Carlisle v. United States

• Citation: 21 L.Ed. 426,83 U.S. 147,16 Wall. 147
• Parties: CARLISLE v. UNITED STATES
• Decision Date: 01 December 1872
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

83 U.S. 147

21 L.Ed. 426

16 Wall. 147

CARLISLE v. UNITED STATES.

December Term, 1872

THIS was an appeal from the Court of Claims. The claimants there were subjects of the Queen of Great Britain, but had been residents within the United States prior to the war of the rebellion, and during its continuance. In 1864 they were the owners of sixty-five bales of cotton stored on a plantation in Alabama. This cotton was seized during that year by naval officers of the United States and turned over to an agent of the Treasury Department, by whom the cotton was sold and the proceeds paid into the treasury. The present action was brought in the Court of Claims under the act of Congress of March 12th, 1863, known as the Captured and Abandoned Property Act, to recover these proceeds.

The court found that the claimants were the owners of the cotton, and that it was seized and sold as stated, and that the net proceeds, amounting to $43,232, were paid into the treasury.

The court also found that the government of Great Britain accords to citizens of the United States the right to prosecute claims against that government in its own courts; but that the claimants were engaged, in 1862, in manufacturing saltpetre in Alabama, and selling that article to the Confederate States, and that they thus gave aid and comfort to the rebellion, and for that reason were not entitled to recover the proceeds of the cotton seized. Their petition was accordingly dismissed. The facts connected with the manufacture and sale of the saltpetre are thus stated by the court in its findings:

'From having, in 1860 and 1861, been engaged in the business of railroad contractors, they began in December, 1861, the manufacture of saltpetre at Santa Cave, Alabama, and continued engaged therein until the following April, when, owing to the presence of United States troops in the vicinity, they left the cave, and remained absent therefrom until the following October, when, immediately after the evacuation of Huntsville, Alabama, by the United States forces, they resumed work in making saltpetre at said cave, and continued it about two months. Their right to make saltpetre there was under a contract of lease between the owners of the cave and other parties, which had been transferred to the claimants, by whom it was, in May, 1863, sold and transferred to the so-called 'Confederate States of America' for $34,600. On the 28th of March, 1862, the claimants sold to the said Confederate States of America 2480 lbs. of saltpetre, at 75 cents per pound, in all $1860, and received payment therefor at Richmond, Virginia, on the 27th of June, 1862, from a rebel captain of artillery; and on the 30th of November, 1862, they sold to the said 'Confederate States' 4209 lbs. of nitre, at 75 cents per pound, in all $3156.75 and in the bill of the same, which the claimants receipted, it was expressed that the said nitre was 'for manufacture of gunpowder;' and the amount of said bill was paid at Larkinsville, Alabama, on the 24th of December, 1862, by the rebel 'superintendent of nitre and mining district No. 9;' and the claimants hired to the said 'Confederate States' wagons to transport the said nitre from Santa Cave to Rome, Georgia.'

From the decree dismissing the petition the claimants appealed to this court.

Messrs. Carlisle and McPherson, for the appellants; Mr. C. H. Hill, Assistant Attorney-General, contra.

Mr. Justice FIELD delivered the opinion of the court.

The circumstances attending the manufacture and sale of the saltpetre, as disclosed in the findings of the court, plainly show that the claimants knew that the saltpetre was to be used by the Confederates in the manufacture of gunpowder for the prosecution of the war of the rebellion, and there is little doubt that the sale was made in order to aid the Confederates in accomplishing their treasonable purposes. By thus furnishing materials for the prosecution of the war whilst they were domiciled in the country, knowing the uses to which the materials were to be applied, the claimants became participators in the treason of the Confederates equally as if they had been original conspirators with them. The Court of Claims, therefore, did not err in its conclusion that the act of the claimants in selling the saltpetre to the Confederates, under these circumstances, was an act of aid and comfort to the rebellion. We have already held in Hanauer v. Doane,¹ and we repeat and reaffirm what we there said, that 'he who, being bound by his allegiance to a government, sells goods to the agent of an armed combination 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 on the nice metaphysical distinction that, although he knows that the purchaser buys the goods for the purpose of aiding the rebellion, he does not sell them for that purpose. The consequences of his acts are too serious and enormous to admit of such a plea. He must be taken to intend the consequences of his own voluntary act.'

But the aid and comfort thus given to the rebellion by the claimants did not justify a denial of their right to recover the proceeds of their property in the treasury of the United States after the proclamation of pardon and amnesty made by the President on the 25th of December, 1868, unless their character as aliens excludes them from the benefit of that proclamation, a question which we shall presently consider. Assuming that they are within the terms of the proclamation, the pardon and amnesty granted relieve them from the legal consequences of their participation in the rebellion, and from the necessity of proving that they had not thus participated, which otherwise would have been indispensable to a recovery. It is true, the pardon and amnesty do not and cannot alter the actual fact that aid and comfort were given by the claimants, but they forever close the eyes of the court to the perception of that fact as an element in its judgment, no rights of third parties having intervened.

There has been some difference of opinion among the members of the court as to cases covered by the pardon of the President, but there has been none as to the effect and operation of a pardon in cases where it applies. All have agreed that the pardon not merely releases the offender from the punishment prescribed for the offence, but that it obliterates in legal contemplation the offence itself.

When, therefore, in Padelford's case,² a claimant under the Captured and Abandoned Property Act, who had given aid and comfort to the rebellion, appeared in the Court of Claims, asking for a restoration of the proceeds of his property and showing that he had taken the oath prescribed by the proclamation of President Lincoln, of December 8th, 1863, and had since then kept the oath inviolate, and was thereby by force of the proclamation pardoned, this court held that after the pardon thus granted no offence connected with the rebellion could be imputed to him; that if in other respects he made the proof which under the act entitled him to a decree for the proceeds of his property, the law made the proof of pardon a complete substitute for proof that he had given no aid or comfort to the rebellion; and that a different construction would defeat the manifest intent of the proclamation and of the act of Congress which authorized it.

In Klein's case,³ which subsequently came before the court, an act of Congress designed to deny to the pardon of the President the effect and operation which the court had thus adjudged to it, and...