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States to seek to vacate and annul the instrument, to the end that their previous engagement might be fulfilled by the transfer of a clear title, the only one intended for the purchaser by the act of Congress." Hughes v. United States, 4 Wall. 232.

In United States v. Stone, 2 Wall. 525, Mr. Justice Grier, delivering the opinion of the court, said: "A patent is the highest evidence of title, and is conclusive as against the government, and all claiming under junior patents or titles, until it is set aside or annulled by some judicial tribunal. In England this was originally done by scire facias, but a bill in chancery is found a more convenient remedy," p. 535.

In the case of Mowry v. Whitney, 14 Wall. 434, 439, 440, which was an attempt by a private party to set aside by a bill in chancery a patent for an invention, the court considered the subject rather fully, and said that "the ancient method of doing this in the English courts was by scire facias, and three classes of cases are laid down in which this may be done." The court held that in England "the scire facias to repeal a patent was brought in chancery where the patent was of record. And though in this country the writ of scire facias is not in use as a chancery proceeding, the nature of the chancery jurisdiction and its mode of proceeding have established it as the appropriate tribunal for the annulling of a grant or patent from the government," referring to United States v. Stone, above cited. The court denied the right of the private party to sustain a suit to annul the patent, and said: "The general public is left to the protection of the government and its officers. The reasons for requiring official authority for such a proceeding are obvious. The fraud, if one exists, has been practised on the government, and as the party injured it is the appropriate party to assert the remedy or seek relief." p. 441.

In United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U. S. 61, 70, the court said: "In the class of cases to which this belongs, however, the practice of the English and the American courts has been to require the name of the Attorney General as indorsing the suit before it will be entertained. The reason of this is obvious, namely, that in so important a matter as impeaching the

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grants of the government under its seal, its highest law officer should be consulted, and should give the support of his name and authority to the suit. He should also have control of it in every stage, so that if at any time during its progress he should become convinced that the proceeding is not well founded, or is oppressive, he may dismiss the bill.”

In Moore v. Robbins, 96 U. S. 530, 533, the court, speaking of the issuing of patents for land by the government, said: "If fraud, mistake, error, or wrong has been done, the courts of justice present the only remedy. These courts are as open to the United States to sue for the cancellation of the deed or reconveyance of the land as to individuals; and if the government is the party injured, this is the proper course."

While the cases last cited did not involve directly the power of the Attorney General to institute a suit to set aside a patent of the United States, we have had before us quite recently three cases which did involve that power, brought by the United States for the express purpose of setting aside patents for land issued by the government on the ground of frauds or mistakes in their issue. In the first of these, Moffat v. United States, 112 U. S. 24, which was prosecuted by the Attorney General, who appeared in this court by the Assistant Attorney General to argue the case, the decree of the Circuit Court setting aside the patent as having been obtained by the fraud of the officers of the land department was affirmed. No question was made of the right of the Attorney General to institute the suit and conduct it to a successful termination.

In the second case United States v. Minor, 114 U. S. 233, 241, a suit was brought in the Circuit Court for the District of California to set aside a patent for land issued by the government to Minor. The bill alleged that the patent was obtained by the fraud of Minor in making false affidavits and procuring others to be made before the officers of the land department, by which he obtained the patent for the land in question. Although the case was certified here by the judges sitting in that court on a division of opinion upon several points, one of which was whether a demurrer to the amended bill should be sustained, no question seems to have been made of the right

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of the government by its Attorney General to institute this suit; the appeal on behalf of the United States being argued by the Solicitor General, an officer under the control of the Attorney General.

Some question was, however, made in the opinion in that case in regard to the right of the Attorney General to bring such a suit, where the only result would have been to take the land from Minor and give it to one Spence, who had a claim upon part of it, the court saying that "the government in that case would certainly have no interest in the land when recovered, as it must go to Spence without any further compensation. And it may become a grave question, in some future case of this character, how far the officers of the government can be permitted, when it has no interest in the property or in the subject of the litigation, to use its name to set aside its own patent, for which it has received full compensation, for the benefit of a rival claimant." The court said, however, that the question did not arise in that case, because Spence only had a claim to one-half of the land covered by the patent. It will be seen that the only question thus suggested did not affect the right of the Attorney General in a proper case to institute and carry on such a suit; and the decree of the Circuit Court was reversed on the ground that the case presented was one which justified relief.

