Opinion of the Court.

2 Head, 703; Goss v. Singleton, 2 Head, 67; Williams v. Otey, 8 Humph. 563.

The statute of limitations begins to run against coupons or interest warrants from the time they respectively mature, and this is so, especially, where they have been detached from the bond. Amy v. Dubuque, 98 U. S. 470; Clark v. Iowa City, 20 Wall. 583; Warner v. Rising Fawn Iron Co., 3 Woods, 514; Evertson v. Bank of Newport, 66 N. Y. 14; Cooper v. Thompson, 13 Blatchford, 434; House v. Tennessee Female College, 7 Heiskell, 128; Nashville v. First National Bank, 1 Baxter, 402.

MR. JUSTICE GRAY, after stating the case as above reported, delivered the opinion of the court.

It is settled beyond doubt or controversy-upon the foundation of the great principle of public policy, applicable to all governments alike, which forbids that the public interests should be prejudiced by the negligence of the officers or agents to whose care they are confided-that the United States, asserting rights vested in them as a sovereign government, are not bound by any statute of limitations, unless Congress has clearly manifested its intention that they should be so bound. Lindsey v. Miller, 6 Pet. 666; United States v. Knight, 14 Pet. 301, 315; Gibson v. Chouteau, 13 Wall. 92; United States v. Thompson, 98 U. S. 486; Fink v. O'Neil, 106 U. S. 272, 281.

The nature and legal effect of any contract, indeed, are not changed by its transfer to the United States. When the United States, through their lawfully authorized agents, become the owners of negotiable paper, they are obliged to give the same notice to charge an endorser as would be required of a private holder. United States v. Barker, 4 Wash. C. C. 464, and 12 Wheat. 559; United States v. Bank of Metropolis, 15 Pet. 377, 392, 393; Cooke v. United States, 91 U. S. 389, 396, 398. They take such paper subject to all the equities existing against the person from whom they purchase at the time when they acquire their title; and cannot therefore maintain an action upon it, if at that time all right of action of that person was extinguished, or was barred by the statute of limitations. United States v. Buford, 3 Pet. 12, 30; The King v. Morrall, 6 Price, 24.

Opinion of the Court.

But if the bar of the statute is not complete when the United States become the owners and holders of the paper, it appears to us, notwithstanding the dictum of Cowen, J., in United States v. White, 2 Hill (N. Y.) 59, 61, impossible to hold that the statute could afterwards run against the United States. Lambert v. Taylor, 4 B. & C. 138; S. C., 6 D. & R. 188.

In the present case, the United States bought the coupons sued on, and the bonds to which they were annexed, long before any of them became payable, or the statute of limitations had begun to run against the right of any holder to sue thereon. The money with which they were bought was money received by the United States from the sale of lands ceded to them by the Chickasaw Nation of Indians. Those lands, the money received from their sale, and the securities in which that money was invested, were held by the United States, in trust, to be applied for the benefit of those Indians, in performance of the obligation assumed by the United States by treaties with them. The securities were thus held by the United States for a public use in the highest sense, the performance of a quasi international obligation; and they continued to be so held until that obligation had been performed and discharged, after which they were held by the United States, like all other property of the government, for the ordinary public uses. Van Brocklin v. Tennessee, 117 U. S. 151, 158.

The necessary conclusion is that the statute of limitations of Tennessee never ran against the right of action of the United States upon these coupons, either while the United States held them in trust for the Indians, or since they have held them for other public uses; and that the decision of the Circuit Court

was erroneous.

This case does not present the question what effect the statute of limitations may have in an action on a contract in which the United States have nothing but the formal title, and the whole interest belongs to others. See Maryland v. Baldwin, 112 U. S. 490; Miller v. State, 38 Ala. 600.

Judgment reversed, and case remanded, with directions to set

aside the verdict, and for further proceedings in conformity with law and with this opinion.

Opinion of the Court.

CONLEY v. NAILOR & Others.

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Argued April 12, 13, 1886.-Decided April 26, 1886.

In equity, each case to set aside a deed for incapacity of the grantor, or intoxication at the time of execution amounting to incapacity, must be decided on its own merits, without regard to previous decisions in cases differing in the facts.

When the complainant in a bill in equity neither demands nor waives an answer under oath, and the respondent answers under oath, the answer is evidence on behalf of the respondent, conclusive if not contradicted. A deed by a father for the benefit of his illegitimate child is upon a good and sufficient consideration; and if it contains a remainder to the mother of the child, and the child dies in the lifetime of the father, the conveyance is good as against the legitimate children of the grantor.

In order to cause a will or deed to be set aside on the ground of fraud and undue influence, it must be established to the satisfaction of the court that the party making it had no freewill, but stood in vinculis.

