be composed of a mayor, a board of aldermen and a board of common council, to be elected by ballot, as herein after directed. The board of aldermen shall consist of eight members, to be elected for two years, two to be residents of and chosen from each ward by the qualified voters resident therein; and the board of common council shall consist of
reservations, No. 10, 11, and 12, and of other squares, and also a part of B. street, as laid out and designated in the original plan of the city, which lots they may sell at auction, and apply the proceeds to those objects, and afterwards to enclosing, planting and improving other reservations, and building bridges, &c.; the surplus, if any, to be paid into the treasury of the United States. The act authorizes the heirs, &c. of the former proprietors of the land on which the city was laid out, who may consider themselves injured by the purposes of the act, to institute in the circuit court a bill in equity, in the nature of a petition of right, against the United States, setting forth the grounds of any claim they may consider themselves entitled to make, to be conducted according to the rules of a court of equity; the court to hear and determine upon the claim of the plaintiffs, and what portion, if any, of the money arising from the sale of the lots they may be entitled to, with a right of appeal to the supreme court. The plaintiffs, Van Ness and wife, filed in the circuit court their bill against the United States and the corporation of Washington, claiming title to the lots which had been thus sold, under David Burns, the original proprietor of that part of the city, and father of one of the plaintiffs, on the ground that by the agreement between the United States and the original proprietors, upon laying out the city, those reservations and streets were, for ever, to remain for public use; and, without the consent of the proprietors, could not be otherwise appropriated or sold for private use; that the act of Congress was a violation of that contract; that by such sale and appropriation for private use the right of the United States thereto was determined, or that the original proprietors re-acquired a right to have the reservations, &c. laid out in building lots for their joint and equal benefit with the United States, or that they were in equity entitled to the whole or a moiety of the proceeds of the sales of the lots. Held, by the supreme court, that no rights or claims exist in the former proprietors or their heirs, and that the proceedings of the corporation of Washington, under and in conformity with the provisions of the act, are valid and effectual for the purposes of the act. Van Ness et al. v. The City of Washington and the United States, 4 Peters, 232.
The official tax books of the corporation of Washington, made up by the register from the original returns or lists of the assessors laid before the court of appeals, he being empowered by the ordinances of the corporation to correct the valuations made by the assessors, are evidence; and it is not required that the assessor’s original lists shall be produced in evidence, to prove the assessment of the taxes on real estate in the city of Washington. Ronkendorf v. Taylor’s Lessee, 4 Peters, 349.In an ex parte proceeding, as a sale of land for taxes under a special authority, great strictness is required. To divest an individual of his property against his consent, every substantial requisite of the law must be complied with. No presumption can be raised, in behalf of a collector who sells real estate for taxes, to cure any radical defect in his proceedings; and the proof of regularity devolved upon the person who claims under the collector’s sale. Ibid.Proof of the regular appointment of the assessors is not necessary. They acted under the authority of the corporation, and the highest evidence of this fact is the sanction given to their returns. Ibid.The act of Congress, under which the lot in the city of Washington in controversy was sold, required that public notice of the time and place of the sale of lots, the property of non-residents, should be given, by advertising “once a week” in some newspaper in the city for three months. Notice of the sale of the lot in controversy was published for three months; but in the course of that period, eleven days at one time, at another ten days, and at another eight days transpired in succeeding weeks, between the insertions of the advertisement in the newspapers. “A week” is a definite period of time, commencing on Sunday and ending on Saturday. The notice was published Monday, January 6th, and was omitted until Saturday, January 18th, leaving an interval of eleven days. Still the publication on Saturday was within the week preceding the notice of the 6th; and this was sufficient. It should be a most rigid construction of the act of Congress, justified neither by its spirit nor its language, to say that this notice must be published on any particular day of a week. If published once a week for three months, the law is complied with, and its object effectuated. Ibid.No doubt can exist that a part of a lot may be sold for taxes, where they have accrued on such part. Ibid.The lot on which the taxes were assessed, belonged to two persons as tenants in common. The assessment was made by a valuation of each half of the lot. To make a sale of the interest of one tenant in common for unpaid taxes valid, it need not extend to the interest of both claimants; one having paid his tax, the interest of the other may well be sold for the balance. Ibid.The advertisement purported to sell “half of lot No. 4, in square No. 491;” and the other half was advertised in the same manner, as belonging to the other tenant in common. This was not a sufficient advertisement; and a sale made under the same was void. It is not sufficient that in an advertisement of land for sale for unpaid taxes, such a description is given as would enable the persons desirous of purchasing, to ascertain the situation of the property by inquiry; nor, if the purchaser, at the sale, had been informed of every fact necessary to enable him to fix a value upon the property, would the same be valid, unless the same information had been communicated to the public in the notice. Ibid.The 10th section of the act of Congress provides that real property in Washington, on which two or more years’ taxes shall be due and unpaid, may be sold, &c. In this section a distinction is made between a general and a special tax. Property may be sold to pay the former as soon as two years’ tax shall be due; but to pay the latter, property cannot be sold until the expiration of two years after the second year’s tax becomes due. The taxes for which the property in controversy was sold, became due, by the ordinance of the corporation, on the 1st day of January, 1821 and 1822. The special tax for paving was charged against the lot in 1820, and became due on the first of January, 1821: but the ground on which it was assessed, was not liable to be sold for the tax until the 1st of January, 1823. The first notice of the sale was given on the 6th of December, 1822, nearly a month before the lot was liable to be sold for the special tax of 1820. Held, by the supreme court, that the whole period should have elapsed, which was necessary to render the lot liable to be sold for the special tax, before the advertisement was published. Ibid.