Mr. Justice Miller
delivered the opinion of the court.
William.B. Carr, the defendant in error, brought his action of ejectment in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of California against James Doolan and James McCue, to recover possession of 320 acres Of land, described as “ the east half of section 27, township 2, range 1 East of the Mount Diablo base and meridian, of the public land surveys of the United States of America, in the State of California,” and he had judgment for the land.
No citizenship of either party is alleged, and this is urged as ■ aground of reversal in this court, to which the case has'been brought by a writ of error. It, how-ever, appears very clearly that the controversy t-urns upon the validity of the patent from the United States under which plaintiff claims title, and which was denied by the defendants. The Circuit Court for the District of California, therefore, had jurisdiction of the case as one arising under the Constitution and laws of-the United States within the meaning of the act of March 3, .1875; Í8 Stab. 470.
On the trial before the jury the plaintiff introduced in evidence a patent from the United States to the Central Pacific Bailroad Company for the land in question, among many other tracts, dated February 28, 1874. This patent purported to be issued under “the act of Congress approved July 1st, 1862, as amended by the act of July 2d, 1864, to aid in the construction [621]*621of a railroad and 'telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes, and the act of March 3d, 1865,” -and in accordance with the laws of the State of California, by which the Central Pacific Railroad Company and the Western Pacific Railroad Company were consolidated. Although the introduction of this patent was objected to by the defendants, it appears upon its face to be valid, and it was therefore properly admitted as evidence. The plaintiff also introduced a deed of. conveyance from the Central Pacific Railroad Company to himself, and, after further evidence as to the use and occupation of the. land, its value, and that the amount in controversy was over ten thousand dollars, rested.
The defendants, thereupon, in order to show that the patent to the railroad company was issued without authority of law, and therefore void, offered evidence to show “ that on, to wit, April 10, a.d. 1839, the Mexican government granted to José Noriéga and Robert Livermore a certain tract of land known by the name Las Pocitas,’ and which embraced all the land within the following boundaries, viz.: Bounded on the north by the Lomas de las Cuévas, on the east by the Siérra de .Buenos Ayres, on the south by the dividing line of the establishment of San José, and on the west by the rancho of Don José. Dolores Pacheco, containing in all two square leagues, provided that quantity be contained within-the said boundaries ; and if less than that quantity be found to be contained therein, then that less quantity and all of said described tract of land.
“That the departmental assembly of the Mexican nation confirmed said grant to said Noriéga and Livermore on, to wit, May 22d, 1840.
“That on, to wit, February 27th, 1852, said Noriéga and Livermore petitioned to the board of land commissioners appointed under the' provisions of the act of Congress, approved March 3d, 1851, entitled An act to’ ascertain and settle the. private land claims in the State of California,’ to have said grant confirmed, and on, to wit, the 14th day of February, a.d, 1854, the said board of land commissioners confirmed the same [622]*622to said Noriéga and Livermore, their heirs and-assigns, and the decree of. confirmation so made to ^.aid Mexican grant by said board of land commissioners described the boundaries thereof to be: On the north by the Lomas de las Cuévas, on the east by the Sierra de Buenos Ayres, on the south by the dividing line of the establishment of San José, and on the west by the rancho of Don José Dolores Pacheco, provided that within the same no greater quantity than two square leagues were found to be contained; and if a less quantity should be found therein,. then that less quantity was confirmed and all of said described .tract of land.
' 9 That the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, on appeal to it from said decree of the board of land commissioners, duly confirmed said Mexican grant on, to wit, February T8th, a.d. 1859, to the same extent and by the same description, and under the same conditions as said board of land commissioners had done, and the Supreme Court of the Upited States, at the December term, a.d. 1860, affirmed the said decree of said United States District Court and every part thereof. -
“That during the year 1865 an official purvey of the lands so confirmed to said Noriéga and Livermore was made by or under the directions of the surveyor general of the United States for the State of California, and which was duly .approved by said surveyor general in the year a.d. 1866, and which survey included the half section of land described in the complaint herein; that said survey was set' aside by the Secretary of the Interior in the year a„d. 1868, and a new survey ordered to be made of said Mexican grant within the boundaries set forth in said decrees, which should contain but two square leagues' of land, or thereabouts.
