Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/87/459/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 11:10:04+00:00

Document:
1. A purchaser of cotton from the Confederate states, who knew that the money he paid for it went to sustain the rebellion, cannot in the Court of Claims recover the proceeds when it has been captured and sold under the Captured and Abandoned Property Act.
2. The moral turpitude of the transaction forbids that in a court of law he should be permitted to establish his title by proof of such a transaction.
3. The acts of the states in rebellion, in the ordinary course of administration of law, must be upheld in the interest of civil society, to which such a government was a necessity.
4. But the government of the Confederacy had no existence except as organized treason. Its purpose while it lasted was to overthrow the lawful government, and its statutes, its decrees, its authority can give no validity to any act done in its service or in aid of its purpose.
of abandoned property &c., in the insurrectionary districts within the United States," enacts that any person claiming to have been the owner of any such abandoned or captured property may, within a time specified in the act, prefer his claim to the proceeds thereof in the Court of Claims, and on proof to the satisfaction of the court: (1) of his ownership, (2) of his right to the proceeds thereof, and (3) that he has never given any aid or comfort to the rebellion, receive the residue of such proceeds, after deducting any purchase money which may have been paid &c.
At different times during the years 1864 and 1865, large quantities of cotton were purchased by the agents of the Confederate states for the treasonable purpose of maintaining the war of the rebellion against the government of the United States. Of cotton thus purchased by various agents in Claiborne County, Mississippi, three hundred bales were sold to the claimant by one agent in March, 1865, for ten cents a pound, in the currency of the United States. The sale was made by the agent as of cotton belonging to the Confederate states, and it was understood by the claimant at the time of the purchase to be the property of the rebel government, and was purchased as such. The agent had been specially instructed by the Confederate government "to sell any and all cotton he could for the purpose of raising money to purchase munitions of war and supplies for the Confederate army," but the purpose of the sale was not disclosed to the claimant, whose purpose was not to aid the Confederate states, buying the cotton at its market value and regarding it as a mere business transaction of "cotton for cash." The cotton was delivered to him at the time when the money was paid, he then being a resident of Claiborne County, within the Confederate lines.
The cotton was captured in May, 1865, and the proceeds or some portion thereof are in the Treasury.
1. That the government of the Confederate states was an unlawful assemblage, without corporate power to take, hold, or convey a valid title to property, real or personal.
2. That the claimant was chargeable with notice of the treasonable intent of the sale by the Confederate government, and that the transaction was forbidden by the laws of the United States and wholly void, so that the claimant acquired no title to the property which was the subject of suit.
The court therefore decreed against the claimant, and from its decree he brought the case here.
1. That the government of the Confederate states was an unlawful assemblage without corporate power to take, hold, or convey a valid title to property, real or personal.
2. That the claimant was chargeable with notice of the treasonable intent of the sale by the Confederate government, and that the transaction was forbidden by the laws of the United States and wholly void, so that the claimant acquired no title to the property which is the subject of suit.
We do not think it necessary to say anything in regard to the first proposition of law laid down by that court. Whether the temporary government of the Confederate states had the capacity to take and hold title to real or personal property, and how far it is to be recognized as having been a de facto government, and if so what consequences follow in regard to its transactions as they are to be viewed in a court of the United States it will be time enough for us to decide when such decision becomes necessary. There is no such necessity in the present case.
We rest our affirmance of the judgment of the Court of Claims upon its second proposition.
It is a fact so well known as to need no finding of the court to establish it -- a fact which, like many other historical events, all courts take notice of -- that cotton was the principal support of the rebellion so far as pecuniary aid was necessary to its support. The Confederate government early adopted the policy of collecting large quantities of cotton under its control, either by exchanging its bonds for the cotton, or when that failed by forced contributions. So long as the imperfect blockade of the Southern ports and the unguarded condition of the Mexican frontier enabled them to export this cotton, they were well supplied in return with arms, ammunition, medicine, and the necessaries of life not grown within their lines, as well as with that other great sinew of war, gold. If the rebel government could freely have exchanged the cotton of which it was enabled to possess itself for the munitions of war or for gold, it seems very doubtful if it could have been suppressed. So when the rigor of the blockade prevented successful export of this cotton, their next resource was to sell it among their own people or to such persons claiming outwardly to be loyal to the United States as would buy of them for the money necessary to support the tottering fabric of rebellion which they called a government.
