Pegram v. Stoltz

• Decision Date: 31 January 1877
• Citation: 76 N.C. 349
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: THOMAS H. PEGRAM v. SAMUEL STOLTZ.

76 N.C. 349

THOMAS H. PEGRAM

v.SAMUEL STOLTZ.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1877.

CIVIL ACTION, tried at Fall Term, 1876, of FORSYTHE Superior Court, before Kerr, J.

This was an action of Slander to recover damages for injury to the plaintiff's character and the material facts are as follows;

The defendant on the 4th day of August, 1870, said of the plaintiff. “He is a perjured man. He went to Davidson County and swore before the Board of Registrars of said County that he was a citizen of Davidson County when he knew that he was a citizen of Forsythe.” The plaintiff was advised by said Board that he had a right to register in Davidson although he lived in Forsythe County and did so register in the latter part of the year 1867 or early in 1868. Said Board of Registration was acting under the authority of the Provisional Government of the State, established by an Act of Congress entitled “an Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel states” passed March 2nd, 1867 and the Acts supplemental thereto.

The jury rendered a verdict for the plaintiff. Judgment. Appeal by defendant.

Messrs. J. A Gilmer, Watson & Glenn and T. J. Wilson, for plaintiff .

Mr. J. M. McCorkle, for defendant .

FAIRCLOTH, J. (After stating the facts as above.)

The State being in an anomalous condition, the above recited Act was passed to meet the particular emergency then existing and was so intended as appears from its preamble. It was made applicable by its terms only to those States lately in rebellion and was therefore a local Act and not a general law of the United States. It provided the manner and means by which it was to be executed, by giving the Military Officer in command of the District authority to punish all criminals and disturbers of the public peace, &c. by establishing local civil tribunals and organizing Military Courts whenever he saw fit to do so, and provided further that any interference with those matters by State authority should be null and void and in general that any citizen violating the law should be punished by the authority of said Act.

It furthermore provided, among other things, that when the qualified electors of the State should adopt a State Constitution as therein provided and the same should be approved by Congress, each of which was done on or before the 25th of June, 1868, then said Act of Congress should cease to be operative in North Carolina.

Perjury is an offence against public justice and is visited with infamous punishment, because it is a heinous crime and because it necessarily tends to defeat and obstruct the administration of justice. At common law it can be committed only in some judicial proceeding, civil or criminal, in a matter material to the issue...