“That in March, 1869, the Unite.- States surveyor general for California caused th¿ said Mexican grant to be surveyed and designated in accordance with the claims thereof and-within the boundaries set forth in said decrees of confirmation, the amount so segregated consisting of about two square leagues, in accordance with the said order of the Secretary-of the Interior, and said survey was approved by said- surveyor' [623]*623general on, to wit, May 11th, 1870; and the said survey was approved by the Commissioner of the- General Land Office bn, to wit, March 1st, 1871; and said survey was finally approved' by the Secretary of the Interior on, to wit, June 6th, 1871, and on said last-named date the surplus (or sobrante) of the land embraced within the boundaries contained in said grant and in said decrees became freed and discharged from, the claims and reservation of said Mexican grant, and became public land 6f the United States and a part’ of the public domain thereof.
“ That the entire half section of land described in the complaint herein is located and embraced within the boundaries stated and tract described in and confirmed by the said decree of the board of land commissioners of the United States District Court and of the Supreme Court of the United States, but it was not included within the tract so surveyed in March, 1869, and finally approved on June 6th, a.d. 1871, as aforesaid, as the final survey of said. Mexican grant, and said half sec-’ tion of land described in the complaint herein was held and claimed as a part and parcel of said Mexican grant, and was reserved as such continually from the 10th day of April, a.d. 1839, down to the 6th day of June, a.d. 1871, and on said last-named day it became for the first time public land of' the United States.
“ That the line of the road of said Western Pacific Eailroad Company of California was definitely fixed under the provisions of said act of Congress on, to wit, the 30th day of January, 1865, under and within the intent and. meaning of •the provisions of the act of Congress of. July 1st, 1862, entitled ‘ An act to.aid in the construction of a. railroad and telegraph fine from the Missouri Eiver to the Pacific Ocean,’ and the act amendatory thereof and supplemental thereto; and that on the‘31st day of January, 1865, the lands within"the limits designated by said acts of Congress as being granted to said' railroad company were withdrawn from preemption, private entry, .and sale under the-provisions of said acts, and that no part of the lands described in the complaint has been taken or used' for any depot, shop, switch, turn-out or. road-bed of [624]*624said railroad or of said railroad company; that said railroad was completed prior to the year 1870.”
The plaintiff objected to the proof thus offered to be made by the defendants,, and to other proof not material to the point now under consideration, on the ground “that the United States patent cannot be collaterally attacked in this action; that it can be attacked by bill in equity only; that the said United States patent and the recitals therein contained are conclusive'evidence in this action that the legal title of the lands therein described was granted and transferred by the United States to the grantee named in said patent, and, taken in connection with the deed from the railroad company to the plaintiff, is conclusive evidence of the plaintiff’s right to recover.”
The court- sustained the objection, and refused to allow said proof, or any part of it, to be made, to wh ich the defendants excepted. The court then charged the jury that “ the patent title to this land to the Central Pacific Pailroad Company is conclusive in this case. It cannot be' attacked in a collateral manner. If it can be attacked at all it is only by a direct proceeding for the' purpose of vacating the patent; and, without further remark upon this, one way or the other, it may be sufficient to say that I charge you the law is that, so far as this case is concerned, the patent from the government to the railroad company, the first patent introduced here, is conclusive of the rights of the parties in this case.”
To this charge the defendants excepted, and the' case before us turns upon the correctness‘of the. ruling of the court on the proposition that in this action at law none of the evidence offered by the defendants could be received to impeach the validity of the patent, and that such an issue as that attempted to be raised by the defendants could only be made by a suit in equity to set it aside.
