Prevost v. Greneaux.
We can see no valid objection to this judgment. The plaintiff in error, in his petition to be recognised as heir, claimed title to all the separate property of François M. Prevost and his widow, then in the hands of the curator, and of all his portion of the community property, and of all the fruits and revenues of his succession from the day of the death of his brother. And, in adjudicating upon this claim, the court recognised the rights of the appellant, as set forth in his petition, and decided that he became entitled to the property, as heir, immediately upon the death of Fr. M. Prevost.
Now, if the property vested in him at that time, it could vest only in the manner, upon the conditions authorized by the laws of the State. And, by the laws of the State, as they then stood, it vested in him, subject to a tax of ten per cent., payable to the State. And certainly a treaty, subsequently made by the United States with France, could not divest rights of property already vested in the State, even if the words of the treaty had imported such an intention. But the words of the article, which we have already set forth, clearly apply to cases hapeningp afterwards—not the cases where the party appeared, after the treaty, to assert his rights, but to cases the right afterwards accrued. An so it was decided by the Supreme Court of the State, and, we think, rightly. The constitutionality of the law is not disputed, that point having been settled in this court in the case of Mayer v. Grima, 8 How., 490.
In affirming this judgment, it is proper to say that the obligation of the treaty and its operation in the State, after it was made, depend upon the laws of Louisiana. The treaty does not claim for the United States the right of controlling the succession of real or personal property in a State. And its operation is expressly limited “to the States of the Union whose laws permit it, so long and to the same extent as those laws shall remain in force.” And, as there is no act of the Legislature of Louisiana repealing this law and accepting the provisions of the treaty, so as to secure to her citizens similar rights in France, this court might feel some difficulty in saying that it was repealed by this treaty, if the State court had not so expounded its own law, and held that Louisiana was one of the States in which the proposed arrangements of the treaty were to be carried into effect.
Upon the whole, we think there is no error in the judgment of the State court, and it must therefore be affirmed.
