United States v. Keehler

• Decision Date: 01 December 1869
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. KEEHLER
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

76 U.S. 83

19 L.Ed. 574

9 Wall. 83

UNITED STATES v. KEEHLER.

December Term, 1869

ON certificate of division of opinion between the judges of the Circuit Court of North Carolina; whence the matter came in the form of a case agreed on and stated.

The case was this: Keehler, the defendant, had been appointed postmaster at Salem, in the State just named, some years before the rebellion broke out. His official bond, with sureties, was in the ordinary form, and was conditioned well and truly to execute the office of postmaster, and among other things, to render accounts once in three months, and to pay all balances, and to keep safely, without lending, using, depositing in banks, or exchanging for other funds, than as allowed by law, all the public money at any time in his custody, till the same was ordered by the Postmaster-General to be transferred or paid out; and that when such orders for transfer or payment were received, that he should faithfully and promptly make the transfer or payment as directed.

Keehler was still postmaster when the rebellion broke out in the spring of 1861, and had in his hands $330 of post-office money belonging to the United States. On the other hand, the United States were indebted to one Clemmens, a mail contractor in that region, for postal service in a sum exceeding $300; and the sum due to Clemmens by the United States had never been paid.

In August, 1861, the Congress of the so-called Confederate States passed an act appropriating the balances which were at the date of the breaking out of the rebellion in the hands of the several postmasters of the United States, who resided within the limits of the States then in rebellion, to the pro rata payment of claims against the United States for postal service; and in pursuance of the said act, and in obedience to a regular official order from the Post-Office Department of the so-called Confederate States, directing him to pay to Clemmens the whole sum of money in his, the said Keehler's, hands, received for the United States previous to the 1st of June, 1861, the said Keehler, on the 10th of April, 1862, paid to Clemmens the $330, and Clemmens gave him a receipt for it in form.

It was an admitted part of the case that the post-office at Salem was, in 1861, a collection office, and that Clemmens was the mail contractor, named in his special instructions, to whom the postmaster at Salem was required to pay over the net proceeds of his office quarterly, upon the production, by Clemmens, from time to time, of the proper orders and receipts from the Post-Office Department of the United States; and an admitted fact, moreover, that throughout the year 1862, the so-called Confederate government had force sufficient at its command to enforce its orders, and did enforce the orders of said government, in that part of North Carolina in which Salem is situated, and that no protection was afforded to the citizens of that part of the State by the government of the United States during that term.

The rebellion being suppressed the United States brought suit against Keehler and his sureties, on their official bond, already mentioned. The pleas were conditions performed, conditions not broken, and especially that the balance claimed by the United States, to wit, the $330, had been paid over and delivered by Keehler to the said Clemmens, on the 10th day of April, 1862, under the circumstances above stated. Upon this case, so agreed on, the judges of the Circuit Court were divided in opinion on the question, whether the law was for the plaintiff or for the defendant.

Mr. Hoar, Attorney-General, and Mr. Field, Assistant Attorney-General, for the United States, submitted the case. No opposing counsel.

Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.

The defence, which the facts of the statement seek to set up to this action, will be noticed under three heads.

1. He paid the amount to one Clemmens, who was a mail carrier on the route which embraced the post-office of Keehler, and to whom Keehler had been directed to pay the money he might have as postmaster upon the production by said Clemmens of proper orders from the Post-Office Department. It was admitted that the government, at the commencement of the rebellion, owned Clemmens more than this sum, but it is not claimed that he had any orders for the money from the Post-Office Department of the United States.

Can this voluntary payment to a creditor of the United States be pleaded to a suit on the bond?

It is hardly necessary to say that such a payment is no compliance with...