At last, in the United
States Supreme Court, Associate Justice Miller reversed the decisions of
all the lower tribunals, and ordered the land back to the heirs of Mrs.
Cruthers. The Court said:
"In construing a benevolent statute of the government, made for the
benefit of its own citizens, inviting and encouraging them to
settle on its distant public lands, the words 'single man,' and
'unmarried man' may, especially if aided by the context and other
parts of the statute, be taken in a generic sense. Held,
accordingly, that the Fourth Section of the Act of Congress, of
September 27th, 1850, granting by way of donation, lands in Oregon
Territory, to every white settler or occupant, American half-breed
Indians included, embraced within the term _single man_ an
_unmarried woman_."
And the attorney, who carried this question to its final success, is now
the United States senator elect from Oregon, Hon. J.H. Mitchell, in whom
the cause of equal rights to women has an added power on the floor of
the United States Senate.
Though the words persons, people, inhabitants, electors, citizens, are
all used indiscriminately in the national and state constitutions, there
was always a conflict of opinion, prior to the war, as to whether they
were synonymous terms, as for instance:
"_No person_ shall be a _representative_ who shall not have been
seven years a _citizen_, and who shall not, when elected, be an
_inhabitant_ of that state in which he is chosen.
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