Case ID: nc_60-2/html/0074-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Battle, J\".", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the matter of MOORE W. DOLLAHITE, a School Teacher.
    
    
      A school master whose occupation had been suspended for twelve or eighteen months, within the term required for his previous pursuit of the business, is not entitled to an exemption under the act of Congress, passed on the 11th of October, 1862.
    This was a petition for a habeas corpus by the plaintiff, who is a citizen of Person county. The facts of the case appear from the opinion of the Court.
    
      Winstead, for the petitioner.
    
      Strong, Hist. Atto. of Con. States and Bragg, contra.
   Battle, J".

The petitioner claims .to be exempted from military service, in the army of the Confederate States, upon. tbe ground of being the teacher of a school. The clause of the exemption act, which relates to his case, is as follows: — ■ “ all presidents and teachers • of colleges, academies, schools, aud theological seminaries, who have been regularly engaged as such, for two years previous to the passage' of this act,” which was the 11th October, ISO'S. He states that he had been engaged as a teacher for ten or twelve years before the passage of the conscript act, but that his school had been suspended for twelve or eighteen months, in consequence of the troubled condition of the country. He states further, that at the time of his enrolment, he was again engaged in teaching-a school.

It seems from the papers which accompany the petition, that the case of the petitioner had been referred by the commandant of the camp of instruction, to the Bureau of Conscription at Richmond, when the following decision was pronounced : “Exemption declined. The object of the law of October 11th, 1862, in defining certain classes to- be exempt from the operation of the conscript acts, was not to attach privileges to those classes, but to abstain from breaking up the existing civil and industrial organizations of the country.— Exemptions, therefore, have reference to the status at the date of the passage of the act. No antecedent or subsequent coming within the classes enumerated, can entitle to an exemption. In the case of school teachers and physicians, the profession must not only have been in existence on October 11th, 1862, but also the pursuit of it, both then and for a specified time previous.” . "We concur in the above decision, and think that the reasoning upon which it is founded, fully sustains it. As to the fimo, when the status of some of the enumerated classes is to be fixed, we may differ in opinion from the distinguished head of the Bureau of Conscription, but as ■ to school teachers and physicians, the act is express, and leaves no room for doubt.

Pee OueiaM, The petitioner must be remanded back to the custody from which he was taken, and must pay the costs of this proceeding.