Hanger v. Abbortt
| Decision Date | 06 April 1868 |
| Parties | <P><B><CENTER> HANGER</CENTER></B></P> <P><B><CENTER>v.</CENTER></B></P> <P><B><CENTER>ABBOTT.</CENTER></B></P> |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
HANGER
v.
ABBOTT.
ERROR to the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
J. & E. Abbott, of New Hampshire, sued Hanger, of Arkansas, in assumpsit. The latter pleaded the statute of limitations of Arkansas, which limits such action to three years The former replied the rebellion, which broke out after the cause of action accrued, and closed for more than three years all lawful courts. On demurrer, and judgment against it, and error to this court, the question here was, simply, whether the time during which the courts in Arkansas were closed on account of the rebellion, was to be excluded from the computation of time fixed by the Arkansas statute of limitations within which suits on contracts were to be brought, there being no exception by the terms of the statute itself for any such case.
Mr. Reverdy Johnson, for the plaintiff in error, cited Alabama v. Dalton in this court;1 Mr. S. C. Eastman, contra, placed the case on general principles of law, and on an act of Congress of June 11th, 1864, ch. cxviii.
The declaration was in assumpsit, and the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant, on the tenth day of April, 1865, was indebted to them for divers goods, wares, and merchandise, and also for money had and received, in the sum of ten thousand dollars. Defendant appeared and pleaded two pleas in answer to the declaration:
(1) That he never promised as the plaintiffs have alleged.
(2) That the cause of action did not accrue at any time within three years next before the commencement of the suit.
Issue was joined by the plaintiffs on the first plea, and in answer to the second, they filed seven replications, but particular reference need only be made to the fifth and sixth of the series.
Substance of the fifth replication was, that the defendant, from the sixth day of May, 1861, to the first day of January 1865, was an actual resident of Arkansas, and that the plaintiffs were, at the same time, actual residents of New Hampshire, and that, during the whole of that period, they were prevented, by reason of resistance to the execution of the Federal laws, and the interruption of the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, in the former State, from instituting their action, and from having the defendant served with proper process; and so they aver that they did commence their suit within three years next before the cause of action accrued.
Sixth replication alleges, that the parties respectively had been, for more than three years before the commencement of the suit, actual residents of their respective States, and that the cause of action accrued before the twenty-fifth day of October, 1859, and that after the same had so accrued, to wit, on the sixth day of May, 1861, all the lawful courts of the State where the defendant resided were closed by reason of the insurrection and rebellion which then and there arose against the lawful authority of the United States; that the courts so remained closed from that day to the first day of January, 1865, and so the plaintiffs say that the period during which the courts were not open for the reasons stated, should not be deemed and taken as any part of the three years' limitation, as pleaded; and they in fact say that they did commence their suit within three years next before the cause of action accrued.
Demurrers were filed by the defendant to the replications, and the court gave judgment for the plaintiffs in the sum of nine thousand four hundred eighty-three dollars and twenty-six cents damages and costs suit; whereupon the defendant sued out this writ of error.
Proclamation of blockade was made by the President on the nineteenth day of April, 1861, and, on the thirteenth day of July, in the same year, Congress passed a law authorizing the President to interdict all trade and intercourse between the inhabitants of the States in insurrection and the rest of the United States.2
War, when duly declared or recognized as such by the war-making power, imports a prohibition to the subjects, or citizens, of all commercial intercourse and correspondence with citizens or persons domiciled in the enemy country.3 Upon this principle of public law it is the established rule in all commercial nations, that trading with the enemy, except under a government license, subjects the property to confiscation, or to capture and condemnation.4
Partnership with a foreigner is dissolved by the same event which makes him an alien enemy, because there is in that case an utter incompatibility created by operation of law between the partners as to their respective rights, durties, and obligations, both public and private, which necessarily dissolves the relation, independent of the will or acts of the parties.5 Direct consequences of the rule as established in those cases is, that as soon as war is commenced all trading, negotiation, communication, and intercourse between the citizens of one of the belligerants with those of the other, without the permission of the government, is unlawful. No valid contract, therefore, can be made, nor can any promise arise by implication of law from any transaction with an enemy. Exceptions to the rule are not admitted; and even after the war has terminated, the defendant, in an action founded upon a contract made in violation of that prohibition, may set up the illegality of the transaction as defence.6 Various attempts, says Mr. Wheaton,7 have been made to evade the operation of the rule, and to escape its penalities, but they have all been defeated by its inflexible rigor. All foreign writers on international law concur in the opinion that the immediate and necessary consequnce of a declaration of war is to interdict all intercourse or dealings between the subjects of the belligerent states. Hostilities once commenced, any attempt at trading on the part of the subjects of either state, unless by permission of the sovereign, is prohibited, and becomes ipso fact a breach of the allegiance due to their respective sovereigns, as as such is forbidden by the public law of the civilized world.8
Executory contracts also with an alien enemy, or even with a neutral, if they cannot be performed except in the way of commercial intercourse with the enemy, are dissolved by the declaration of war, which oerates for that purpose with a force equivalent to an act of Congress.9
In former times the right to confiscate debts was admitted as an acknowledged doctrine of the law of nations, and in strictness it may still be said to exist, but it may well be considered as a naked and impolitic right, condemned by the enlightened conscience and judgment of modern times.10 Better opinion is that executed contracts, such as the debt in this case, although existing prior to the war, are not annulled or extinguished, but the remedy is only suspeneded, which is a necessary conclusion, on account of the inability of an alien enemy to sue or to sustain, the the language of the civilians, a persona standi in judicio.11
Trading, which supposed the making of contracts, and which also involves the necessity of intercourse and correspondence, is necessarily contradictory to a state of war, but there is no exigency in war which requires that belligerents should confiscate or annul the debs due by the citizens of the other contending party.