There is no' question as to. the principle that where the officers of the government have issued a patent in due form of law, which on its face is sufficient to convey the title to the land described in it, such patent is to be treated as valid in actions at law, as distinguished from suits in equity, subject, • [625]*625however, at all times to the inquiry whether such officers had the lawful authority to make a conveyance of -the title. . But if thos officers acted without authority; if the land which they purported to convey had never been within their control, or had been withdrawn from that control at «he time they undertook to exercise such authority, then their act was void — void for want of power in them to act on the subject-matter of the patent, not merely voidable ; in which latter case, if the circumstances justified such a decree, a direct proceeding, with proper averments and evidence, would be required to establish that it was voidable, and should, therefore be avoided. The distinction is a manifest one, although the circumstances that enter into it are not always easily defined. It is, nevertheless,'a clear distinction, established by law, and it has been often asserted in this court, that even a patent from the government of the United States, issued with all the forms of law, may be shown to be void by extrinsic evidence, if it be such evidence as by its nature is capable of showing a want of .authority for its issue.
The decisions of this court on this subject are so full and decisive that a reference to a few of them is all that is necessary. Polk's Lessee v. Wendall, 9 Cranch, 87; New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 662, 730; Wilcox v. Jackson, dem. McConnell, 13 Pet. 498, 509; Stoddard v. Chambers, 2 How. 284, 317; Easton v. Salisbury, 21 How. 426, 428; Reichart v. Felps, 6 Wall. 160: Best v. Polk, 18 Wall. 112, 117; Leavenworth Railroad v. United States, 92 U. S. 733; Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U. S. 761; Sherman v. Buick, 93 U. S. 209; Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104 U. S. 636; Steel v. Smelting Co., 106 U. S. 447; Kansas Pacific Railway Col v. Dunmeyer, 113 U. S. 629, 642; Reynolds v. Iron Silver Mining Co., 116 U. S. 687.
The case of Polk's Lessee v. Wendall is, perhaps, the earliest one in this court where this subject received full consideration. That was an action of ejectment in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Tennessee. On the trial, the plaintiff, who was also the plaintiff in error, introduced and relied upon a patent from the State of North Carolina, of the date of April 17,1800, which included the land in controversy. [626]*626The defendant then offered in evidence a patent issued by the same State, dated August 28, 179.5, which also included the land in dispute. The reading (of .this prior patent was cbjected to, but, the objection being overruled, the patent was read in evidence. Testimony was then offered to impeach it, and it' is-upon this branch of the subject that thé opinion of the court, delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, is pertinent. After con•sidering the many guards which-the statutes provide to secure the regularity of grants and the incipient rights of individuals, as well as to protect the state from imposition, he; expresses the view, in language the substance of which has been often since repeated, that, in general, a court of equity appears to be a tribunal better adapted to the object of examining into, objections to a patent which affect its validity than a court of law. He then says: “ In general, then, a court of equity is-the more eligible tribunal for these questions; and they ought to be excluded from a court of law. But there are cases in Avhich a grant is absolutely Aroid; as Avhere the state has no title to the thing granted; or Avhere .'the officer had no authority to issue the grant. In such cases, the validity of the grant is necessarily examinable, at law.” p. 99.
In that case, the court held that it-could-be shown, as a defence to the patent, that the entries on Avhich it AAras granted were never made, and that the warrants were forgeries; in Avhich case no right accrued under the act of 1777, and, no purchase of the land having been made from'the State, the grant Avas void by the express Avords of the laAV, and that in rejecting the testimony on this point the Circuit Court erred. The judgment Avas, therefore, reversed.
The ease of Wilcox v. Jackson was an action of ejectment brought against Wilcox, the commanding officer at Fort Dear-born, to recover possession of land held by him in that character. This land was entered under a preemption claim by one Beaubean, Avho paid the purchase money and procured the register’s receipt therefor. He aftenVards.sold and conveyed his interest to the lessor of the j>laintiff. The question Avas, whether, the register’s certificate, Avhich seems to have been treated as sufficient evidence of title if it Avas valid, could be [627]*627impeached by testimony that the land was not subject to entry. In the opinion of the Supreme Court on this subject the language used in Elliott v. Peirsol, 1 Pet. 328, 340, is quoted with approval:
“ Where a court has jurisdiction it has a- right • to decide every question which occurs in the cause; and whether its decision be correct or otherwise, its judgment, until reversed, /is regarded as binding in every other court. But if it act without authority, its judgments and orders are regarded as nullities. They are not voidablé, but simply void.”
