Barnett v. Equitable Trust Co.

KNOX, District Judge.

For the purposes of this ease, it may be assumed that the Secretary of the Interior had power and authority to remove the restrictions which the Congress of the United States has placed upon the property of Jackson Barnett, as a full-blood Indian of the Creek tribe, and to approve such gifts and donations of his property as he in fact made. But such approval, however honest and disinterested it may have been, cannot give validity to a gift or donation which the apparent donor did not make, and which, by reason of méntal incomp eteney, he was incapable of making. Jennings…