Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/96/279/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 14:29:06+00:00

Document:
1. The Act of July 17, 1862, 12 Stat. 589, so far as it related to the confiscation of property, applied only to the property of persons who thereafter might be guilty of acts of disloyalty and treason, and it reached only the estate of the party for whose offenses the property was seized.
2. Until some provision was made by law for the condemnation of property in land of persons engaged in the rebellion, the courts of the United States could not decree a confiscation of it and direct its sale.
3. Such persons were not denied the right of contracting with and selling to each other; as between themselves, all the ordinary business could be lawfully carried on except in cases where it was expressly forbidden by the United States or would have been inconsistent with or have tended to weaken its authority.
4. The purpose of the United States to seize and confiscate the property of certain classes of persons engaged in the rebellion having been declared by the Act of July 17, 1862, sales and conveyances of property subsequently made by them could only pass a title subject to be defeated if the government should afterwards proceed for its condemnation. The fact that the property sold and conveyed was at the time within the territory occupied by the federal troops created no other legal impediment to the transfer.
5. The provision in that act that "all sales, transfers, or conveyances" of property of persons therein designated shall be null and void only invalidates such transactions as against any proceedings taken by the United States for the condemnation of the property. They are not void as between the parties or against any other party than the United States. The case of Corbett v. Nutt, 10 Wall. 464, cited on this point and approved.
6. A sale by public act, before a notary within the insurrectionary territory, of land in the City of New Orleans by one enemy to another for a valuable consideration, previous to the passage of the Confiscation Act, passed the title to the purchaser, which was not affected by subsequent judicial proceedings for its condemnation for alleged offenses of the vendor. The case of Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee, 7 Cranch 603, cited and approved.
7. An actual delivery of immovables in Louisiana is not essential to the validity of a sale of them made by public act before a notary. The law of the state considers the tradition or delivery of the property as accompanying the act.
1862, and a subsequent conveyance to himself of his brother's interest. The conveyance of the father was made in settlement and discharge of certain obligations resting upon him under the laws of Louisiana by reason of his having received, as the natural tutor of his children, property belonging to them as minor heirs of their deceased mother. It appears from the record that she died intestate at New Orleans in 1839, leaving the plaintiff and his brother her only heirs, and an estate valued at a sum over $35,000. The estate consisted principally of her separate property; a small portion was her share of the real property belonging to the matrimonial community. The surviving husband qualified, and was confirmed as the natural tutor of the children, and took charge of their property. The law of Louisiana imposes a general mortgage upon all the property of a tutor to secure the interests of minors and his faithful execution of the trust, but gives him the right to substitute in place of it a special mortgage upon particular parcels of his property. The tutor here availed himself of this right at different times. The last special mortgage was executed in 1847, and, with other property, covered the premises in controversy. Previously to this and in 1845, his indebtedness to his sons had been ascertained and fixed by decree of the probate court at the sum of $36,757. This amount was subsequently increased.
No account of his administration was ever rendered by the tutor until May 6, 1862, when a settlement took place between him and his sons, and in discharge of his obligations to them, he executed, before the recorder and ex-officio notary public of the Parish of St. Helena a public act of sale by which he sold and conveyed to them several lots situated in New Orleans, and among them the one in controversy in this case. This act of sale, which purports to have been recorded in the City of New Orleans on the 31st of the same month, the court refused to admit in evidence.
the Confiscation Act of July 17, 1862. The other defendants disclaimed title.
1. That the act was not a sale, but a giving in payment, and that no delivery of the property was or could be made, as the same was situated within the federal lines, and the act was executed within the military lines of the Confederate states, where the parties were sojourning.
2. That it being admitted that the vendor and vendees had been before, and were at the date of the act, and afterwards, engaged in rebellion against the United States, and so continued until the end of the war, and that the act was passed within the Confederate lines, the property being situated within the federal lines, the act of transfer was inoperative and void.
3. That such evidence would tend to contradict the decree of condemnation previously entered in the district court, and set up by the defendant in his answer.
4. That it being admitted that the grantor and grantees were enemies of the United States at the time the act was passed, the grantor was incompetent to complete the transfer of the property, the same being within federal military lines.