The court then proceeds-: “Now, to apply this. Even assuming that the decision of the register and receiver, in the absence of fraud, would be conclusive as to the facts .of the applicant then being,in possession, and his cultivation during the preceding year, because these questions are directly submitted to them; yet if they undertake to grant preemptions in land in which the law declares that they shall not be granted, then they are acting upon a subject-matter clearly not within their jurisdiction; as much so as if a court whose jurisdiction was declared not to extend beyond a given sum should attempt to take cognizance of a case beyond that sum.” p. 511.
In Stoddard v. Chambers, which was an action of ejectment, an attempt was made to show that the defendant’s patent was void. This court said in that case:
“ The location of Coontz was made in -1818, and his survey in 1818. At these dates there can be no question that all land claimed under a French or Spanish title, which claim has been filed with the recorder of land titles'— as the plaintiffs’ claim had been — were reserved from sale by the acts of Congress above stated. This reservation was continued up to the 26th of May, 1829, when it ceased, until it was revived by the act of 9th July, 1832, and was continued until the final confirmation of the plaintiffs’ title by the act of 1836. The defendant’s patent was issued the 16th' of July, 1832. So that it appears that when the defendant’s claim was entered, surveyed, and patented, the land covered by it, so far as the location interferes' with the plaintiffs’ survey, was not a part of the public land authorized to be sold.’ * On the above facts the important ques[628]*628tion arises, whether the defendant’s title is not void. That this is a question as well examinable at law as in chancery will not be controverted. That the elder legal /title must prevail in the action of ejectment is undoubted. But the inquiry here is, whether the defendant has any title as against the plaintiffs. And there seems to be no difficulty in answering the question, that he' has not. His location was made on lands not liable to be thus appropriated, but expressly reserved; and this was the case when his patent was issued. . . .'No title can be held valid which has been .acquired against law, and such is the character of the defendant’s title, so far as it treriches on the plaintiffs’. , •. . The issuing of a patent .is a ministerial act, which must be pérformed according to law. A patent is utterly void and inoperative which is issued for land that had been previously patented to another individual. . . . The patent of the defendant having been for land reserved from such appropriation, is void; and also the survey of Coontz, so far as either conflicts with the plaintiffs’ title.”
These principles were recognized in and governed the decision of the court in Easton v. Salisbury.
In Reichart v. Felps, which was an action-of ejectment, the plaintiff claimed under two patents, of the dates of 1838 and 1853, which the court says “ exhibit conclusive evidence of ■title if the land had not been previously granted, reserved, or appropriated.” This was permitted to be proved by the patent of G-overnor St. Clair, dated February 12, 1799, duly registered in 1804, with a survey made in 1798. This was held .to be conclusive evidence that the land w as so reserved, and defeated the patents of 1838 and 1853.
In Best v. Polk the plaintiff, in support of his title in-an action of ejectment, produced a patent from the United States,, dated March 13, 1S47, which seemed in all respects to be reg:ular, granting the section of land described to James Brown' in fee, who conveyed to Folk. The defendant, Best, being in ■possession, attempted to defeat this- patent by showing that the land in question was reserved under the treaties' of 1832' and 1834 with the Chickasaw Nation of Indians, which authorized members of the tribe who desired to do so, and heads-[629]*629of families, to locate lands, which when so located were to be reserved from sale or other disposition;by the United States. The defendant undertook to show that the land, on which he was settled,' which was the subject of controversy, had been properly located by an Indian, and was therefore not liable to sale at the time that Brown purchased it of the land officers. The court below rejected the evidence because of certain deficiencies in the certificate made by one Edmondsofl, a register of the land office at Pontotoc, who certified that the land in question was located as a resérve by a Chickasaw Indian, under the treaty, in July, 1839. This court reversed the judgment .rendered in favor of plaintiff in the court below, holding that the certificate was sufficient, and that it showed that under the treaty, and by the action of the Indian in settling upon -it, and procuring la certificate of that fact from the proper officer, the land -had become reserved in the language of the treaty, and that the patent under which the plaintiff claimed was therefore void: citing also Polk's Lessee v. Wendell, and Bagnell v. Broderick, 13 Pet. 436.
