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Show PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS 101 was being extended to the territory, the exacerbating conflicts between different claimants and settlers, the difficulty of getting title to land, and the enervating effect all this had on the growth of the territory. The Act of 1824 provided that any person who had a Spanish or French claim to land in Missouri which might have been perfected had not the territory been transferred to the United States could have his right to the land submitted to examination by the District Court of Missouri, whether or not it had been previously examined by the Boards of Land Commissioners and confirmed or rejected. The court was empowered to determine the validity of the claimant's title, and the extent, locality, and boundaries of the claims, subject to a right of appeal by the losing side to the Supreme Court of the United States, if taken within a year of the decision. The usual provision forever barring further right of appeal to persons who did not bring action within the time allowed was included in this bill but it had become so meaningless through reiteration and repudiation that Congressmen, attorneys, claimants, and lobbyists must have thought it useless. Claimants failing to win confirmation, or whose claim had previously been rejected by the land commissioners, were to pay all costs. The United States District Attorney was required, in all cases where Federal ownership was questioned, to defend the government's title and if the claim exceeded 1,000 acres and the decision was adverse to the government, he was to transmit the facts of the case to the Attorney General who should determine whether an appeal should be taken to the Supreme Court. If the successful claimant's land had already been sold by the government as public land, the owner of the claim was entitled to enter at public sale an equivalent amount of land in Missouri. A final provision excluded the huge Jacques Clamorgan claim from the privilege of re-adjudication.40 40 4 Stat. 50. For years land claimants derived no benefit from the Act of 1824, partly because James H. Peck, Federal District Judge for Missouri, so discouraged the claimants by his adverse decisions that they refused to bring further actions to test their titles in his court. They conducted a vendetta against him, as they had earlier against Judge John B. Lucas. Judge Lucas, a Federal Territorial Judge, had persistently opposed confirmation of the large claims while acting as a member of the Board of Land Commissioners. He had continued a long feud with the rising Thomas Hart Benton (who had killed Lucas's son in a d\iel brought on by differences over claims) and filled his correspondence from 1819 to 1827 with warnings to other members of Congress, John Quincy Adams, and other prominent Washington officials, that Benton was the chief apologist and lawyer for the large claimants, that he was trying to ease the path to confirmation of very doubtful claims, and that he was strongly opposed to judicial trials for the claims, preferring that they be left to the consideration of land boards which were much more amenable to influence. Lucas clearly indulged his hatred for Benton in his correspondence but he had taken this same critical attitude toward the large claims long before Benton came into the picture. He questioned the right of the Spanish officers to make the concessions, and the validity of grants that had not been confirmed in the Spanish period or that had not been surveyed, occupied and developed.41 Lucas retained the confidence of officials in Washington who did not give way to local pressures. Peck likewise held his position on the bench until his death in 1836. Early in 1829, Auguste Chouteau and other claimants petitioned Congress for the extension of the Act of May 26, 1824, destined to lapse shortly, declaring that an extension would permit them to delay actions in the district court until the Supreme Court had 41 Letters of J. B. C. Lucas from 1815 to 1836 (St. Louis, 1905), pp. 31, 33, 72, 136, 214, 243-44, 256. |