Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_v._Hodson
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 11:14:04+00:00

Document:
The Internal Revenue Act of June 30, 1864,  makes it obligatory on persons meaning to be distillers to take out a license, and makes the business of distilling without a license an offence punishable by fine and imprisonment. And the 53d section of the statute enacts.
'(1.) That if he shall use any additional still he will report the fact to the assessor.
'(2.) That he will from day to day enter in a book to be kept for that purpose the number of gallons that may be distilled, and the quantity of grain he may use; and that the book shall be open at all times to the inspection of the assessor.
'(3.) That he will render to the assessor, on certain days of each month, an exact account in writing of the number of gallons distilled, of the number placed in warehouse, and of the number sold or removed for consumption and sale, and also of the quantities of grain used for the fractional part of a month next preceding the report, and the proof thereof, which report is to be verified by affidavit.
'(4.) That he will not sell, or permit to be removed for consumption and sale, any spirits distilled under his license until they have been inspected, gauged, proved, and entered upon his books, as aforesaid.
The statute, which is entitled 'An Act to Provide Ways and Means for the Support of the Government and for other Purposes,' is a statute of 182 sections, many very long, and contains a great variety of provisions on a great variety of subjects; some being matters enjoined, and some matters forbidden; some enforced by penalties, fine, and imprisonment; and some not so made operative. The statute, however, obviously not contemplating that the bond shall be conditioned for the performance of any duties but those for which it says that it shall be.
But it is not enacted that the distiller's doing this shall be incorporated among the conditions of the bond which the 53d section declares that he shall give.
Several other breaches were assigned, which were not denied to be breaches of acts for the performance of which the statute requires the bond to be conditioned.
The defendants traversed each of the breaches, including of course the part of the first above given one.
Upon the trial the United States offered in evidence the bond and proof of the several breaches. The defendants objected to the evidence on the ground that the conditions were not required by, and were not in conformity with, the statutes of the United States. The court sustained the objection. And the correctness of this ruling was the matter now here for review.
1. It nowhere appears that the bond in question was exacted or extorted by the collector in the particular form in which it was given. Accordingly, the rule that a bond taken by a public officer colore officii, who has illegally exerted his authority, and thereby compelled the obligor to enter into an obligation not required by law is void, has no application here.
The case of Ohio v. Findley,  which arose under a law of that State, passed in 1831, prescribing the duties of county treasurers, is in point. One section of that act required 'that each county treasurer, previous to entering on the duties of his office, shall give bond . . . conditioned for the paying over, according to law, all moneys which shall come into his hands for State, county, township, or other purposes.' Subsequent sections prescribed various other duties to be performed by the county treasurer. The court held that a bond given by a county treasurer under that act conditioned that he should 'faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties of his said office agreeably to law,' is a good statutory bond for so much as is prescribed by the statute and comprehended in the condition, even though it may be void for the residue.
But if the bond is not good as a statutory bond, yet having been voluntarily given, and being neither prohibited by the statute nor against the policy of the law, it is valid as a common law obligation.
^1 13 Stat. at Large, 242.
^2 Anderson v. Foster, 2 Bailey, 500; Walker v. Chapman, 22 Alabama, 116; United States v. Brown, Gilpin, 155.
^3 The Ordinary v. Executors of Smith, 2 Green, 479; United States v. Bradley, 10 Peters, 343.
^4 Harrison v. Seymour, 1 Law Rep., C. P. 518.
^5 Central Bank v. Kendrick, Dudley, 66; Gardener v. Woodyear, 1 Ohio, 170; Yale v. Flanders, 4 Wisconsin, 96; Nunn v. Goodlett, 5 English, 89.
^6 Rhodes v. Vaughan, 2 Hawks, 167; Cobb v. Commonwealth, 3 Monroe, 391.
^7 Baker v. Morrison, 4 Louisiana Annual, 373.
^8 Hall v. Cushing, 9 Pickering, 395.
^10 5 Peters, 115; and see United States v. Linn, 15 Id. 290.

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