In the case of Reynolds v. Iron Silver Mining Co., 116 U. S. 687, decided last year' which was an action to recover possession of part of a vein or lode of mineral deposit, plaintiff relied on a patent for a placer mine, and the contested vein was within the lines of its superficial area extended perpendicularly. The statute on which this patent was issued declared that it should not confer any right to veins known to exist within it at the time the grant was made. Defendants offered evidence to show that the vein in controversy was known to the patentee to exist at the time of his application for the patent.
The Circuit Court charged the jury that because the defendants had shown no right whatever to the vein, but were in possession as naked trespassers, they could not, in defence of that possession, show this d.efect in plaintiff’s tille. But this court (the Chief Justice dissenting) held that this ruling was erroneous, and that, as in all other actions • of ejectmént, plaintiff must recover on the strength of his own title, and not on the weakness of defendants’.
[630]*630With the principles so well' established by these decisions, of the .right in an action at law to prove by competent ’extrinsic evidence that a patent of the United States is void for want of power in the officers to issue it, and the facts which show that want of power, we come to the case of Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U. S. 761, which establishes the proposition that land covered by a Mexican’ claim was not public land within tbe meaning of the dot of Congress making the grant to the railroads, but was reserved from the granting clause of those statutes.
In Leavenworth, Lawrence &c. Railroad v. United States, 92 U. S. 733, decided at the same time with Newhall v. Sanger, the opinions in both cases being delivered by Mr. Justice Davis, the question of the right to show this want of authority was also very fully discussed. That was a case in which the railroad company had brought suit in equity to establish its title to tract's of land lying Avithin the Osage country, in Kansas, which had been certified to the governor of that State as part of. the grant made by Congress to aid in the construction of certain railroads. This Avas done'by,the supposed authority of the act of March 3, 1863, 12 Stat. 772, granting every alternate section of land in the State of Kansas, designated by odd numbers, for ten sections in Avidth, on each side of Said road, and of each of its branches. •
It also contained the usual reservation, that in case it should appear Avhen the line or route of said railroad and branches Avas definitely fixed, that the United States had sold any of the land granted, or that the right of preemption or homestead settlement had attached to the same, then the right was given to sélect other lands; and it provided that any and all lands theretofore reserved to the United States by the acts of Congress, or in any other manner by. competent authority, for the purpose of aiding in any object of internal improvement, or for any other purpose whatever, “ be, and the same are hereby, reserved to the United States from the operation of the act.”
