Opinion of the Court. Mr. H. O. Claughton for appellants. Mr. Chapin Brown Iwas on his brief. Mr. Jeremiah M. Wilson for appellees. Mr. A. A. Hoehling, Jr., was on his brief. MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court. It is a principle firmly established that to the law of the State in which the land is situated we must look for the rules which govern its descent, alienation and transfer, and for the effect and construction of wills and other conveyances. United States v. Crosby, 7 Cranch, 115; Clark v. Graham, 6 Wheat. 577; McGoon v. Scales, 9 Wall. 23; Brine v. Insurance Co., 96 U. S. 627. Accordingly, in the present case, we are relieved from a consideration of the innumerable cases in which the courts in England and in the several States of this Union have dealt with the origin and application of the rule in Shelley's case. We have only to do with that famous rule as expounded and applied by the courts of Maryland while the land in question formed part of the territory of that State, and to further inquire whether, since the cession of the lands forming the District of Columbia, there has been any change in the law by legislation of Congress. We learn from the reported cases that the rule, as established in the jurisprudence of England before the American Revolution, was introduced into Maryland as part of the common law, and has been constantly recognized and enforced by the courts of that State. Horne v. Lyeth, 4 Har. & Johns. 431; Ware v. Richardson, 3 Maryland, 505; Shreve v. Shreve, 43 Maryland, 382; Dickson v. Satterfield, 53 Maryland, 317; Halstead v. Hall, 60 Maryland, 209. But we also learn from those cases and other Maryland cases that might be cited, that though the rule is recognized as one of property, yet if there are explanatory and qualifying expressions, from which it appears that the im Opinion of the Court. port of the technical language is contrary to the clear and plain intent of the testator, the former must yield and the latter will prevail. Thus in the case of Shreve v. Shreve, 43 Maryland, 382, where there was a devise to named children of the testator, for and during their natural lives, and on the death of said children, or either of them, to his or her issue lawfully begotten, and their heirs or assigns forever, it was held that the word issue used in the clause cited was a word of purchase; and in the opinion it was said: "Again, there are words of limitation superadded to the gift to the issue; it is to them and their heirs forever. Now in the well-known case of Luddington v. Kime, 1 Ld. Raym. 203, the devise was in very nearly the same terms, viz., to A for life without impeachment of waste, and in case he should leave any issue male, then to such issue male and his heirs forever, with a limitation over in default of such issue, and the court held the testator intended the word issue should be. designatio persona, and not a word of limitation, because he added a further limitation to the issue, viz., and to the heirs of such issue forever.' The principle deduced from this case is thus stated in Cruise's Digest, vol. 6, (3d Am. ed.) page 259: 'Where an estate is devised to a person for life, with remainder to his issue, with words of limitation added, the word "issue" will in that case be construed to be a word of purchase."" The court, in Shreve v. Shreve, 43 Maryland, 382, 397, took notice of the fact that the case of Luddington v. Kime has been doubted, particularly by Powell in his learned work on Devises, but the Maryland court adds: "But these views (of Powell) do not appear to have been adopted at least by the most recent English decisions, for in Golder v. Cropp, 5 Jurist, N. S. 562, where a testator devised property to his daughter for life, and after her death to the issue of her body lawfully begotten, to hold to them and their heirs forever as tenants in common, and in default of such issue then over, it was held, the daughter took but a life estate. That case was decided by Sir J. Romilly, M. R.; and his opinion is thus briefly and emphatically expressed: 'I have always considered that where an estate is given to Opinion of the Court. the ancestor, and there is a direction that it is afterwards to go to the issue of his body, and the mode in which the issue are to take is specified, with words added giving them the absolute interest, there the ancestor takes an estate for life and not an estate tail, although there is a devise over in the event of the ancestor not having any issue. No one can doubt that the word issue is here used as equivalent to children. I am of opinion the daughter takes an estate for life, and that her issue take as purchasers an estate in fee simple as tenants in -common.' "So in the still more recent case of Bradly v. Cortwright, L. R. 2 C. P. 511, it was held that where an estate is given for life and the remainder to the issue is accompanied by words of distribution and by words which would convey an estate in fee or in tail to the issue, the estate of the first taker is limited to an estate for life; and that, whether the estate is given in fee to the issue by the usual technical words, heirs of the body, or by implication. "It may be stated by Mr. Powell, that subsequent decisions in England have in effect overruled Luddington v. Kime, and that at the present time the will before us would receive a different construction in the English courts, but we have been