Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/134/99/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 01:19:48+00:00

Document:
The provision in the Naval Appropriation Act of August 5, 1882, c. 391, § 1, which directs in certain cases the honorable discharge of naval cadets from the navy with one year's sea pay is not in conflict with the contract clause of the Constitution of the United States.
An officer in the army or navy of the United States does not hold his office by contract, but at the will of the sovereign power.
It is not within the power of a legislature to deprive its successor of the power of repealing an act creating a public office.
This is an action brought by the appellant, James D. Crenshaw, in the Court of Claims for the purpose of recovering an alleged balance of $3,763.66 due him on account of salary as a midshipman in the United States Navy. The Court of Claims dismissed the appellant's petition, 24 Ct.Cl. 57, and an appeal from that judgment brings the case here.
"SEC. 1520. The academic course of cadet midshipmen shall be six years."
"SEC. 1521. When cadet midshipmen shall have passed successfully the graduating examination at the academy, they shall receive appointments as midshipmen, and shall take rank according to their proficiency, as shown by the order of their merit at date of graduation."
"SEC. 1556. The commissioned officers and warrant officers on the active list of the Navy of the United States, and the petty officers, seamen, . . . shall be entitled to receive annual pay at the rates herein stated after their respective designations: . . . Midshipmen, after graduation, when at sea, one thousand dollars; on shore duty, eight hundred dollars; on leave, or waiting orders, six hundred dollars. Cadet midshipmen, five hundred dollars."
"SEC. 1229. The President is authorized to drop from the rolls of the army, for desertion, any officer who is absent from duty three months without leave, and no officer so dropped shall be eligible for reappointment. And no officer in the military or naval service shall, in time of peace, be dismissed from service except upon and in pursuance of the sentence of a court-martial to that effect or in commutation thereof."
"This certifies that Cadet Midshipman James D. Crenshaw has completed the prescribed course of study at the United States Naval Academy, and has successfully passed the required examination before the academic board preparatory to the two-years course afloat. June 10, 1881. "
"That hereafter there shall be no appointments of cadet midshipmen or cadet engineers at the Naval Academy, but in lieu thereof, naval cadets shall be appointed from each congressional district, and at large, as now provided by law for cadet midshipmen, and all the undergraduates at the Naval Academy shall hereafter be designated and called 'naval cadets,' and from those who successfully complete the six-years course, appointments shall hereafter be made as it is necessary to fill vacancies in the lower grades of the line and engineer corps of the navy and of the marine corps, and provided further that no greater number of appointments into these grades shall be made each very than shall equal the number of vacancies which has occurred in the same grades during the preceding year, of vacancies which has occurred in the graduates of the year at the conclusion of their six-years course, in the order of merit, as determined by the academic board of the Naval Academy, the assignment to the various corps to be made by the Secretary of the Navy upon the recommendation of the academic board. But nothing herein contained shall reduce the number of appointments from such graduates below ten in each year, nor deprive of such appointment any graduate who may complete the six-years course during the year eighteen hundred and eighty-two. And if there be a surplus of graduates, those who do not receive such appointment shall be given a certificate of graduation, an honorable discharge, and one year's sea pay, as now provided by law for cadet midshipmen,"
etc. 22 Stat. 284, 285.
"We, the academic board of the United States Naval Academy, having thoroughly examined Naval Cadet James D. Crenshaw on all subjects, theoretical and practical, taught at this institution, and having found him proficient in each, do hereby, in conformity with the law, grant to him this certificate of graduation. June 15, 1883."
"Navy Department, Bureau of Navigation and Office of Detail"
"Sir: You are hereby detached from the Naval Academy. Proceed home, and regard yourself waiting orders."
"By direction of the Secretary of the Navy."
"J. E. WALLER, Chief of Bureau"
"Sir: Having successfully completed your six years' course at the United States Naval Academy, and having been given a certificate of graduation by the academic board, but not being required to fill any vacancy in the service happening during the year preceding your graduation, you are hereby discharged from the 30th of June, 1883, with one year's sea pay as prescribed by law for cadet midshipmen, in accordance with the provisions of the Act approved August 5, 1882."
"Respectfully, W. E. CHANDLER, Secretary of the Navy"
"Naval Cadet James D. Crenshaw, U.S. Navy."
(1) That when he accepted the appointment of cadet midshipman, he became an officer of the navy, and, as such, entitled to the benefits of section 1229, and Art. 36 of section 1624 (which is to the same effect) of the Revised Statutes; that such acceptance constituted a statutory contract with the United States, based on a valuable consideration, under which he is entitled to hold the office for life unless removed by sentence of a court-martial or in commutation thereof.
(2) That he was not therefore discharged by competent authority, because, first, since the reenactment by Congress, in 1874, of section 1229 and Art. 36 of section 1624 of the Revised Statutes, neither Congress, the Secretary of the Navy, nor any department of the government is competent, in time of peace, to discharge an officer from the naval service.
(3) That independently of the Act of July 13, 1866, 14 Stat. 92, c. 176, § 5 (section 1229 and Art. 36 of section 1624 aforesaid), the act of 1882 is unconstitutional as applied to him for the reason that he held an office by contract with the United States and was entitled on graduation to be a midshipman to serve for life or during good behavior.
