extinguish the Indian title by purchase or conquest, and to grant the soil and exercise sueh a degree of sorereignty as circumstances required, has never been judicially questioned."

Kent also says, after giving the Supreme Court decision in the case of Johnson s. M'Intosh: "The same court bas since been repcatedly called upon to discuss and decide great ques- tions conccrning Indian rights and title, and the subject has of late become exeedingly grave and momentous, affectiug the faith and the character, if not the tranquillity and safety, of the Government of ihe United States."

In Gardner's "Institutes of International Law" the respec- tive rights to land of the Indiaus and the whites are thus summed np: " In our Union the aborigines had only a pos- sessory title, and in the original thirteen States each owned in fee, subject to the Indion right, all ungranted lands within their respective limits; and beyond the States the residue of the ungranted lands were vested in fee in the United States, sub jeet to the Indian possessory right, to the extent of the national limits."

Dr. Walker, in his "American Law," makes a still briefer summary: "The American doctrine on the subject of Indian title is briefly tbis: The Indians have no fee iu the lands they occupy. The fec is in the Government. They cannot, of course, aliene them citlher to nations or individuals, the exchusive right of pre-emption boing in the Government. they have a qualified right of occupancy which can

tinguished by treaty, and upon fair compensation; until which are entitled to be protected in their possession."

Yet only be er they

Abbott's Digest," one of the very latest authorities, reiter ates the same principle: "The right of occupaney has been recognized in couniless ways, among others by many decisions of conrts and opinions of attorney-generals. it being thus established tlhat the Indian's "right of ocenpaucy" in his lands was a right recognized by all the Great