CHAP. CCIII.- An Act to authorize the Reissue of Land Warrants in certain Cases, and for other Purposes.
| Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever it shall appear that any certificate or warrant, issued in pursuance of any law of the United States granting bounty land, has been lost or destroyed, whether the same had been sold and assigned by the warrantee or not, the Secretary of the Interior shall be, and he is hereby, authorized and required to cause a new certificate or warrant of like tenor to be issued in lieu thereof; which new certificate or warrant may be assigned, located, and patented in like manner as other certificates or warrants for bounty land are now authorized by law to be assigned, located, and patented; and in all cases where warrants have been, or may be, reissued, the original warrant, in whose ever hands it may be, shall be deemed and held to be null and void, and the assignment thereof, if any there be, fraudulent; and no patent shall ever issue for any land located therewith, unless such presumption of fraud in the assignment be removed by due proof that the same was executed by the warrantee in good faith and for a valuable consideration.
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the said Secretary of the Interior shall be, and he is hereby, authorized and required to prescribe such rules and regulations for carrying this act into effect as he may deem necessary and proper in order to protect the government against imposition and fraud by persons claiming the benefit of this act; and; and all laws and parts of laws for the punishment of false swearing and frauds against the United States are hereby made applicable to false swearing and fraud under this act. APPROVED, June 23, 1860. |