Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/62/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 14:54:32+00:00

Document:
Under § 7 of the Act of June 25, 1888, c. 71, 15 Stat. 76, the Secretary of War transmitted a claim against the United States to the Court of Claims. That court found the claimant to be a person who had "sustained the late rebellion," and that the claim accrued before April 13, 1861, and as the payment of such a claim was forbidden by Joint Resolution No. 46, approved March 2, 18E7, 14 Stat. 571, it decided that it had no jurisdiction to proceed to judgment on the reference made, but could only find the facts and dismiss the petition. Held, no error.
Although, before the joint resolution was passed, the claimant had received from the President a pardon "for all offenses committed by him arising from participation, direct or implied, in the rebellion," the pardon did not authorize the payment of the claim, nor did the joint resolution take away anything which the pardon had conferred.
The case distinguished, as to the effect of the pardon, from Ex Parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333; Armstrong's Foundry, 6 Wall. 766; United States v. Padelford, 9 Wall. 531; United States v. Klein, 13 Wall. 128, and Carlisle v. United States, 16 Wall. 147, 83 U. S. 151.
The act of 1868 did not extend to claims covered by the joint resolution.
privilege, or exemption is claimed or denied under the Constitution of the United States, to cause such claim, with all the vouchers, papers, proofs, and documents pertaining thereto, to be transmitted to the Court of Claims, and the same shall be there proceeded in as if originally commenced by the voluntary action of the claimant, . . . provided however that no case shall be referred by any head of a department unless it belongs to one of the several classes of cases to which, by reason of the subject matter and character, the said Court of Claims might, under existing laws, take jurisdiction on such voluntary action of the claimant. And all the cases mentioned in this section which shall be transmitted by the head of any executive department . . . shall be proceeded in as other cases pending in said court, and shall in all respects be subject to the same rules and regulations, and appeals from the final judgments or decrees of said court therein to the Supreme Court of the United States shall be allowed in the manner now provided by law. The amount of the final judgments or decrees in such cases so transmitted to said court, where rendered in favor of the claimants, shall in all cases be paid out of any specific appropriation applicable to the same, if any such there be, and where no such appropriation exists, the same shall be paid in the same manner as other judgments of said court."
These provisions are now embodied in §§ 1063, 1064, and 1065 of the Revised Statutes.
Under them, the Secretary of War, on the 14th of October, 1873, transmitted to the Court of Claims the claim of Henry B. Hart, as the assignee of Simeon Hart. Thereupon, on the 9th of January, 1874, Simeon Hart, for the use of Henry B. Hart, filed in that court a petition claiming to recover from the United States $50,391.52. In July, 1874, the United States filed a plea setting up a counterclaim of $9,000 against Simeon Hart, and in August, 1874, a plea setting up a bar by a six-years limitation after the first accruing of the claim. In December, 1874, Simeon Hart having died, the suit was revived in the name of A. B. Hyde as his administrator. In January, 1877, the claimant demurred to the plea of the statute of limitations, and the demurrer was sustained. 12 Ct.Cl.
319. On the 9th of May, 1877, the claimant filed an amended petition, to which, three days afterwards, the United States filed a traverse and a plea setting up a bar by a six-years limitation. In October, 1878, the claimant replied to the plea of counterclaim that the $9,000 hand been paid by Simeon Hart. In November, 1879, the United States, by leave of court, filed a special demurrer to the petition and the amended petition, but it was overruled. In June, 1880, James P. Hague, as administrator of Simeon Hart and successor of Hyde, was substituted in place of Hyde as claimant. At the same time, the claimant filed an amended petition praying that any assignment of the claim to Henry B. Hart be treated as void and withdrawing items 4 and 5 of the claim contained in the original petition.
The case was then heard on the evidence, and on the 7th of June, 1880, the court filed its findings of fact and conclusion of law, and an opinion, 15 Ct.Cl. 414, whereby the petition was dismissed, and a judgment to that effect was entered on that day. In January, 1881, a motion for a new trial was granted and the case was reheard on additional evidence, and on the 16th of May, 1881, the court filed its findings of fact and conclusion of law, and an opinion, 16 Ct.Cl. 459, whereby the petition was dismissed, and a judgment to that effect was entered on that day, from which the claimant appealed. Since the appeal Juan S. Hart, as administrator, in place of Hague, has been substituted as appellant.
certain sums as due to him for flour, corn, and forage delivered to the United States before April 13, 1861, and certain sums for flour, corn, and forage delivered after that date. There is nothing due from the United States to the claimant for flour delivered after April 13, 1861, and the United States paid to Hart, or his assignees, for flour alleged to have been delivered after April 13, 1861, but never delivered, more than the amounts claimed as due for corn and forage, those payments being made partly in cash and partly by retaining and charging against him the $9,000 so set up as a counterclaim.
"Until otherwise ordered, it shall be unlawful for any officer of the United States government to pay any account, claim, or demand against said government, which accrued or existed prior to the thirteenth day of April, A.D. 1861, in favor of any person who promoted, encouraged, or in any manner sustained, the late rebellion, or in favor of any person who, during said rebellion, was not known to be opposed thereto, and distinctly in favor of its suppression, and no pardon heretofore granted, or hereafter to be granted, shall authorize the payment of such account, claim, or demand until this resolution is modified or repealed, provided that this resolution shall not be construed to prohibit the payment of claims founded upon contracts made by any of the departments, where such claims were assigned, or contracted to be assigned, prior to April 1, 1861, to creditors of said contractors, loyal citizens of loyal states, in payment of debts incurred prior to March 1, 1861."
that date, but never delivered, more than the amounts now claimed to be due for corn and forage.
We are of opinion that the judgment of the Court of Claims was right. In approving, as we do, the reasons above recited as assigned by that court for the view it took on the question of the pardon, we do not depart in the least from what was held on the subject of pardons in the cases of Ex Parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333; Armstrong's Foundry, 6 Wall. 766; United States v. Padelford, 9 Wall. 531; United States v. Klein, 13 Wall. 128, and Carlisle v. United States, 16 Wall. 147, 83 U. S. 151. If the joint resolution had said nothing on the subject of a pardon, no pardon could have had the effect to authorize the payment out of a general appropriation of a debt which a law of Congress had said should not be paid out of it. The pardon cannot have such effect ascribed to it merely because the joint resolution says that it shall not have such effect. It was entirely within the competency of Congress to declare that the claims mentioned in the joint resolution should not be paid till the further order of Congress. It is now within its competency to declare that they may be paid in like manner as, by the Act of March 3, 1877, c. 105, 19 Stat. 362, it provided that section 3480 of the Revised Statutes, which is the joint resolution in question, should not apply to payments to be made out of a general appropriation made by that act to pay mail contractors for mail service performed in certain states in 1859, 1860, and 1861, and before they "respectively engaged in war against the United States." As to the claims which accrued after April 13, 1861, we see no reason to question the correctness of the judgment.

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