referred to no decision in this country, nor are we aware of any, in which that case has been overruled or its authority questioned. It is, with others, cited by Chancellor Kent, as authority for the position that where the testator superadds words of explanation, or fresh words of limitation, and a new inheritance is grafted upon the heirs to whom he gives the estate, the case will be withdrawn from the operation of the rule. 4 Kent's Com. 221. It meets an approving reference in the very able opinion of Yeates, J., in Findlay v. Riddle, 3 Binney, 156, where there was a devise to it for life, and if he died leaving lawful issue, to his heirs as tenants in common and their respective heirs and assigns, and the court held that A took only an estate for life with a contingent remainder to his heirs. "But what is more important to the decision of this case is the fact that the doctrine of Luddington v. Kime, and other Opinion of the Court. similar cases, has been repeatedly recognized and approved by the courts of this State. Thus in Horne v. Lyeth, 4 H. & J. 435, a case which Chancellor Kent cites as containing a learned and accurate exposition of the rule under all its modifications and exceptions, we find an exception to its operation thus stated: 'So where the persons to take cannot take as heirs by the description by reason of a distributive direction incompatible with a course of descent, as where gavelkind lands were devised to A and the heirs of her body lawfully to be begotten, as well males and females, and to their heirs and assigns forever, to be equally divided between them, share and share alike as tenants in common and not as joint tenants; in this case it was held that the words heirs of the body did not operate as words of limitation because they were corrected or explained by the words which followed, and were irreconcilable with the notion of descent, and also because there were words of fee engrafted in the words of limitation, which showed that the estates given to the children and not the estate of A were to be the groundwork of succession of heirs, or in other words that the children of it were to be the termini for the succession to take its course from.' 'Again, in Lyles v. Diggs, 6 H. & J. 373, we find approval of Backhouse v. Wells (another case that Mr. Powell insists. has been overruled in England), in reference to which the court say: The devise was to one for life, and after his decease to the issue male of his body, and to the heirs male of the bodies of such issue, and the first taker was held to have only an estate for life, the word issue not being ex vi termini a word of limitation, and the words of limitation grafted upon it, as in this case, showing that it was used as a word of purchase and as descriptive of the person who was to take the estate tail.' "In Chelton v. Henderson, 9 Gill, 432, the testator devised land to his son for life, and if he should have lawful issue of his body, then such issue, after the son's death, to have the land in fee tail, and if the son died without such issue, then over, and it was held that the son took but a life estate. In the opinion prepared by Judge Magruder in that case, which Opinion of the Court. is reported in a note to Simpers v. Simpers, 15 Maryland, 191, he says: 'In the case now to be decided there are words superadded to the word issue quite sufficient to give them the inheritance, and the law is, that where an estate is devised to a person for life, with remainder to his issue, with words of limitation superadded, the word issue will, in that case, be construed to be a word of purchase, which is the doctrine of Luddington v. Kime, cited from Cruise's Digest.' "After this repeated and recent recognition by our predecessors of this rule of construction derived from Luddington v. Kime, and other like cases in the earlier English reports, we are constrained to hold that it applies to and governs that part of that clause of this will, which we have thus far considered, even though we may be of opinion a different construction would be given to it by the courts of England. Having thus determined the word issue is here used as a word of purchase, it is clear it must bear the same construction when used in the immediately following sentence, and if any of said children shall die without issue lawfully begotten, I give, devise and bequeath his or her portion to the surviving child or children and their issue and to the heirs of said issue forever.' In other words, the portion given to each child for life, goes in case he dies without leaving children in the same way as the original share, that is, to the surviving children for life, and upon their death to their issue in fee." 6 We have extracted such large portions of the opinion in this case of Shreve v. Shreve because it plainly shows that the will before us in the present case would have been construed by the Supreme Court of the State of Maryland as creating a life estate only in Martha Ann Mitchell and an estate in fee in the heirs of her body begotten. It is true that the words in Shreve v. Shreve were issue lawfully begotten, but the case of Horne v. Lyeth (4 H. & J. 435) is approved, where the words "the heirs of her body lawfully to be begotten," were similarly construed. In Clark v. Smith, 49 Maryland, 106, 117, the court, by Alvey, J., stated the rule as follows: "It is a well-settled rule of construction, that technical |