Court Opinion

ID: 9811332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:17:22.063306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:26.139871
License: Public Domain

Rodman, J.
(dissenting.) I cannot concur in the opinion of the majority of the Court in this case, because I cannot bring myself to believe that the parties, in using the words “ ten days after peace is made between the United States and the Confederate States,” intended nothing more than “when the war is over.” To put this construction upon them requires us to violate a well, settled principle in the construction of contracts, viz: that every word must have its proper meaning and force, provided it can be done without destroying sense. Here, in the terms “peace is made,” &c., we must give effect to the word “ made.” Peace is *535usually made between hostile parties, by a treaty between them. It may occur, through a mutual cessation of hostilities, or through the destruction of one of them. But if in a fight between two men, one should kill the other, we should hardly say that “peace was made,” much less, that it was made between the contending parties. If in such a case, the slayer, in giving an account of the aflair, should say, “I made peace with my antagonistwould that convey to a mind previously uninformed an accurate statement of the ¡result? But here, peace is to be made between two parities and that implies the concurrence of both in making the peace, and the continued existence of both, after, or at ¡least, during, the making.
No act of Congress, no proclamation of the President of the United States, or of any official, or any decision of a Court, has yet said that peace has been made between the United States and the Confederate States; their language has always been, the rebellion is ended, or some equivalent expression, carefully excluding any participation of the Confederate States, as such, in the result.
I think the parties intended substantially a bet on the war; the lender bet that the Confederate States would suo ceed in establishing their independence, in which case he would get back his then deposited Confederate money, in what would be at least a legal tender; and the borrower thought the Confederate States would fail, in which case he would escape payment. At the date of this contract in July, 1864, Confederate money was, according to the legislative scale, 21 to 1; the $1,000 lent was therefore worth in gold at that time $47.60. Peace, if construed to mean a mere end of fighting, was certain, at some time, and probably no man living in America supposed the war would last ten years. Supposing money at compound interest at six per cent, to double in twelve years, it would be more than *536fifty years before the sum borrowed, could, on those terms, equal the sum agreed to be paid. The stipulation for so large a profit proves that the lender supposed he was taking a great risk; yet, according to the construction given to the contract, there was no risk except of a delay which could not in the nature of things be for many years. The case of' Boulware v. Newton, 18 Grattan, was a bet somewhat like this, but not sufficiently like to be a guide.
Pee Pee,tam. Judgment affirmed.