Lord Dunmore) on January 24, 1774 per the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Sutherland received 1,000 acres of land located on the south side of the Ohio River about 30 miles below the mouth of the Scioto River. At that time the land was part of Fincastle County, Virginia.[1] A few months later, Hancock Taylor, a deputy surveyor for the county, began surveying the land with aide A. Hemptonstrall serving as his marker and chain carrier. Indians attacked and killed Taylor before he could complete the survey. Hemptonstrall recovered Taylor's field notes and returned them to the office of the principal surveyor William Preston on May 4, 1774.[2]: 595  Preston wrote a letter May 27, 1774 to the head engineer of frontier fort construction, George Washington, describing the jeopardy his surveyors were facing from the Shawnee and other Indian tribes based north of the Ohio River during the prelude to Lord Dunmore's War and then the Illinois Campaign.

In 1776, Fincastle County was divided and the property then came under the jurisdiction of Kentucky County, Virginia. Upon the commencement of the American Revolutionary War, loyalist Sutherland abandoned his home in Virginia for Orkney in northern Scotland. Craig and the other parties in the suit redeemed treasury warrants issued in 1780 for acreage which included the Sutherland tract. Their claims were surveyed in 1785 and land patents were issued prior to May 26, 1788. A little more than a month after admission to the United States, the Commonwealth of Virginia issued title for the 1,000 acres to Sutherland August 5, 1788.[2]: 595–96 

William Radford [1759 - March 9, 1803(1803-03-09) (aged 43)] had served as a privateer during the war. He settled in Richmond, Virginia and purchased thousands of acres of land for speculation, mostly in what became the Commonwealth of Kentucky.[3] On February 13, 1799, Radford bought Sutherland's 1,000 acre deed for $3,000. Upon Radford's death four years later, his lands were divided among his six children. Son John Radford [(1785-05-27)May 27, 1785 - April 15, 1817(1817-04-15) (aged 31)] inherited the Sutherland tract. John relocated his young family near Maysville, Kentucky in 1808 to manage his properties. The Sutherland land dispute moved through the courts with John Radford winning at each level.[4]: 3–1 

Objections

Most of the background was admitted as fact by both parties in the suit. Craig et al. disputed the following:

  1. Deputy surveyor Taylor did not have the land warrant and so had no authority to execute his survey.[2]: 596 
  2. There was no physical proof of Taylor's survey and, even if so, Hemptonstrall testified the survey was begun but not completed.[2]: 596 
  3. Incomplete lines run by a deputy should not be sufficient for the principal surveyor to certify the plat and validate the grant.[2]: 596–97 
  4. Sutherland, as a Tory, was an enemy alien and forfeited his colonial land warrant when Virginia joined the United States.[2]: 599 

Resolution

The Supreme Court overruled all four objections. There was no dissenting opinion identified in the resolution.

  1. The principal's certificate referencing the land warrant is sufficient authority for the survey.[5]: 689 
  2. Incompetent or incomplete surveys do not invalidate the claim to the land.[6]: 40 
  3. A deputy has the whole power of the principal and the survey was accepted by the principal as completed.[7]: 215 
  4. No act of Virginia legislation had divested property from alien owners before 1794 and the Jay Treaty ninth article protected defeasible estate from then on.[5]: 718 

Basis

Traditional English law allowed aliens to purchase land but the crown retained interest to that land. So, even though an alien could exercise dominion over his property as a tenant, he could not pass the title to heirs and had to surrender the title upon demand from the crown.[8] With a declaration of war, enemy aliens automatically lost their land. That presumption became a pleading for this case.[9]

However, the Supreme Court had held that land owned by British subjects, made aliens due to the Revolutionary War, was protected from confiscation per the Treaty of Paris.[10] To reclaim land held by British subjects, each state had to pass applicable legislation and then complete escheat proceedings for individual cases.[11] Virginia did not enact such law. As of 1794, per the protection afforded by the Jay Treaty, British subject Sutherland clearly retained title to his 1,000 acres in question.[12]

Legacy

John Radford died, gored by a boar in a hunting accident in 1817, before the Supreme Court could affirm the 1,000 acres was entirely his.[13]: 8–9 

Widow Harriet Kennerly Radford moved with her three children to Saint Louis, Missouri to live near her two brothers and ailing first cousin, Julia Hancock Clark. Julia's husband was William Clark. Julia passed in 1820 and Harriet become Clark's second wife in 1821.[14]: 38 

During its first 50 years, the Supreme Court consistently extended treaty rights to alien individuals. There is argument that this case and others similar exceeded Constitutional authority. New York lawyer Franklin Pierce contended in 1908 that land titles were domestic law and state statutes were wrongly overridden by the federal courts, specifying this case as an example.[15] In 1984, Robert Bork wrote the concurring opinion as a judge for the Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republican case in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit which argued the courts cannot apply treaty rights without explicit private right of action specified in the treaty.[16]

References

  1. ^ Washington, Bushrod. "Craig v. Radford" (PDF). The Judicial View. The Judicial View, L.L.C. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Wheaton, Henry (1818). Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States, Vol. III. New York, New York: R. Donaldson.
  3. ^ Mordy, David L. and James C. (2011). "William Radford, Revolutionary Patriot of the Continental Marines". The Smithfield Review. XV: 23–34. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  4. ^ Yates, Robert Somerville Radford (1986). A History of William Radford of Richmond, Virginia. Decorah, Iowa: Amundsen Publishing Company.
  5. ^ a b Coxe, Richard S. (1829). Digest of the Decisions in the Supreme Court, Circuit Courts and District Courts of the United States. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Philip H. Nicklin, Law Bookseller.
  6. ^ Clark, Frank Emerson (1922). A Treatise on the Law of Surveying and Boundaries. Indianapolis, Indiana: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
  7. ^ Story, William W. (1856). A Treatise on the Law of Contracts, Vol. 1 (Fourth ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Company.
  8. ^ "Alien Enemy - Acquisiton of Property - Trading with the Enemy Act". University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Law Register. 69 (2): 176. January 1921.
  9. ^ Peters, Richard (editor) (1833). Condensed Reports of Cases in The supreme Court of the United States, Volume IV. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: DeSilver, Jun. and Thomas. p. 347. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  10. ^ "Conflict Between Local and National Interests in Alien Landholding Restrictions". Univrsity of Chicago Law Review. 16 (2): 320. Winter 1949.
  11. ^ Kettner, James H. (July 1974). "The Development of American Citizenship in the Revolutionary Era: The Idea of Volitional Allegiance". American Journal of Legal History. 18 (3): 237–8.
  12. ^ Abbott, Benjamin Vaughn and Austin (1867). Digest of the Reports of the United States Courts and the Acts of Congress, Vol. I. New York, New York: Diossy & Cockcroft. p. 61.
  13. ^ de Meissner, Sophie Radford (1920). Old Naval Days. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
  14. ^ Kennerly, William Clark as told to Elizabeth Russell (1948). Persimmon Hill: A Narrative of Old St. Louis and the Far West. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.
  15. ^ Pierce, Franklin (1908). Federal Usurpation. New York, New York: D. Appleton and Company.
  16. ^ Graeff, Kay and Sloss, David. "Treaties in U.S. Courts: Judge Bork's Anti-Originalist Revolution". bepress Legal Series. Berkeley Electronic Press. Retrieved 10 August 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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