When a married man, with a wife living, and a family of legitimate children, lives apart from them in illegal intercourse with another woman by whom he has an illegitimate child, and makes a conveyance of real estate for the benefit of that child with remainder to the mother and another conveyance to the mother for her own benefit, and the child dies, and it is not shown that the grantor was incapable of making the deeds, either by reason of the weak state of his intellect, or by reason of intoxication at the time of execution, or that there was fraud or undue influence, a court of equity will, after the death of the grantor, sustain the conveyances in favor of the mother as against the legitimate children.

This was a bill in equity to set aside four deeds under which the appellant, who was defendant below, claimed. The case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. W. D. Davidge (Mr. Irving Williamson was with him on the brief) for appellant.

Mr. W. A. Cook and Mr. C. C. Cole for appellees.

Mr. JUSTICE WOODS delivered the opinion of the court. This was an appeal from a decree of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, by which certain deeds executed by

Opinion of the Court.

one Allison Nailor to Catharine Conley, the defendant and appellant, were declared null and void. The deeds were four in number, and under them the defendant claimed title to certain real estate, some of which was situate in the city of Washington, and the rest in Montgomery County, in the State of Maryland. The bill was filed by the widow and three of the four heirs of Nailor. The interest of the widow in the lands was as doweress, and her rights were conceded by the answer. Allison Nailor, Jr., the remaining heir, was made a defendant, and answered that he had received his share of his father's estate by advancement, and disclaimed any interest in the property in controversy. The litigation was, therefore, virtually between the appellant and Washington T. Nailor, son, and Lizzie Trimble and Frances Clarke, married daughters of Allison Nailor, whose husbands, Matthew Trimble and James W. Clarke, were joined as plaintiffs.

The pleadings and evidence showed the following facts: In the latter part of the year 1869 Allison Nailor, who was then about fifty-eight or fifty-nine years of age, was the owner of real estate in the City of Washington and in Montgomery County, Maryland, worth about $150,000, and was possessed of considerable personal estate. He had resided in the city of Washington for about fifty years. He had for many years been engaged in buying and selling real estate, in keeping a livery stable, and in farming. He was shrewd and active in business, and had the capacity for making money and accumulating property. Much of the real estate which he owned in the city of Washington he let to be used for houses of ill-fame, and for sale by retail of spirituous liquors. For many years prior to 1869, and at least as early as the year 1854, he had led a dissolute and intemperate life. In 1869 he made the acquaintance of the defendant, who was then about twenty-one years of age. There is no averment or proof that prior to that time she was not a virtuous woman. In November or December of that year Nailor left his family and took up his residence with the defendant, and lived with her in concubinage until his death.

The deeds referred to in the bill were the following: The

first was a trust deed, dated and executed November 27, 1872, more than six years before the death of Nailor, and recorded May 27, 1873, which conveyed to the defendant, Catharine Conley, a lot on South 14th street, in the city of Washington, to hold in trust for the sole and separate use of Willie Earnest Nailor, who is described in the deed as the infant son of the grantor and the grantee. By the terms of the trust the grantee was to receive the rents and profits of the lot and apply the same to the education and support of the beneficiary. When the latter became twenty-one years of age the trust was to cease, and the title in fee simple was to vest in him. But the deed provided that, should "said Willie Earnest die before he arrives at the age of twenty-one years," "or without having disposed of the said piece or parcel of ground," then the title in fee simple should vest absolutely in the defendant.

The three other deeds were all dated and executed March 29th, and recorded early in April, 1878. One of these three deeds conveyed to the defendant certain other real estate in the city of Washington in trust for the sole and separate use of Mary Edna Nailor, who is described as the infant daughter of the grantor and grantee, upon trusts and uses similar to those contained in the first deed, and with a similar remainder to the defendant. The second of the three deeds conveyed to the defendant about one hundred and thirty acres of land in Montgomery County, Maryland, in trust for the benefit of the said Willie Earnest Nailor, upon trusts and uses similar to those contained in the deed of November 27, 1872, and with a similar remainder to the defendant. The last deed conveyed to the defendant, in fee simple, for her own use, about one hundred acres of land in Montgomery County, Maryland. The property conveyed by these four deeds was worth about $25,000. Willie Earnest Nailor died August 6, 1878, being nearly six years of age, and Mary Edna Nailor died August 8, 1878, being nearly two years of age. Catharine Conley, therefore, claimed title in fee simple to all the property conveyed by the four deeds above mentioned. Allison Nailor died January 6, 1879. The bill alleged three grounds for setting the deeds aside. The first was that the grantor was "demented and insane,"

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