The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1867-06-26
RALEIGH, n. G., WEDNESDAY, JUNE .2s.. 1867.
the insurgent authorities committed illegal
violence, by which no obligation Of debtors
to creditors could be cancelled, OF, in any re-

the insurgent authorities committed illegal
violence, by which no obligation of debtors
to creditors could be cancelled, or, in any re-
spect, affected. %
Nor can the defence in this case derive
more support from the decisions affirming
the validity of contiscations during the war
for American Independence.
That war began, doubtless, like the recent
civil war, in rebellion. Had it terminated
unsuccessfully, and had English Tribunals
subsequently affirmed the validity of colonial
confiscation and sequestration of British pro-
perty and of debts due to British subjects,
those decisions would be in point. No stu
to be informed how impossible it is that
such decisions could have been made.
Had the recent rebellion proved successful,
and had the validity of the confscations and
sequestrations actually enforced by the in
surgent authorities been. afterwards ques-
toned in Confederate Courts, it is not inn
probable that the decisions of the State
Courts made during and after the revolution
ary war, might have been cited with ap-
| proval. ~
| But it hardly needs remark, that those de-
cisions were maze under circumstances wide
ly differing from those which now exist.
They were made by the Courts of States
which had succeeded in their attempt to
sever their colonial connexion with Great
Britain, and sactioned acts which depended
for their validity wholly upon that success
and can have no application to acts of a
rebel self styled government, seeking the
severance of constitutional relations of States
to the Union, but defeated in the attempt,
and, itself, broken up and destroyed.
Those who engage in rebellion must con-
slider the consequences. If they succeed, re-
bellion becomes revolution; and the new
governmentment will justify its founders II
they fail, all their acts hostile to the rightful
government, are violations of law, and orig
mate no rights which can be recognized by
the Courts of the Nation whose authority and
existence have been alike assailed.
We hold, therefore, that compulsory pay
ment, under the Sequestration acts, to the
rebel receiver, of the debt due to the plain
tiffs from the defendant, was no discharge.
1t is claimed, however, that whatever may
be the right of the plaintiffs to recover the
principal debt from the defendant, they can
not recover interest for the time during
which war prevented all communication be
tween the States in which they respectivel!
resided.
We cannot think so Interest is the law
full fruit of principal. There are, indeed
some authorities to the point that interes
which has accrued during war between in
dependent nations, cannot be afterwards re
covered; though the debt, with other inter
est, may be- But that rule, in our judgment
is applicable only to such wars. We per
ceive nothing in the act of the 18th July
1861, which suspended for u time all pacific
intercourse between the legal and insurgen
portion of the country, that requires or justi
fes the APPLICATION of that rule to the cas-
before US. Legal rights could neither b
originated nor defeated by the action of tn
central authorities of the late rebellion.
The plaintiff must have judgment for tn
principal and interest of his debt, withou
deduction. =