(5) that the case of appellant did not fall within the terms of the act of 1882; that he was not at the date of its passage an undergraduate of the academy, but had graduated, and that therefore his discharge was not authorized by that act.
a principle would arrest, necessarily, everything like progress or improvement in government, or if changes should be ventured upon, the government would have to become one great pension establishment on which to quarter a host of sincecures. . . . It follows, then, upon principle that in every perfect or competent government there must exist a general power to enact and to repeal laws and to create and change or discontinue the agents designated for the execution of those laws. Such a power is indispensable for the preservation of the body politic and for the safety of the individuals of the community. It is true that this power or the extent of its exercise may be controlled by the higher organic law or constitution of the state, as is the case in some instances in the state constitutions, and as is exemplified in the provision of the federal Constitution relied on in this case by the plaintiffs in error and in some other clauses of the same instrument; but where no such restriction is imposed, the power must rest in the discretion of the government alone. . . . We have already shown that the appointment to and the tenure of an office created for the public use, and the regulation of the salary affixed to such an office, do not fall within the meaning of the section of the Constitution relied on by the plaintiffs in error -- do not come within the import of the term 'contracts,' or, in other words, the vested, private, personal rights thereby intended to be protected. They are functions appropriate to that class of powers and obligations by which governments are enabled, and are called upon to foster and promote the general good -- functions, therefore, which governments cannot be presumed to have surrendered, if indeed they can under any circumstances be justified in surrendering them."
"The legislative power of a state, except so far as restrained by its own constitution, is at all times absolute with respect to all offices within its reach. It may at pleasure create or abolish them or modify their duties. It may also shorten or lengthen the term of service. And it may increase or diminish the salary or change the mode of compensation. The police power of the states, and that with respect to municipal corporations and to many other things that might be named, are of the same absolute character,"
citing Cooley, Const.Lim. 232, 342; The Regents v. Williams, 9 Gill & J. 371.
"In all these cases there can be no contract, and no irrepealable law, because they are 'governmental subjects,' and hence within the category before stated. They involve public interests, and legislative acts concerning them are necessarily public laws. Every succeeding legislature possesses the same jurisdiction and power with respect to them as its predecessors. The latter have the same power of repeal and modification which the former had of enactment -- neither more nor less. All occupy in this respect a footing of perfect equality. This must necessarily be so in the nature of things. It is vital to the public welfare that each one should be able at all times to do whatever the varying circumstances and present exigencies touching the subject involved may require. A different result would be fraught with evil."
See also Hall v. Wisconsin, 103 U. S. 5; United States v. Fisher, 109 U. S. 143. Nor is the holding of this Court singular. Numerous decisions to the same effect are to be found in the state courts. People v Morris, 13 Wend. 325; Commonwealth v. Bacon, 6 S. & R. 322; Commonwealth v. Mann, 5 W. & S. 418; Hyde v. State, 52 Miss. 665; State v. Smedes, 26 Miss. 47; Turpen v. Board of Commissioners of Tipton County, 7 Ind. 172; Haynes v. State, 3 Humphrey 480; Benford v. Gibson, 15 Ala. 521.
In Blake v. United States, 103 U. S. 227, the fact is adverted to, and the opinion of the Attorney General in Lansing's Case, 6 Opinions Attys.Gen. 4, quoted approvingly to the effect that in this respect of official tenure there is no difference in law between officers in the army and other officers of the government.
make no difference. The great question of protection to contract rights and vested interests, which forms such an interesting and important feature of our constitutional law, is not dominated by the turn of a phrase. Our courts, both state and national, look on these questions through the form to the substance of things, and in substance a statute under which one takes office, and which fixes the term of office at one year or during good behavior, is the same as one which adds to those provisions the declaration that the incumbent shall not be dismissed therefrom. Whatever the form of the statute, the officer under it does not revocable by the sovereignty at will, and one legislature cannot deprive its successor of the power of revocation. Butler v. Pennsylvania, supra; Stone v. Mississippi, supra; Cooley's Const.Lim. 283; United States v. McDonald, 128 U. S. 471, 128 U. S. 473.
In the second place, section 1229 and Art. 36 of § 1624 of the Revised Statutes are a reproduction in the revision of the Act of July 13, 1866, section 5, supra, and in Blake v. United States, supra, the Court decided that that act only operated to withdraw from the President the power previously existing in him of removing officers at will and without the concurrence of the Senate, and that there was no intention to withdraw from him the power to remove with the advice and concurrence of the Senate. If that construction of the statute be correct (and we see no cause for altering our view), it necessarily follows that it was not intended to place an officer where he never before had been -- beyond the power of Congress to make any provision for his removal, even by the executive who appointed him.
statutes of general interest, the political exigency which furnished the primary motive for its reenactment had drifted away with the lapse of time; but we do not think it can avail to give to a statute which, after all, is but a reenactment in the exact language of the original act, a meaning almost directly the reverse of that given to the original act. To give such effect to the action of Congress in codifying the statutes would go far to subvert all decisions and introduce chaos into our jurisprudence.
Thus far, we have preferred to decide the case upon the broad grounds above stated, and therefore considered it as if the term of office enjoyed by the appellant was what he claims it to have been -- a term for life. In fact, however, even if that were true as to other officers, it was not true as to him. The statute applicable to his case is section 1520 of the Revised Statutes, which fixes the academic course at six years, and when he entered the service, under the regulations in such cases provided, he executed a bond to serve for eight years unless discharged by competent authority -- thus recognizing his liability to be discharged.
As to the fourth proposition of appellant -- that in enacting the statute of 1882, Congress assumed the power of appointment which belongs to the executive -- we do not so regard the act. Congress did not thereby undertake to name the incumbent of any office. It simply changed the name and modified the scope of the duties. This, we think, it had the power to do.
academy. He still was subject to a final examination at that institution, and, without such examination successfully sustained, never became a graduate. He was not so denominated until then, either in the Naval Register or elsewhere, and it was not until that final test had been sustained that, either by the practice of the academy or by the provision of the statute, he did or could receive his certificate of graduation.

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