Samuel Davis, Plaintiff in Error v. the Police Jury of the Parish of Concordia

There is enough upon the record of this case to give this court jurisdiction, but not enough to give the appellant the relief for which he has brought it here. His complaint is, that the application of the law of Louisiana for the establishment of ferries (2 Mart. Dig. 142, 3 Mart. Dig. 292) to a ferry franchise claimed by him, from Concordia to Natchez, is an invasion upon a right of property secured by the third article of the treaty between the United States and the Republic of France, ceding Louisiana to the former; and that it impairs the obligation of a contract, which was entered into between the Marquis de Casa Calvo and one Thomas Thompson, on the 19th of February, 1801, granting to Thompson a ferry at the post of Concordia to Natchez, as a privilege to be attached to his plantation, on condition that Thompson would clear a public road from Concordia to the Bayou Cocodrillo. The appellant claims the franchise and land to which it was attached, as a purchaser of both from Joseph Vidal, who bought from Thompson the grantee, on the 16th of October, 1803. It is further said, that by the law, usages, and customs of Spain, in Louisiana, at the date of the grant, no other ferry could be established within a league above or below its locality. The interference with the franchise is said to be the establishment of another ferry by the Police Jury of Concordia, from the town of Vidalia, in that parish, to the city of Natchez. The validity of this proceeding is called in question, on the ground, as we have already said, of its being contrary to a treaty and the Constitution of the United States. Both having been decided by the highest court in Louisiana against the rights claimed, the cause is before us, under the provisions of the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789.