233 U. S. Argument for Plaintiff in Error. revert to the State," held to relate to the company and not to one of the properties specified. In construing a statute which at the time of its enactment was published in more than one language, the version in the other language is significant. In this case, held, that as reversion of property to the State was contingent on compensation, the statute should be construed as making payment a condition precedent of the reversion, as it could not be intended to remit the owner to a mere claim against the State which could not be enforced as the sovereignty of the State would give immunity from suit. 129 Louisiana, 279, reversed. THE facts, which involve the jurisdiction of this court to review judgments of the state courts and also the constitutionality under the contract clause of the Federal Constitution of a statute of Louisiana relating to the property of Carondelet Canal and Navigation Company and the right of the State to acquire its property, are stated in the opinion. Mr. Edgar H. Farrar, with whom Mr. Benjamin T. Waldo and Mr. W. C. Dufour were on the brief, for plaintiff in error: The judgment of the Supreme Court is final in form and in substance, as it decides the right to the property in contest, and directs it to be delivered up by the defendant to the State, the plaintiff in the action, and the plaintiff is entitled to have such decree carried immediately into effect. Forgay v. Conrad, 6 How. 201; Thompson v. Dean, 7 Wall. 342, 346; French v. Shoemaker, 12 Wall. 86, 98; Bostwick v. Brinkerhoff, 106 U. S. 3; Grant v. Phoenix Co., 106 U. S. 429; Winthrop Iron Co. v. Meeker, 109 U. S. 180; St. Louis Ry. v. Southern Ex. Co., 108 U. S. 24, 28; M., K. & T. R. R. v. Dinsmore, 108 U. S. 30; Keystone Iron Co. v. Martin, 132 U. S. 91; Lewisburg Bank v. Scheffey, 140 U. S. 452. The Federal questions involved were set up in oral argu Argument for Plaintiff in Error. 233 U.S. ment and in the briefs on the merits. They were set up again in the application for a rehearing. C., B. & Q. R. R. v. Drainage Commission, 200 U. S. 561. The judgment of a state court, even if it be authorized by a statute, whereby private property is taken for the State, or under its direction, for public use, without compensation, is upon principle and authority wanting in the due process of law required by the Fourteenth Amendment. The same principle applies to a statute of a State. Chi., B. &c. R. R. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226; Fayerweather v. Rich, 195 U. S. 276, and Union Transit Co. v. Kentucky, 199 U. S. 202. This court will determine for itself what the contract claimed to be violated was. Douglas v. Kentucky, 168 U. S. 502; McGahey v. Virginia, 135 U. S. 662; McCullough v. Virginia, 172 U. S. 110; Vicksburg v. Waterworks Co., 202 U. S. 467. This court will review the findings of fact by a state court where a conclusion of law as to a Federal right and the finding of fact are so intermingled as to make it necessary to analyze and dissect the facts for the purpose of passing on the Federal question. Creswill v. Knights of Pythias, 225 U. S. 261; Wood v. Chesborough, 228 U. S. 678. The necessary corollary of these propositions is that when the claim is that claimant has been deprived of property without due process of law, this court will find for itself what the claimant's property rights were, and how he has been deprived of them. The plaintiff in error had legislatively recognized rights upon the property adjudged to the State by the Supreme Court of Louisiana. The State never had any proprietary interest in and to the improvements on the Canal, Basin and Bayou, and never claimed any. She could have no claim to anything but to the Canal, Bayou and Basin as they stood in 1805; 233 U.S. Argument for Plaintiff in Error. and the act of 1896, which the court has enforced, takes plaintiff in error's property in violation of the charter rights of plaintiff under the acts of 1857 and 1858. La. Civil Code, Art. 23; Henrietta Mining Co. v. Gardiner, 173 U. S. 123; United States v. Tyner, 11 Wall. 92. The reversion provided for in § 4 of the act of 1858 was the same thing as was originally provided for in the repealed section of the act of 1857. If what was to revert under the act of 1858 on due compensation was the same thing as what was to revert under the repealed section of the act of 1857, then the act of 1906, sued on by the State and enforced substantially by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, impaired the obligation of the contract between the State and the plaintiff in error, because that act made no provision for compensation to the plaintiff in error. If what was to revert, on due compensation made, expressed by the word "it" in the act