In compliance with the above resolution, I herewith submit my opinion upon the points suggested. From a careful examination of the mortgage and all laws in any way affecting it, I am of the opinion the mortgage is a valid and subsisting lien upon the road and its appurtenances, as well as upon the rights, privileges and franchises of the company secured by the act of incorporation. Under act No. 81, session laws 1844, and an act amendatory thereto, passed the present session, Alfred Williams and such others as he may associate with him, have the privilege of purchasing the mortgage and taking an assignment thereof at any time before the eleventh day of August next. In case the mortgage is sold, no further legislation will be required to secure the interests of the state. If it is not sold, and proceedings have to be instituted to foreclose it, some additional provisions of law will probably be necessary. If the state should become the purchaser, the Board of Internal Improvement should be required to take possession of it; and all laws applicable to the public works of this state should be extended to this. To enable individuals to bid at the sale, it would be well, perhaps, to authorize the state treasurer to receive the liabilities of the state in payment instead of requiring money. It has been suggested that no individual could purchase at this sale for the reason, that it is doubtful whether a new board of directors by such purchase can be elected without some further legislation upon the subject. This doubt should be removed. 1 am very respectfully, Your obedient servant, HENRY N. WALKER, In conformity to the views of the attorney general, with whose opinion we coincide, we have reported a bill to carry out more perfectly the objects of the act to provide for the relief of the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad company, approved March 5, 1838, and the mortgage given in conformity thereto. And we have also reported another bill to provide for an amicable adjustment of the mortgage in question, and in all of which we ask the concurrence of the Senate. SAMUEL DENTON, 1846. No. 22. The Sovereign right of Michigan to the Mines and Minerals within her borders. REPORT: BY MR. LITTLEJOHN, FROM THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE. The committee on the judiciary, to whom was referred the bill introduced by the committee on public lands, "declaratory of the interests of Michigan in mines and minerals, &c.," have had the same under consideration, and instructed the undersigned to submit thereon the following report: The principles upon which the bill before the committee is based, are principles of vast importance to the new states, as involving attributes of sovereignty, the want of which would create an invidious distinction between the old and new states. The main questions for Have the United States as a investigation would seem to be, first: government, any constitutional capacity to exercise original municipal jurisdiction, sovereignty, or eininent domain within the limits of a state, or elsewhere, except in the cases in which it is expressly granted? Secondly, Did the deeds of cession by Virgínia, and the ordinance of 1787, vest in or grant to the United States munícipal eminent domain over the territory north-west of the Ohio river, except in trust, to hold it for the new states to be formed therein, and to invest them with it to the same extent with the old states? And thirdly, have the United States any thing beyond a bare proprietary right of soil in trust to sell to bona fide purchasers, as to any of the public domain within the limits of a new state, after its admission into the Union "on an equal footing with the original states, in all respects whatever? Your committee would not arrogate to themselves the ability satisfactorily to discuss and settle these propositions. They would shrink from the exhibition of their imperfect reasoning before the public, were it not for the pleasing hope that abler pens may thereby be enlisted, and mightier intellects induced to search out and establish both theoretic truths and practical results. The importance of an early adjustment of all conflicting rights of sovereignty and eminent domain, must be apparent to every individual at all conversant with the developments of mineral wealth now in progress in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The actual relation subsisting between the State of Michigan and the general government, founded in, and deducible from the cession by Virginia-the ordinance of '87, and subsequent Congressional and conventional acts, are ably set forth and fully discussed in the recent report of the Senate committee on public lands. The legislature have already expressed their conviction of the impolicy, injustice, and unconstitutionality of the system of leasing by the general government, of the mineral lands within our borders, by adopting the joint resolutions accompanying said report. So far, then, as the enactments collated and embodied in said report with the deductions therefrom, are applicable to the matters now under consideration, your committee feel at liberty to refer there. to, without a repetition here. At the same time it is much to be regretted that the committee on public lands have seemingly overlooked the last crowning act between the state and the general government, by which the subject of the public lands and the interests of the state therein have been further defined and regulated. The act here referred to, bears date June 23, 1836, and contains inter alia, the following, designed to limit and define the reservation in section 4, of the act to provide for the admission of Michigan, &c., "That the said state shall never interfere with, the primary disposal of the soil within the same by the United States, nor with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers thereof." It is by the provisions of this act that the state became entitled by cession to her school lands, University lands, state building, and salt spring lands, and also to 5 per cent of the nett proceeds of sales of public lands within her borders, for the construction of roads and canals. The theory of sovereign rights is, in its plentitude, mainly confined to political jurisdiction, although the rights of property are in some respects necessarily incident thereto. All governments, whether despotic or popular, take their position alike upon the deep foundations of society. At their inception, all vested rights, and all personal priv |