Court Opinion

ID: 90688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:02:38+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:30:51.263232
License: Public Domain

106 U.S. 413 (____)
WALKER'S EXECUTORS
v.
UNITED STATES.
Supreme Court of United States.

*419 Mr. Warner M. Bateman, with whom were Mr. Quinton Corwine and Mr. John Pool, for the appellants.
The Solicitor-General for the United States.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
By the proclamation of the President of the United States, issued, on the sixteenth day of August, 1861, in pursuance of authority given by the act of July 13, 1861, c. 3, the inhabitants of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and other States,  except that part of Virginia west of the Alleghany Mountains, and of such other parts of that and the other States named as might maintain a loyal adhesion to the Union, or might, from time to time, be occupied and controlled by the Union forces,  were declared to be in a state of insurrection against the United States; and "all commercial intercourse between the same and the inhabitants thereof, with the exceptions aforesaid, and the citizens of other States and other parts of the United States," was made unlawful until the insurrection ceased or was suppressed. The fifth section of the act provides that "The President may, in his discretion, license and permit commercial intercourse with any such part of said State or section, the inhabitants of which are so declared in a state of insurrection, in such articles, and for such time, and by such persons, as he, in his discretion, may think most conducive to the public interest; and such intercourse, so far as by him licensed, shall be conducted and carried on only in pursuance of rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury."
By the proclamation of April 2, 1863, the territorial exceptions made in the former proclamation were revoked, except as to West Virginia and the ports of New Orleans, Key West, Port Royal, and Beaufort.
By the fourth section of the act of July 2, 1864, c. 225, the prohibitions and provisions of the said act of July 13, 1861, and of the acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto, were made to apply "to all commercial intercourse by and between persons residing or being within districts within the present or future lines of national military occupation, in the States or parts of States declared in insurrection, whether with *420 each other or with persons residing or being within districts declared in insurrection and not within those lines."
The eighth section of the same act makes it lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President, to authorize agents to purchase for the United States any products of States declared in insurrection, at such places as shall be designated by him. And the ninth section provides: 
"That so much of section five of the act of thirteenth of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, aforesaid, as authorizes the President, in his discretion, to license or permit commercial relations in any State or section, the inhabitants of which are declared in a state of insurrection, is hereby repealed, except so far as may be necessary to authorize supplying the necessities of loyal persons residing in insurrectionary States within the lines of actual occupation by the military forces of the United States, as indicated by published order of the commanding general of the department or district so occupied; and, also, except so far as may be necessary to authorize persons residing within such lines to bring or send to market in the loyal States any products which they shall have produced with their own labor or the labor of freedmen or others employed and paid by them, pursuant to rules relating thereto, which may be established under proper authority. And no goods, wares, or merchandise shall be taken into a State declared in insurrection, or transported therein, except to and from such places, and to such monthly amounts, as shall have been previously agreed upon in writing by the commanding general of the department in which such places are situated, and an officer designated by the Secretary of the Treasury for that purpose."
From these acts,  in force on the 12th of April, 1865, when Walker purchased from O'Grady,  it is quite clear that persons residing or being in Memphis, then occupied by the national forces, were forbidden, unless authorized by competent authority, to have commercial intercourse with persons residing or being in Mobile, which was at that time likewise occupied by the national forces; this, because both cities were within States the inhabitants whereof were declared to be in insurrection, and neither within the territorial exceptions made in the proclamation of President Lincoln.
*421 But it is contended that the order of President Lincoln, given on the 6th of March, 1865, fully authorized Walker to proceed from Memphis, his place of residence, to Mobile, after that city had surrendered to the Union forces, and there contract with O'Grady for the purchase of the cotton in question, then but recently the property of the Confederate States (at least as between them and the original owners), and within the district actually occupied and controlled by the insurgent forces. A portion of the argument of counsel is addressed to the question whether, notwithstanding the repeal of the fifth section of the said act of July 13, 1861, authorizing the President, in his discretion, to license or permit commercial relations in any State or section in insurrection, he could not, in virtue of his power as commander-in-chief of the army, license trade with insurgents within the lines of Confederate military occupancy. If this question has not been distinctly concluded by the former decisions of this court, we deem it unnecessary now to consider or determine it. For, plainly, the order of March 6, 1865, was not a license to trade or have commercial intercourse with the enemy, without limit as to amount, or without restriction as to persons and territory. The order proceeds solely upon the ground that Walker then owned products of the insurrectionary States, near Grenada and Canton in Mississippi, and Montgomery and Selma in Alabama, and that he then had arrangements with parties in the vicinity of those places for other products of the insurrectionary States. It was in reference to such products  those he then owned, and those as to which he then had arrangements with other parties  that the President ordered that they should be free from seizure, detention, or forfeiture to the United States. Now, the finding of the facts, upon which alone this court can act, shows that Walker did not, on the 6th of March, 1865, own any part of the cotton in question. It was then in the possession of the planters, who held it for the Confederate government; and if it ever was, as against the United States,  after its sale to the Confederate government, to be used in aid of the rebellion,  the property of O'Grady, from whom Walker purchased, it did not become so until April 5, 1865. Nor does it appear that this cotton constituted, at any time, a part of the cotton with reference to which Walker had *422 "arrangements" at the time President Lincoln gave the order of March 6, 1865. It is true that the court below finds that "the negotiations for the sale of the cotton to O'Grady took place in the early part of the year 1865, and the final conveyance delayed until April 6, 1865, and finally completed on that day, by reason of the ill-health of Scott (the Confederate produce-loan agent), and for other reasons." But the negotiations here referred to were, manifestly, not the arrangements which Walker claimed to have had, on March 6, 1865, for products of the insurrectionary districts. There is nothing to show that he ever had any communication upon the subject of this cotton with the Confederate produce-loan agent, or with O'Grady, until after the capture of Mobile. The negotiations, which were not completed until April 6, 1865, by reason of Scott's ill-health, and "for other reasons," were evidently those by which Scott proposed to sell to O'Grady, and with which Walker, it must be assumed, had no connection whatever. The case, as it stands, seems to be one in which the claimants seek to bring within the operation of the order of March 6, 1865, a transaction in cotton not covered, nor intended to be covered, by it. The contract, upon the finding of facts, must be regarded as one made between Walker and O'Grady, in palpable violation of the laws of the United States forbidding commercial intercourse between persons respectively residing in places occupied by the national forces, within districts the inhabitants whereof were declared to be in insurrection. It is, therefore, according to the settled doctrines of this court, a contract from which could arise, in favor of Walker, no right to the cotton, as against the United States, which could be enforced in the courts of the Union.
Without, therefore, giving other reasons, quite apparent upon the record, and which would make it our duty to sustain the judgment of the Court of Claims, we content ourselves with affirming it upon the grounds indicated.
Judgment affirmed.