In the still later case of The Colorado Coal & Iron Company v. United States, 123 U. S. 307, the bill was filed in the name of the United States by the Attorney General to declare void and cancel sixty-one patents for as many distinct pieces of land, situated at different places in Las Animas County, in the State of Colorado, amounting in the aggregate to over nine thousand acres. The allegation in that case was, that the patent had been obtained by the fraudulent use of fictitious names as grantees of the land, and the case was fought through with great vigor on both sides. It was thoroughly and elaborately considered, and the court said, in regard to these transactions, that they "undoubtedly constituted a fraud upon the United States sufficient in equity as against the parties perpetrating it, or those claiming under them with notice of

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it, to justify the cancellation of the patents issued to them," quoting the following language from United States v. Minor, above cited: "Where the patent is the result of nothing but fraud and perjury, it is enough to hold that it conveys the legal title, and it would be going quite too far to say that it cannot be assailed by a proceeding in equity and set aside as void, if the fraud is proved and there are no innocent holders for value."

If the court had entertained the opinion in these cases, that there existed in the Attorney General no right to institute these suits to set aside patents for lands obtained by fraud, it would have been saved the labor of a protracted investigation in each of them into the facts which were supposed to constitute the fraud; and in the two cases first mentioned the court violated its duty in sustaining the government and setting aside the patents if there existed in its judgment no right in the Attorney General to institute such suits.

We are not insensible to the enormous power and its capacity for evil thus reposed in that department of the government. Since the title to all of the land in more than half of the States and Territories of the Union depends upon patents from the government of the United States, it is to be seen what a vast power is confided to the officer who may order the institution of suits to set aside every one of these patents; and if the doctrine that the United States in bringing such actions is not controlled by any statute of limitations, or governed by the rule concerning laches be sound, of which we express no opinion at present, then the evil which may result would seem to be endless as well as enormous. But it has often been said that the fact that the exercise of power may be abused is no sufficient reason for denying its existence, and if restrictions are to be placed upon the exercise of this authority by the Attorney General, it is for the legislative body which created the office to enact them.

We do not think, therefore, that it can be successfully denied that there exists in the Attorney General, as the head of the Department of Justice, the right to institute, in the name of the United States, a suit to abrogate, annul, or set aside a patent for land which has been issued by the government in a

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case where such an instrument if permitted to stand would work serious injury to the United States, and prejudice its interests, and where it has been obtained by fraud, imposture, or mistake.

One of the difficulties attending the present case and others of like character which have come before us, in which the authority of the Attorney General to institute the suit has been questioned, is, that no specific plea has been filed denying this authority, or alleging that the suit as made by the bill, or established by the evidence, does not come within the class of cases in which that officer can exercise this power.

There is no plea in this case, and all that is said upon this subject in the answer is in the following language: "If said officers" [meaning the President, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Commissioner of the General Land Office, who were such at the time this action was begun] "had consulted the records they would have been easily informed of the truth; but the said Attorney General is now informed and moved and instigated by the same parties who made the contest in the land department before the issuing of the said patent, and M. G. Cobb, the same attorney who drew the bill herein, and instigated the suit and conducts the same, was the attorney of said contestants in said proceedings, and has represented said parties as such attorney and counsel from the filing of said objections by said Stearns and Montalva down to the present time."

But we are of opinion that since the right of the government of the United States to institute such a suit depends upon the same general principles which would authorize a private citizen to apply to a court of justice for relief against an instrument obtained from him by fraud or deceit, or any of those other practices which are admitted to justify a court in granting relief, the government must show that, like the private individual, it has such an interest in the relief sought as entitles it to move in the matter. If it be a question of property a case must be made in which the court can afford a remedy in regard to that property; if it be a question of fraud which would render the instrument void, the fraud must operate to the