The cotton which is the subject of this controversy was of this class. It had been in the possession and under the control of the Confederate government, with claim of title. It was captured during the last days of the existence of that government by our forces, and sold by the officers appointed for that purpose, and the money deposited in the Treasury.
possibly could. He could not have aided that cause more acceptably if he had entered its service and become a blockade-runner, or under the guise of a privateer had preyed upon the unoffending commerce of his country. It is asking too much of a court of law sitting under the authority of the government then struggling for existence against a treason respectable only for the numbers and the force by which it was supported to hold that one of its own citizens, owing and acknowledging to it allegiance, can by the proof of such a transaction establish a title to the property so obtained. The proposition that there is in many cases a public policy which forbids courts of justice to allow any validity to contracts because of their tendency to affect injuriously the highest public interests and to undermine or destroy the safeguards of the social fabric is too well settled to admit of dispute. That any person owing allegiance to an organized government can make a contract by which, for the sake of gain, he contributes most substantially and knowingly to the vital necessities of a treasonable conspiracy against its existence, and then in a court of that government base successfully his rights on such a transaction, is opposed to all that we have learned of the invalidity of immoral contracts. A clearer case of turpitude in the consideration of a contract can hardly be imagined unless treason be taken out of the catalogue of crimes.
goods for the purpose of aiding the rebellion, he does not sell them for that purpose. The consequences of his acts are too serious to admit of such a plea. He must be taken to intend the consequences of his own voluntary act."
This case, and the succeeding one of Hanauer v. Woodruff, [Footnote 3] are directly in point in support of our view of the case before us.
The recognition of the existence and the validity of the acts of the so called Confederate government, and that of the states which yielded a temporary support to that government, stand on very different grounds, and are governed by very different considerations.
organization of civil government, or to its maintenance and support, it was inimical to social order, destructive to the best interests of society, and its primary object was to overthrow the government on which these so largely depended. Its existence and temporary power were an enormous evil which the whole force of the government and the people of the United States was engaged for years in destroying.
When it was overthrown, it perished totally. It left no laws, no statutes, no decrees, no authority which can give support to any contract or any act done in its service or in aid of its purpose or which contributed to protract its existence. So far as the actual exercise of its physical power was brought to bear upon individuals, that may, under some circumstances, constitute a justification or excuse for acts otherwise indefensible, but no validity can be given in the courts of this country to acts voluntarily performed in direct aid and support of its unlawful purpose. What of good or evil has flowed from it remains for the consideration and discussion of the philosophical statesman and historian.
MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD and MR. JUSTICE DAVIS expressed their concurrence in the judgment of the Court above announced solely upon the ground that the purchase of the cotton and the payment of the consideration necessarily tended to give aid to the rebellion, and that all such contracts were void as contrary to public policy. They stated that all such portions of the opinion as enforced that view had their concurrence, but that they dissented from the residue of the opinion as unnecessary to the conclusion.
12 Stat. at Large 820.
79 U. S. 12 Wall. 342.
82 U. S. 15 Wall. 439.
Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700.
"if the Constitution be, as it declares on its face it is, the supreme law of the land, a contract or undertaking of any kind to destroy or impair its supremacy or to aid or encourage any attempt to that end must necessarily be unlawful and can never be treated, in a court sitting under that Constitution and exercising authority by virtue of its provisions, as a meritorious consideration for the promise of anyone. "
In both of these cases, the aid of the courts was sought to enforce unexecuted contracts which were illegal and void in their inception because made in aid of the rebellion, and all that they decide is that contracts of that character can never be enforced in the courts of that government against which the rebellion was raised. In those courts, such contracts stand on the same footing as other illegal transactions -- they will not be upheld nor enforced. In both of those decisions I concurred, and in the second case I wrote the opinion of the Court. I still adhere to the views expressed in both cases.
change the actual fact of previous disloyalty, if it existed, but, as was said in Carlisle v. United States, [Footnote 2/1] "they forever close the eyes of the court to the perception of that fact as an element in its judgment, no rights of third parties having intervened." In legal contemplation, the executive pardon not merely releases an offender from the punishment prescribed for his offense, but it obliterates the offense itself.
"remains undiminished, and when the sovereign authority shall choose to bring it into operation, the judicial department must give effect to its will."
"But," added the Court, "until that will shall be expressed, no power of condemnation can exist in the court."
and forfeiture of the cotton seized, or of its proceeds, have ever been instituted by the government. The title of the claimant remains, therefore, at this day as perfect as it did on the day the cotton was seized.