The route of the road in that case was located through lands Avhich had belonged to the Osage Indians, and to which their title was not ’ extinguished until September 29, 1865. This court held that, notwithstanding the generality of the granting [631]*631clause, it was not intended by that statute to grant anything but public lands; of the United States at the date of the grant, and that the reservation clause was sufficient to except these lands, then in the possession of the Indians, out pf the grant, even if the general language could be construed to include them. The court says: “A special .exception of this land was not necessary in these grants, because the policy which dictated them confined them to land which Congress could rightfully bestow, without disturbing existing relations and producing vexatious conflicts. The legislation which reserved it for any purpose, excluded it from disposal as the public lands are usually disposed of.” •
In the case of Newhall v. Sanger the object of the suit was to determine the ownership of á quarter section of land in California. The patent under which the appellee claimed -was issued in 1870, under the act of 1862 granting lands to railroad companies for the purpose of constructing a railroad to the Pacific Ocean.. 12 Stat. 489, 492. One of the companies was the Western Pacific Eailroad Company, to which was granted every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, within ten miles. on each side of its road, not sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and to which a homestead or preemption claim may not have attached at the .time the line of the road was definitely fixed. The act also declared, as in other oasgs, that it should not defeat di* impair any preemption, homestead, swamp land, or other lawful claim, nor include any government .reservation or mineral lands, or the'-improvements of any bona fide settler. The appellant asserted title under a patent of the United States of later date, which recited that the land was within the exterior limits of a Mexican grant called Moquelamos, and that a patent had, by mistake, been issued to the company. It was conceded that the land in controversy fell within the-limits of the railroad grant as enlarged by the amendatory act of 1864,13 Stat. 356, 358, the same act now under consideration, “and the question arises,” said the court, “ whether lands within the boundaries of an alleged Mexican or Spanish grant,- which was then s%ib juclice, are public within the meaning of the acts of Congress [632]*632under which the patent whereon the appellee’s title rests was issued to the railroad company.”
It'will be seen that this is the precise question presented in the case under consideration, and the court, referring to the preceding case of Leavenworth, Lawrence &c. Railroad v. United States, 92 U. S. 733, and reciting the fact that in that case they confined a grant of every alternate section of “ land ” to such whereto the complete title was absolutely vested in the United States, proceeds: “ The acts which govern this case are moré explicit, and leave less room for construction. The words ‘ public lands ’ are habitually used in our legislation to describe such as are subject t.o sale or other disposal under general laws. That they .were so employed in this instance is evident from the fact that to them alone could the order withdrawing lands from preemption, private entry, and sale apply.” The court then goes on to show that the status of lands included in a Spanish or Mexican claim pending before tribunals charged with the duty of adjudicating it, was such that the right of private property could not be impaired by a change of sovereignty, and that such lands were not included in the phrase “ public lands ” of these specific railroad grants, and that until such claims were finally decided to be invalid they were’not restored to the body of public lands subject to be granted.
Those Mexican claims were often described, or attempted to be described, by specific boundaries. They were often claims for a definite quantity of "land within much larger outboundaries, and they were frequently described by the name of a place, or ranche. To the extent of the claim when the grant was for land with specific boundaries, or known by a particular name, and to thé extent of the quantity claimed within outboundaries containing a greater area, they are excluded from the grant to the railroad .company. Indeed, this exclusion did not depend upon the validity of the claim asserted, or its final establishment, but upon the fact that there existed a claim of a right under a grant by the Mexican government, which was yet undetermined, and to which therefore the phrase “ public lands,” could not attach, and which the statute did hot include,- although it might be found within the limits, prescribed on each side of the road when located.
[633]*633It is objected that the testimony offered in the present case, and rejected by the court below, to prove the facts concerning the Mexican grant which would defeat the patent to the railroad company, is parol, and that even conceding the right to assail the patent in an action at law founded on the title conveyed by it, this cannot be done by parol testimony. .But without deciding in this case how far such testimony can be received in an action at law for that purpose, it is sufficient to say that the evidence rejected by the court below in the present case is entirely documentary and matter of record, being the written evidence of the grant by the Mexican government, of its confirmation by the Land Commission of California, of the affirmance of the award of that commission by the District Court of the United States, and by this court, and of the record of the two surveys made by the surveyor of the United States, the latter confirmed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, showing the location and confirmation of the Mexican grant, and the dates at which all those transactions occurred. We do not doubt that this evidence was admissible for the purpose for which it was offered, and if any oral testimony were necessary to identify the land in controversy as coming within the Mexican grant, and the surveys of the Land Office, under the decisions of the courts, we do not thinlc it would be inadmissible, although it is not clear that any such was necessary or was offered.
For the radical error of, the court in rejecting this evidence and in the instructions given to the jury on the same point,
The j udgment is reversed, and the case remanded to the Circuit Court for a new trial.