United States v. Perryman

• Citation: 25 L.Ed. 645,100 U.S. 235
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. PERRYMAN
• Decision Date: 01 October 1879
• Court: United States Supreme Court

100 U.S. 235

100 U.S. 235

25 L.Ed. 645

UNITED STATES v. PERRYMAN.

October Term, 1879

APPEAL from the Court of Claims.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Smith for the United States.

Mr. Robert S. Davis, contra.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was brought to enforce an alleged liability of the United States, under sects. 2154 and 2155 of the Revised Statutes, to pay the value of twenty-three head of beef cattle, stolen from the claimant, a friendly Indian, within the Indian country.

These sections are as follows:——

'SECT. 2154. Whenever, in the commission, by a white person, of any crime, offence, or misdemeanor within the Indian country, the property of any friendly Indian is taken, injured, or destroyed, and a conviction is had for such crime, offence, or misdemeanor, the person so convicted shall be sentenced to pay to such friendly Indian to whom the property may belong, or whose person may be injured, a sum equal to twice the just value of the property so taken, injured, or destroyed.

'SECT. 2155. If such offender shall be unable to pay a sum at least equal to the just value or amount, whatever such payment shall fall short of the same shall be paid out of the treasury of the United States. If such offender cannot be apprehended and brought to trial, the amount of such property shall be paid out of the treasury. But no Indian shall be entitled to any payment out of the treasury of the United States, for any such property, if he, or any of the nation to which he belongs, have sought private revenge, or have attempted to obtain satisfaction by any force or violence.'

This is a substantial reproduction of sect. 16 of the act entitled 'An Act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers,' approved June 30, 1834 (4 Stat. 731), and which continued in force until the Revised Statutes went into effect.

The facts are briefly these: On the 18th of December, 1874, Henry Carter, a negro, and not an Indian, and John Conner, a white man, stole from the claimant, a friendly Creek Indian, in the Indian country, the cattle sued for. At the May Term, 1875, of the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Arkansas, both Carter and Conner were indicted for the larceny. Afterwards, a nolle prosequi was entered as to Conner, and he was discharged; but Carter was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to pay to the claimant double the value of the cattle stolen, and be imprisoned in the penitentiary. He being unable to pay the judgment, this suit was brought. The Court of Claims was divided on the question whether the United States were liable in such a case for a theft committed by a negro, and, in order to allow an appeal, gave judgment pro forma for the claimant. From this judgment the United States appealed.

The single question we have to consider is, whether the United States are liable under the statute to the claimant, since the only offender who has been convicted and sentenced to pay for the property stolen was a negro, and not a white person. The term 'white person,' in the Revised Statutes, must be given the same meaning it had in the original act of 1834. Congress has nowhere manifested an intention of using it in a different sense. While the negro, under the operation of the constitutional amendments, has been endowed with certain civil and political rights which he did not have in 1834, he is no more, in fact, a white person now than he was then. He is a citizen of the United States, and free. No State can abridge his privileges and immunities as a citizen, or deny him the equal protection of the laws; but his race and color are the same, and he is no more included now within the descriptive term of a white person, than he always has been. If, then, this term was used in the act of 1834 to exclude the liability of the United States for the depredations of the negroes in the Indian country, it must be considered as having been so used in the Revised Statutes. There may be no good reason for restricting any longer...