5. That the copy of the act offered in evidence was not, by the statute of the state, admissible in evidence against any right set up by a third person, without being accompanied with proof that the same had been duly and legally registered in the proper office where the properties were situated.
in the parish of St. Helena, within the Confederate lines, could not be legally recorded in the Parish of Orleans, which at that date was within federal military lines.
These several objections were sustained by the court, and the plaintiff excepted.
1st, that even if the Confiscation Act contained a prohibition against sales, transfers, and conveyances, made in good faith prior to its passage, such prohibition did not apply to transfers and conveyances wherein all parties to the same, vendor and vendees, were equally engaged in rebellion against the United States, and consequently, where the property conveyed or transferred would be as liable to confiscation in the hands of the vendees as in the hands of the vendor.
2d, that all that was seized, and all that could be seized, condemned, and sold under the judgment or decree of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, in the proceedings against the property of Charles M. Conrad, on which judgment or decree, and the sale made in pursuance thereof, the defendant bases his claim to the premises in controversy in this cause, was the title, right, and estate of said Charles M. Conrad, whatever the same might have been, to endure only during his life, in and to the property libeled and condemned, and the right, property, and estate therein of no other person or persons whatsoever.
3d, that the United States, by the proceedings and decree of condemnation, succeeded only to the rights of said Charles M. Conrad to said property, whatever the same might be, to endure only during his life, and that the decree, and marshal's sale to defendant thereunder, had no other effect than to transfer such rights as the United States acquired by the decree, and did not disturb or affect the rights of any other person or persons to the property, or any part thereof, and that if, at the time of the seizure, proceedings, and decree, Charles M. Conrad had no rights and estate in the property involved, the United States acquired no rights and estate therein, and the marshal's sale of the property transferred no interest or estate therein to the defendant the purchaser at the sale.
But the court refused to give the instructions as prayed, or any of them, and the plaintiff excepted.
At the request of the defendants, the court instructed the jury that, the plaintiff having offered no evidence to show title in himself, it was their duty to return a verdict for the defendants; to which instruction the plaintiff excepted.
The jury found for the defendants, and, judgment having been entered on the verdict, the plaintiff brought the case here on writ of error.
The questions presented for our determination relate to the admissibility and effect of the act of sale of May 6, 1862, and to the subsequent condemnation and sale in the confiscation proceedings. Numerous exceptions were taken to the rulings of the circuit court in admitting and rejecting evidence, and in giving and refusing instructions to the jury, but we do not deem it important to notice them in detail. What we have to say upon the Confiscation Act, the title which passed by a condemnation and sale under it, and the power of enemies to sell and convey to each other their interest in real property situated within the lines of the other belligerent, will sufficiently express our judgment upon the questions involved, and serve to guide the court below in any subsequent proceedings.
territory or in the District of Columbia, might thereafter give aid and comfort to the rebellion, and the joint resolution of the two houses of Congress, passed in explanation and limitation of the law, removed that exception. That resolution declared that the third clause of that section should be so construed as not to apply to any act or acts done prior to its passage. The sixth section, which provided for the seizure of the property of persons other than those named in the previous section who, being engaged in armed rebellion, did not within sixth days after the warning and proclamation of the President, cease to aid, countenance, and abet the rebellion, declared that "all sales, transfers, and conveyances of any such property after the expiration of the said sixty days" should be null and void. 12 Stat. 627.
"remains undiminished, and when the sovereign authority shall choose to bring it into operation, the judicial department must give effect to its will. But until that will shall be expressed, no power of condemnation can exist in the court."
of property of persons engaged in the rebellion are those of Aug. 6, 1861, and of July 17, 1862. That of 1861 applied only to property acquired with intent to use or employ the same, or to suffer the same to be used or employed, in aiding or abetting the insurrection or in resisting the laws, and did not touch the property in controversy here. And the act of 1862, as already stated, did not authorize a seizure and confiscation for past acts. It might have done so on the simple ground that the owner of the property seized was a public enemy, without reference to the time he became such, but Congress otherwise provided, and its will furnishes the rule by which to determine the rights of the elder Conrad at the time he disposed of his property.
