Hanauer v. DoaneHanauer v. Doane
- Reporters:
- , , ,
- Before:
- Bradley
delivered the opinion of the court.
We have already decided, in the case of Texas v. White * thаt a contract made in aid of the late rebellion, or in furtherance and support thereof, is void. The same doctrine has been laid down in most of the circuits, and in mаny of the State courts, and must be regarded as the settled law of the land. Any contract, tinctured with the vice of giving aid and support to the rebellion, can receive nо countenance or sanction from the courts of the country. Are the notes in suit of this kind ? A portion of their consideration was stores and supplies furnished to the army cоntractor of the Confederate government, and another portion was due-bills issued for the same consideration, and received by Hunter & Oakes with full notice of their сharacter. If either of these portions of the consideration on which the notes were given was illegal, the notes are void in toto. Such is the elementary rule, for which it is unnеcessary to cite authorities.
On the trial of the cause below, the judge, in charging the jury, instructed them that if Hunter & Oakes took up Hanauer’s due-bills for value, at his request and on thе faith of his promise to redeem them, made after he had given them out for supplies, these due-bills would constitute a good consideration for the notes. We do not think that this was a correct statement of the law. If Hanauer had borrowed money from Hunter & Oakes to redeem the due-bills himself, the transaction would have been different, and the loan of money would have been legal, although Hunter & Oakes had known for what purpose Hanauer wanted the money. .They would have been one degree farther removed from the unlawful transaction. But, instead of this, they became the holders of the due-bills, kuówing for what purpose and on what consideration -they had been issued; and
With regard to that portion of the consideratiоn of the notes which consisted of supplies sold by Hunter & Oakes to Hanauer for the Confederate army, the judge instructed the jury that bare knowledge on the part of Hunter & Oаkes that Hanauer intended, or expected, to turn the goods over to the rebel army, would not make the sale illegal and void, but that, to make it so, it must appear thаt Hunter & Oakes had some concern in furnishing the supplies to the rebel army, or intended to aid therein. In this instruction we think the judge erred. With whatever impunity a man may lend money or sell gоods to another who he knows intends to devote them to a use that is only
malum
prohibitum, or of inferior criminality, he cannot do it, without turpitude, when he knows, or has every reason to’ believe, that such money or goods are to be used for the perpetration of a heinous crime, and that they were procured for that purpose. In the words of Chief Justice Eyre, in
Lightfoot
v. Tenant,
*
“the man .who sells arsenic to one who, he knows, intends to poison his wife with it, will not be allowed to maintain an action on his contract. The considerаtion of the contract, in itself good, is there tainted with turpitude which destroys the whole merit of it. . . . No man ought to furnish another with the means of transgressing the law, knowing that he
No crime is greater than tz-eason. He who, being bound by his allegiance to a government, sells goods to the agent of an armed combinatiozi to overthrow that government, knowing that the purchaser buys them for that treasonable purpose, is himself guilty of treason or a misprision thereof. He voluntarily aids the treason. He cannot be permitted to stand ozi the nice metaphysical distinction that, although he knows that thе puz’chaser buys the goods for the.puz’pose of aiding the rebellion, he does not sell them for that puz’pose. The consequences of his acts are too seiious and enormous to admit of such a plea. He innst.be taken to intend the cozisequonccs of his own voluntaz-y act.
The decision of Chief Justice Eyre, in the case аbove referred to, has been followed in several other Euglish cases. It- was followed by Lord Ellenboi‘ough in
Langton
v. Hughes,
†
where a druggist sold drugs of a noxious and unwholesome nature to a brеwer, knowing that they were to be used in his brewery, contrary to law, and it was held that he could ziot z’ecover the price. It was also followed by Chief Justice Abbott, izr
Cannan
v.
Bryce,
‡
where it was held that money
There are cases to the contrary; but they are either cases where the unlawful act contemplated to be done was merely malum prohibitum, or of inferior criminality; of cases in which the unlawful act was already committed, and the loan was an independent contract, made, not to enable the borrower to commit the act, but to pay obligаtions which he had already incurred in committing it. Of the latter class was the case of Armstrong v. Toler; † of the former, those of Hodgson v. Temple, ‡ and others cited in the argument. In Hodgson v. Temple, where a buyer of spirituous liquors was known to be carrying on a rectifying, distillery and a retail liquоr shop at the same time, contrary to law, the vendor of the spirits was held entitled to recover the price. Sir James Mansfield said: “The merely selling goods, knowing that the buyеr will make an illegal use of them, is not sufficient to deprive the vendor of his just right of payment; but to effect that, it is ueoessary that the vendor, should be a ‘sharer in the illegal transaction.”
<J ÜDGMENT REVERSED, AND A NEW TRIAL ORDERED.
[See the next case.]