delivered ..the opinion óf the Court.
The material questions presented in this case for our determination relate, first, to the effect of the President’s pardon upon the rights of the petitioner to the proceeds of .his property confiscated by the decree of the District Court; and, second, to the power of the court to compel restitution to its registry of moneys illegally received by its former officers.
In May, 1868, the District Court of Kansas decreed the condemnation and forfeiture to the United States of. the several bonds and mortgages described in the information filed by the government. In June following, it ordered that the several debtors on these bonds should, within five months thereafter, pay into court the money due by them respectively; and that, in default of such payment, the clerk should issue to the marshal orders for the sale of the mortgaged property, upon which he should proceed as on execution under the laws of Kansas. Some of the debtors paid the amounts due by them into court; but the majority of them failed in this respéct, and orders for the sale of the property mortgaged were issued to the marshal. To him the greater number paid without sale; but, in some instances, sales were made. " Over $20,000 in this way came into the possession of officers of the court.
There were at the time numerous other confiscation cases pending in the court, and the moneys received from them were indiscriminately mixed with the moneys received in the cases against the property of the petitioner. None of the moneys received in any of the cases was paid into the treasury of the United States, and no order was made by the court for any such payment. Some of them were deposited in a banking-house at Leavenworth, designated as the place of deposit of moneys paid into court, and afterwards drawn out; some were obtained by officers of the court, and to an extent greatly in excess of their legal charges; and some of them were paid to the judge. The moneys from the different confiscation cases, being indiscriminately mixed, would seem to have been taken by the' officers of the court whenever funds were heeded by
In April, 1866, the petitioner applied to the court for leave to file a. petition for the restoration to him of the proceeds of his property, after deducting the costs of the legal proceedings, alleging that he had been pardoned by the President of the United States, and setting forth a copy of the pardon. . The pardon was issued in September, 1865, and was in terms a full pardon and amnesty for all offences committed by the petitioner, arising ^rom participation, direct or indirect, .in the rebellion, subject to certain conditions. One of these conditions provided that the petitioner should pay all costs which may have accrued in proceedings instituted or pending against his person or property before’the acceptance of the pardon. Another condition was, that the petitioner should not by virtue of the pardon claim any property, or the proceeds of any property, which had been sold by the order, judgment, or decree of a court under the confiscation laws of the United States.
The District Court refused the application; but the Circuit Court, on appeal, reversed its order, and allowed the petition to be filed. The District Court held, it would seem, that the conditions attached to the pardon precluded the petitioner from seeking to obtain the proceeds .of his property: but the Circuit Court was of opinion that, the effect of, a pardon was to restore to its recipient all rights, of property lost by the offence pardoned, unless the property had^ by judicial process, become vested in other, persons, subject to such exceptions as were prescribed by the pardon itself; that until an order of distribution of the proceeds was made in these cases, or the proceeds were actually paid into the hands of the party entitled as informer to receive' them, or into the treasury of the United States, they were within the control of the court, and that no vested right to the proceeds had accrued so as to prevent the pardon from restoring them to the petitioner. Woolworth’s Rep. 198. This ruling is here .assailed by officers of the court, who are called upon to make restitution of a portion of the proceeds they obtained, not by the United .States, who are alone inter-: ested in the decision. It is not a matter for these officers to
The object of the condition in question annexed to the pardon was to protect the purchaser of property of the petitioner, at a judicial sale decreed under the confiscation laws, from any claim by him either for the property or the purchase-money. Numerous sales had been made under decrees in confiscation' cases, and a similar condition was usually inserted in pardons to secure the purchasersjirom molestation. Full effect is thus given to the condition; and, as a pardon is an act of grace, limitations upon its operation should be strictly construed.
But it is contended, that, as the bonds were forfeited to the government by the decree of the District Court, there can be no restitution exbept by grant or conveyance of some kind from the government, and that the proprietary interests of the ■government can only be disposed of by act of Congress. The answer is, that the forfeiture result's, not from the decree of the court, but from the offence which the decree establishes and declares. The pardon, in releasing the offence,' obliterating it in legal contemplation (Carlisle v. United States, 16. Wall. 151), removes the ground of the forfeiture upon which the decree rests, and the source of title is then gone.
But, were this otherwise, the constitutional grant to the President of the power to pardon offences must be held to carry with it, as an incident, the power to release penalties and forfeitures which accrue from the offences.
The petitioner being restored by the pardon to his rights in the proceeds of the property forfeited, after deducting from them the costs of the legal proceedings, naturally invoked the aid of the court in which the proceedings were had, or to which they were transferred, for restitution of the proceeds. Proceedings in confiscation cases are required by the statute to conform as nearly as may be to proceedings in admiralty or revenue cases; and in admiralty it is the constant practice for persons having an interest in proceeds in the registry of the
The careful and labored reports of’the commissioners appointed by the court to examine into the proceedings in the confiscation cases, ascertain the expenses incurred, and trace out as far as possible the moneys received, were properly confirmed. ' There is no objection to their findings which merits consideration.
The decree brought before us for review must be affirmed, except as to the costs of the proceedings subsequent to the pres-’ entation of the application of the petitioner. Those costs should be apportioned against the parties ordered to make restitution, according to the respective amounts they are adjudged to restore. The cause will, therefore, be remanded, with directions to modify the decree in this particular; but, in all other respects, The decr.ee is affirmed.