In the case of United States v. Klein, [Footnote 2/7] this Court had occasion to consider the rights of property, as affected by the war, in the hands of citizens engaged in hostilities against the United States, and it held after mature consideration that the effect of the Act of Congress of March 12, 1863, to provide for the collection of captured and abandoned property in insurrectionary districts, under which the present action is brought, is not to confiscate or in any case absolutely divest the property of the original owner, even though disloyal, and that by the seizure, the government constituted itself a trustee for those who were by that act declared entitled or might thereafter be recognized as entitled to the proceeds.
But it is contended that the Confederate government, being unlawful in its origin and continuance, was incapable of acquiring, holding, or transferring a valid title to the property. The court below so held in terms, and this Court so far sustains that ruling as to declare that the claimant could not acquire any title to the cotton seized by purchase from that government.
property was, therefore, in the agents if their assumed principal had no existence, and by their sale passed to purchasers from them. Undoubtedly larceny could be alleged against one who feloniously took the property from such purchaser. The taker would not be allowed in any court which administers justice to escape punishment by showing that no title passed to the purchaser because his vendor was the agent, or assumed to be the agent, of a government which had no legal existence. And it is equally clear that the purchaser could have maintained an action for injuries to the property thus purchased or for its recovery if forcibly removed from his possession by a third party. The plea that the property was not his because obtained from the agent, or a person assuming to be the agent, of an unlawful political organization would not be held a justification for the injuries or the detention.
dimensions, and during all which time the exercise of many belligerent rights were either conceded to it or were acquiesced in by the supreme government, such as the treatment of captives both on land and sea as prisoners of war, the exchange of prisoners, their vessels captured recognized as prizes of war and dealt with accordingly, their property seized on land referred to the judicial tribunals for adjudication, their ports blockaded, and the blockade maintained by a suitable force, and duly notified to neutral powers, the same as in open and public war."
"to the extent of actual supremacy, however unlawfully gained, in all matters of government within its military lines, the power of the insurgent government cannot be questioned. That supremacy did not justify acts of hostility to the United States. How far it should excuse them must be left to the lawful government upon the reestablishment of its authority. But it made obedience to its authority in civil and local matters not only a necessity, but a duty. Without such obedience, civil order was impossible."
With these authorities before me, I should unhesitatingly have said -- but for the fact that a majority of my associates differ from me, and the presumption is that they are right and I am wrong -- that it was impossible for any court to come to the conclusion that a government thus organized, having such immense resources and exercising actual supremacy over such vast territory and millions of people, did not possess the power to acquire and to transfer the title to personal property within its territorial limits.
states was that of a successor of the Confederate government, and that they could recover such property from an agent of that government, but subject, however, to the same rights and obligations, to which that government would have been subjected had it not been overthrown.
In the case of United States v. Prioleau, [Footnote 2/11] the same court again held that the government of the United States could recover the property of the Confederate government as its successor or representative in the hands of its agents, but that they must take it subject to all the liens and conditions arising from the contract upon which the property was received by the agents. Neither the United States, in the prosecution of these suits, nor the courts of England in deciding them, expressed the slightest doubt that the title to the property not originally owned by the United States had been acquired by the Confederate government, which was in the hands of its agents. And I submit that a response by those courts to the claim of the United States that the insurgent government, being illegal in its origin and continuance, could neither take, hold, nor transfer title to personal property would not have been acquiesced in nor deemed respectful by our government. And I submit respectfully that the earnest denunciation of the wickedness of the rebellion contained in the opinion of the majority is no legal answer to the demand of the claimant for the proceeds of his property seized and sold by our government when that government long since pardoned the only offense of which that claimant was guilty, and thus gave him the assurance that he should stand in the courts of his country in as good plight and condition as any citizen who had never sinned against its authority.
I am therefore of opinion that the judgment of the Court of Claims should be reversed.
83 U. S. 16 Wall. 151.
Law of Nations, Lawrence's edition, 596.
12 U. S. 8 Cranch 152.
See also instructions of Mr. Adams, when Secretary of State, to our Minister at St. Petersburg, July 5, 1820, and Halleck 457; Hefter § 133; and United States v. Percheman, 7 Pet. 51.
12 Stat. at Large 319.
80 U. S. 13 Wall. 136.
Mauran v. Insurance Company, 6 Wall. 14.
75 U. S. 8 Wall. 10.
8 Law Reports, Equity 69.
2 Hemming & Miller's Chancery Cases 559.

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