7 Ct. Cl. 121 | SCOTUS | 1871
delivered the opinion of the court:
Whether the positions taken by the learned counsel of the United States in the court below, and maintained in this court also, are well taken or not, depends on the construction to be given the act concerning abandoned and captured property and the fourth section of the act of June 25, 1868.
The act of March 12, 1863, in one particular, inaugurated a policy different from that which induced the passage of other
It is true the liberality of Congress in this regard was not confined to Southern owners, for the law is general in its terms, and protects all loyal owners; but the number of Northern citizens who could, in any state of the case, be 'bona, fide owners of this kind of property was necessarily few, and their condition, although recognized in the law, did not induce Congress to incorporate in it the provision we are considering.
The measure, in itself of great beneficence, was practically
This condition of things Congress was aware of, and if it had been its purpose to limit the privilege in controversy to the loyal citizen, who happened to acquire' his property from another person equally loyal, they would have said so. But Congress had no such narrow policy in view. Its policy in the matter was broad and comprehensive, and embraced within its range all persons who had adhered to the Union. It treated all alike, and did not discriminate in favor of the person who could trace his title through a loyal source, and against him who was not so fortunate. It did not consider the loyal planter, who raised his own cotton and rice, as entitled to any more protection than the dweller in the cities and towns who lived by traffic, and bought where he could buy the cheapest. The confiscation law, however, was not intended to apply to a person occupying the status of this claimant. The purpose which Congress had in view in passing that law was very different from that which induced it, in the captured and abandoned property act, to extend a privilege to the loyal owner. The
It is said that vendors of the cotton were incompetent witnesses by reason of the fourth section of the Act of June 25, 1868, which declares that no plaintiff or claimant, or any person from or through whom any such plaintiff or claimant derives liis alleged title, claim, or right against the United States, or-any person interested in any such title, claim, or right, shall be a competent witness in the Court of Claims in supporting any such title, claim, or right.
There are three classes of persons who are, by this section, prohibited from testifying. The claimant cannot testify, nor can the person who, after a claim has accrued to him against the United States, has sold or transferred it to the claimant, nor can any one who is interested in the event of the suit. Doucen and Fleming, the immediate vendors of Anderson, are not excluded by this rule. They were not interested in the suit, and in no sense did Anderson derive his claim against the United States through them. They never had any claim against the United States, because when the property was taken it belonged to Anderson, and it is only after the property was sold that Anderson’s claim even to the proceeds attached. If the property in transitu from Charleston to New Tork had been lost, no claim could arise under the law in favor of Anderson against the United States, his claim being contingent upon the proceeds of the property finally reaching the Treasury. But the point most pressed in the argument against the right to recover in
The point, therefore, for determination is, when, in the sense of this law, was the rebellion entirely suppressed “l And in this connection it is proper to say, that the purposes of this suit do not require us to discuss the question, which may have an important hearing on other cases, whether the rebellion can be considered as suppressed for one purpose and not for another, nor any of the kindred questionsarising out of it, and we therefore express no opinion on the subject. The inquiry with which we have to deal concerns its suppression only in its relation to those persons who are within the protection of this law. It is, argued, as the rebellion was in point of fact suppressed when the last confederate general surrendered to the National authority, that the limitation began to run from that date. If this were so, there is an end to the controversy; but did Congress mean, when it passed the statute in question, that the Union men of the South, whose interests are especially cared for by it, should, without any action by Congress or the Executive on the subject, take notice of the day that armed hostilities ceased between the contending parties, and if they did not present their claims within two years of that time be forever barred of their recovery ? The inherent difficulty of determining such a matter renders it certain that Congress did not intend to impose on this class of persons the necessity of deciding it for themselves. In a foreign Avar a treaty of peace would be the evidence of the time when it closed, but in a domestic'war, like the late one, some public proclamation or legislation would seem to be required to inform ’those whose private rights were affected by it of the time when it terminated ; and we are of the opinion that Congress did not intend that the limitation in this act should begin to run until this was done. There are
On the 20th day of August, I860, the President of the United States, after reciting certain proclamations and acts of Congress concerning the rebellion, and his proclamation of 2d of April, 1866, that armed resistance had ceased everywhere except in the State of Texas, did proclaim that it had ceased there also, and that the whole insurrection was at an end, and that peace, order, and tranquillity existed throughout the whole of the United States of America. This is the first official declaration that we have, on the part of the Executive, that the rebellion was wholly suppressed, and we have shown, in a previous part of this opinion, that the limitation, in its effects on the persons whose rights we are considering, did not begin to run until the rebellion was suppressed throughout the whole country. But we are not without the action of the legislative department of the Government on this subject. On the 20th day of June, 1864, Congress fixed the pay of non-commissioned officers and privates, and declared that it should continue during the rebellion ■, and on the 2d day of March, 1867, it continued this act in force for three years from and after the close of the rebellion, as announced by the proclamation of the President. Congress, then, having adopted the 20th day of August, 1866, in conformity with the announcement of the President, as the day the rebellion closed, for the purpose of regulating the pay of non-commissioned officers and privates, can it be supposed that it intended to lay down a harsher rule for the guidance of the claimants under the captured and abandoned property act than it thought proper to apply to another class of persons whose interests it equally desired to protect? In order to reach this conclusion it is necessary to ascribe to Congress a policy, regarding the statute under which this claim is preferred, foreign to the views we have expressed concerning it. Besides, it would require us to construe two acts differently, although relating to the same general subject, in the absence of any evidence that such was the intention of the Legislature. If we are right as to the motive which prompted Congress to pass the law in question, and the object to be accomplished by it, it is clear the
As Congress, in its legislation for the Army, has determined that the rebellion closed on the 20th day of August, 1866, there is no reason why its declaration on this subject should not be received as settling the question wherever private rights are affected by it. That day will, therefore,'be accepted as the day when the rebellion was suppressed, as respects the rights intended to be secured by the captured and abandoned property ■act.
The point taken that the court below was not authorized to render judgment for a specific sum, but only to determine whether the claimant was entitled to receive the proceeds of his property, leaving- it for an officer of the Treasury to fix the amount, cannot be sustained. To sustain this position would require us to hold that for this class of cases Congress intended to constitute the Court of Claims a mere commission. This court will not attribute to Congress a purpose that would lead to such a result, in the absence of an express declaration to that effect.
It is proper to say, in conclusion, that the case of McKee v. The United States, (8 Wall., 163,) cited as an authority against the claimant’s right to recover, has no application whatever to this case.
Judgment aepirmed.