We suspend the right of the enemy, says Mr. Chitty, to the debts which our traders owe to him, but we do not annul the right. We preclude him during war from suing to recover his due, for we are not to send treasure abroad for the direct supply of our enemies in their attempt to destroy us, but with the return of peace we return the right and the remedy.12 During war, say Sir William Scott, there is a total inability to sustain any contract by an appeal to the tribunals of the one country on the part of the subjects of the other.13 Views of Mr. Wheaton are, and they are undoubtedly correct, that debts previously contracted between the respective subjects, though the remedy for their recovery is suspended during war, are revived on the restoration of peace, unless actually confiscated in the meantime in the rigorous exercise of the stricts rights of war, contrary to the milder rules of recent times. He says, in effect, that the power of confiscating such debts theoretically exists, though it is seldom or never practically exerted; that the right of the creditor to sue for the recovery of the debt is not extinguished, that it is only suspeneded during the war, and revives in full force on the resoration of peace.14
Under the thirty-fourth section of the Judiciary Act, the statutes of limitations of the several States, where no special provision has been made by Congress, form the rule of decision in the courts of the United States, and the same effect is given to them as is give to the courts of the State.15
Grant that the law of nations is that debts due from individuals to the enemy may, by the rigorous application of the rights of war, be confiscated, still it is a right which is seldom or never exercised in modern warfare, and the rule is universally acknowledge that if the debts are not so confiscated, the right to enforce payment revives when the ware has terminated.16 Vattel says the sovereign may confiscate debts due from his subjects to the enemy, if the term of payment happens in time of war, or at least he may prohibit his subjects from paying while the war continues, but at present a regard to the advanges and safety of commerce induces a less rigorous rule.17
Where a debt has not been confiscated, the rule is undoubted that the right to sue revives on the restoration of peace, and Mr. Chitty says that with the return of peace we return to the creditor the right and the remedy. Unless we return the remedy with the right the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
City of L. A. v. Cnty. of Kern
...493, 20 L.Ed. 176 [upholding Congressional power to toll state claims during the pendency of the Civil War]; Hanger v. Abbott (1868) 73 U.S. 532, 539–542, 6 Wall. 532, 18 L.Ed. 939 [applying the common law to toll claims] ; see Raygor v. Regents of Univ. of Minn. (2002) 534 U.S. 533, 551 & ......
-
Chauncey v. Dyke Bros.
...... letter, ignoring all other considerations. They will. sometimes supply exceptions to a general rule, where none is. expressed, as in Hanger v. Abbott, . [119 F. 10] . 6 Wall. 532, 18 L.Ed. 939, where an exception was implied,. although none was expressed, thereby taking a case out of ......
-
United States v. Oregon Lumber Co, 40
...of time, by raising a presumption which renders proof unnecessary. Bell v. Morrison, 1 Pet. 351, 360, 7 L. Ed. 174; Hanger v. Abbott, 6 Wall. 532, 538, 18 L. Ed. 939; Wood v. Carpenter, 101 U. S. 135, 139, 25 L. Ed. 807; Riddlesbarger v. Hartford Insurance Co., 7 Wall. 386, 390, 19 L. Ed. 2......
-
Peters v. McKay
...merely bar the remedy, may be tolled by war in the absence of any statutory provision to that effect. The leading case is Hanger v. Abbott, 6 Wall. 532, 18 L.Ed. 939. In that case the plaintiff, a resident of New Hampshire, sued the defendant, a resident of Arkansas. The cause of action acc......