"does not necessarily exclude all claim to other interests than those which were seized. In admiralty cases and in revenue cases, a condemnation and sale generally pass the entire title to the property condemned and sold. This is because the thing condemned is considered as the offender or the debtor, and is seized in entirety. But such is not the case in many proceedings which are in rem. Decrees of courts of probate or orphans' courts directing sales for the payment of a decedent's debts, or for distribution, are proceedings in rem. So are sales under attachments or proceedings to foreclose a mortgage quasi proceedings in rem at least. But in none of these cases is anything more sold than the estate of the decedent or of the debtor or the mortgagor in the thing sold. The interests of others are not cut off or affected."
"They were null and void as against the belligerent or sovereign right of the United States to appropriate and use the property for the purpose designated, but in no other respect, and not as against any other party. Neither the object sought nor the language of the act requires any greater extension of the terms used. The United States were the only party who could institute the proceedings for condemnation, the offense for which such condemnation was decreed was against the United States, and the property condemned or its proceeds went to their sole use. They alone could therefore be affected by the sale."
And the Court added that any other construction would impute to the United States a severity in their legislation entirely foreign to their history. If the sale to the younger Conrads had been made after the passage of the Confiscation Act, it would not have prevented the title of the elder Conrad from vesting by the decree of condemnation in the United States. But, having been made previously, it was not impaired by the act.
"is without any exception, as respects immovables, not only between the parties, but as to all the world, provided the contract be clothed with the formalities required by law, that it is bona fide, and purports to transfer the ownership of the property."
Art. 1914. The code also declares that "the law considers the tradition or delivery of immovables as always accompanying the public act which transfers the property." Art. 2455; Lallande v. Lee, 9 Rod. (La.) 514; Flynn v. Moore, 4 La.Ann. 400; Ellis v. Prevost, 13 La. 235, 237. We are of opinion, therefore, that the act of sale made on the 6th of May, 1862, was unaffected by the subsequent confiscation proceedings, and should have been admitted in evidence.
"that an alien can take lands by purchase, though not by descent, or, in other words, he cannot take by the act of law, but he may by the act of the party. This principle has been settled in the Year Books, and has been uniformly recognized as sound law from that time. Nor is there any distinction whether the purchase be by grant or by devise. In either case, the estate vests in the alien, not for his own benefit but for the benefit of the state, or, in the language of the ancient law, the alien has the capacity to take but not to hold lands, and they may be seized into the hands of the sovereign. But until the lands are so seized, the alien has complete dominion over the same."
capacity to sue is suspended. But as to capacity to purchase, no case has been cited in which it has been denied, and in Attorney General v. Wheeden & Shales, Park.Rep. 267, it was adjudged that a bequest to an alien enemy was good, and after a peace might be enforced. Indeed, the common law in these particulars seems to coincide with the jus gentium."
If an alien enemy can, by devise or purchase from a loyal citizen or subject, take an estate in the country of the other belligerent and hold it until office found, there would seem to be no solid reason for refusing a like efficacy to a conveyance from one enemy to another of land similarly situated. * A different doctrine would unsettle a multitude of titles passed during the war between residents of the insurrectionary territory temporarily absent therefrom whilst it was dominated by the federal forces. Such residents were deemed enemies by the mere fact of being inhabitants of that territory, without reference to any hostile disposition manifested or hostile acts committed by them. In numerous instances also, transfers of property were made in loyal states bordering on the line of actual hostilities by parties who had left those states and joined the insurgents. This was particularly the case in Missouri and Kentucky. No principle of public policy would be advanced or principle of public law sustained by holding such transfers absolutely void, instead of being merely inoperative as against the right of the United States to appropriate the property jure belli; on the contrary, such a holding would create unnecessary hardship, and therefore add a new cruelty to the war.
* See the able and exhaustive opinion of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in Kershaw v. Kelsey, delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Gray, 100 Mass. 561.
MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD dissented. His opinion applies to this and to the subsequent case of Burbank v. Conrad. It will be found on page 96 U. S. 293.

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