SUPREME COURT OF THE U. STATES. JANUARY TERM, 1833./ MAYOR, ALDERMEN, &C. OF THE CITY OF N. ORLEANS, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS, VS. THE U. STATES, COMPLAINANTS AND APPELLEES. / CASE FOR APPELLANT

[np, 1833. 10, [2 blank] pp. Caption title [as issued], stitched, untrimmed, partly uncut. Minor dustsoiling on untrimmed edges. Else crisp and bright. Near Fine.

This is the Brief, submitted to the United States Supreme Court, by the City of New Orleans. The City and the United States each claimed title to the same area of "vacant public land." The City sought to sell it. The United States objected on the ground that the land, "formerly belonging to the Crowns of France and Spain successively, passed by treaty to the United States." The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana enjoined the sale. The City appealed.
The City's Brief, an unusually detailed examination of its chain of title beginning in 1720, argues that ownership of the disputed lands did not vest in the United States under the treaty to purchase Louisiana; and that the "original plan of the City" left those lands "for the use of the inhabitants." The Supreme Court agreed. Its opinion, by Justice McLean of Ohio, is officially reported at 35 U.S. 662 [1836].
Daniel Webster and Edward Livingston-- who had spent years fending off U.S. claims to New Orleans alluvial lands-- represented the City; Attorney General Benjamin Franklin Butler was counsel for the United States.
OCLC 1297855642 ["Reproduction of the original from Harvard Law School Library"] as of May 2026.