of 1858 meant only the railroad, which was never built, and § 4 of the act of 1858 repealed § 20 of the act of 1857, then the State had no right of reversion to, or any other right to, any of the property and improvements connected with the Basin, Canal and Bayou St. John and the roadways on the sides thereof, and the adjudging of all of this property to the State by the state court without compensation to the company, and executing the act of 1906, was a taking of the company's property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Even if the tenure by which the company held the waterway sued for was a lease, the State, as lessor, could not take the property at the end of the lease and keep the improvements made by the lessee, without making compensation therefor. La. Civ. Code, Art. 2726; Ross v. Zuntz, 36 La. Ann. 888. The State had no title to the Canal and Basin; they were the property of the United States, on which the de Argument for Defendant in Error. 233 U. S. fendant's antecessor in title had been granted perpetual rights by the legislative council of the Territory of Orleans, with the implied consent of Congress, to which rights the company had succeeded by the legislative direction of the State of Louisiana, and the State had no right to take this property and its improvements and appurtenances from the company except under its contractual right of reversion under the act of 1858. The grant of the territorial council to the Orleans Navigation Company was valid, and it would have been valid even if made by the State. Monongahela Nav. Co. v. United States, 148 U. S. 61. Even the United States could not have taken the improvements made on the Basin, Canal and Bayou St. John by the grantee of a valid grant without compensation. See Carondelet Canal &c. v. Tedesco, 37 La. Ann. 100; Carondelet Canal &c. v. Parker, 29 La. Ann. 434; City v. Carondelet Canal &c., 36 La. Ann. 396; Orleans Nav. Co. v. City, 1 Martin, (O. S.) 23; Same v. Same, 2 Id. 214; State v. Orleans Nav. Co., 11 Martin (O. S.), 309; S. C., 7 La. Ann. 679; United States v. Tyner, 11 Wall. 92. Mr. Ruffin G. Pleasant, Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, with whom Mr. Daniel Wendling was on the brief, for defendant in error: The judgment is not final. The case should also be dismissed because no Federal question is involved. Haseltine v. Central Bank, 183 U. S. 131; Navigation Co. v. Oyster Com'n, 226 U. S. 99; Missouri &c. Ry. v. Olathe, 222 U. S. 185; Norfolk Turnpike Co. v. Virginia, 225 U. S. 264; Schlosser v. Hemphill, 198 U. S. 175. Plaintiff in error's sole contention is that the lower court did not give to the act of 1858 the interpretation placed thereon by it. This does not present a Federal question. Act 161 of 1906, providing for the appointment of a 233 U.S. Argument for Defendant in Error. Board of Control to take over the canal, did not impair the contract in the act of 1858. No specific claim is made in the answer that said act impairs contract obligation, and that act does not impair contract rights. The State did not rely upon the act of 1906 in support of its demand, but upon the charter and amended charter of the Canal Company. Section 9 of the act of 1906, creating a Board of Control, provides that the act shall take effect October 1, 1907, and this date was fixed on as the time when said Board should organize as such, and not when it should take over the canal property and improvements. The Supreme Court held that the State should take over the canal, etc., from the date mentioned in the amended charter of 1858, March 10, 1908, and not the date mentioned in the act of 1906. Beaupre v. Noyes, 138 U. S. 397; Bacon v. Texas, 163 U. S. 207; Cross Lake Club v. Louisiana, 224 U. S. 632; Central Land Co. v. Laidley, 159 U. S. 110; Chappell v. Bradshaw, 128 U. S. 132; Clark v. Pennsylvania, 128 U. S. 397; Commercial Bank v. Buckingham, 5 How. 317; Des Moines v. Railway Co., 214 U. S. 179; Cons. Turnpike Co. v. Norfolk Ry., 228 U. S. 599; De Saussere v. Gaillard, 127 U. S. 222; Deming v. Packing Co., 226 U. S. 102; Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cr. 87; Hamblin v. Land Co., 147 U. S. 531; Kennebec &c. R. R. v. Portland &c. R. R., 14 Wall. 23; Knox v. Exchange Bank, 12 Wall. 379; Lehigh Water Co. v. Easton, 121 U. S. 388; N. O. Water Works v. Am. Sugar Co., 125 U. S. 30; Preston v. Chicago, 226 U. S. 447; Ross v. Oregon, 227 U. S. 150; Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S. 131; St. Paul Co. v. St. Paul, 181 U. S. 149; Turner v. Wilkes Co., 173 U. S. 461; Wood v. Chesborough, 228 U. S. 672; Wilson v. North Carolina, 169 U. S. 586; Y. & M. V. R. R. v. Adams, 180 U. S. 41. The judgment does not give effect to the act of 1906, but rests on entirely independent grounds. |