text:
Hunnewell v. Cass County/Opinion of the Court

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Nebraska.

Hunnewell, for himself and others, citizens, all, of States other than Nebraska, filed a bill in the court below against Cass and other counties of the State of Nebraska, their treasurers, and the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company, to obtain an injunction on the said treasurers, to prevent their collecting State and county taxes which had been levied on certain lands granted to the said company by an act of Congress. He alleged himself and the others to be stockholders in the company; that the lands on which the taxes had been assessed were not liable to taxation under State authority; that the company was about to pay these taxes notwithstanding that he had made a protest and remonstrance against their so doing. The bill prayed relief as above said by injunction.

The case, divested of parts of it disposed of in principle by the case of Railroad Company v. McShane, just reported, and therefore not necessary to be presented, was thus:

An act of Congress, approved July 2d, 1864, by which the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company, a corporation created by the laws of Iowa, was authorized to extend its road through Nebraska, from a point on the Missouri River to another point on the Pacific railroad, so as to connect with it, thus enacted:

'SECTION 19. That for the purpose of aiding in the construction of said road, there be and hereby is granted to the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company, every alternate section of public land,. . . designated by odd numbers, to the amount of ten alternate sections per mile on each side of the said road, on the line thereof, and not sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and to which a pre-emption or homestead claim may not have attached at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed.'

By a subsequent section, whenever the company had completed twenty consecutive miles of its road, in a manner prescribed, the President of the United States was to appoint commissioners to examine and report to him relative thereto; and if it should appear to him that twenty miles of the road had been properly completed, then, upon certificate of said commissioners to that effect, patents were to issue conveying the right and title to the lands to the company on each side of said road as far as the same was completed. And such examination, report, and conveyance by patents, was to continue from time to time, in like manner, until the road should be completed.

The act went on in its twenty-first section thus:

'SECTION 21. Before any land granted by this act shall be conveyed to the said company. . . there shall first be paid into the Treasury of the United States the cost of surveying, selecting, and conveying the same by the said company,. . . which amount shall, without further appropriation, stand to the credit of the proper account, to be used by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, for the prosecution of the survey of public lands along the line of said road.'

The road of the Burlington and Missouri company was completed for the purpose of this case, we may consider, in the spring of 1872. In that year, the first day of April fell on Monday.

The costs of surveying the lands which the county treasurers had sought to tax, were paid on the seventh day of March; and the fees of the register and receiver of the land office-which fees the complainants alleged to be the 'cost' of 'selecting and conveying,' which, with the cost of surveying, the above-quoted twenty-first section enacted should be paid into the treasury, 'before any land granted by the act should be conveyed to the company,'-were not paid until the 19th and 20th of April, which days, as happened in 1872, were respectively the third Friday and Saturday of the month; the third Monday (as the month came in on Monday) having been the 15th.

The complainants now, citing a statute of Nebraska, which they stated governed the subject, alleged that the time to which all assessment, for taxation of lands in the State related, was fixed by the statute on the first day of March, in each year; and that if the lands were not taxable on that day, they were not taxable at all for that year; that if this were not true, yet that no land could be taxed for any year which was not liable to taxation when the power of certain 'precinct assessors,' mentioned in the statute, expired after their meeting on the first Monday of April (prescribed by the statute), for the purpose of equalizing the assessment, or, at the latest, after the session of the county commissioners which the statute fixed for the third Monday of April, and which third Monday in April, 1872, was, as already stated, Monday the fifteenth of the month.

The facts of the case and the positions just stated involved, therefore, two questions:

1. Whether under the statutes of Nebraska the assessment, &c., had been in time?2. Whether the fees of the register and receiver, which had been paid on the third Friday and Saturday (the 19th and 20th) of April, were the 'costs' of 'selecting and conveying the lands' which the twenty-first section of the act of Congress enacted should, with the cost of surveying, be paid before the lands should be conveyed to the company?

As to the first point, the only statute of Nebraska referred to by counsel on either side, or which was suggested from any quarter as bearing on the question, was one, as follows:

'GENERAL STATUTE 709.

'SECTION 26. The precinct assessors of each county shall meet at the office of the county clerk, on the first Monday of April of each year, for the purpose of equalizing the assessments, and shall return their lists to the county clerk on or before the second Monday of the same month.

'SECTION 27. The county commissioners of each county shall constitute a board of equalization for the county, and said board, or any two of them, shall hold a session of at least three days, at the county seat, commencing on the third Monday of April in each year, for the purpose of equalizing and correcting the assessment roll in their county.'

By section twenty-eight the county clerk is directed to make out and transmit to the State auditor an abstract of these matters, as settled by the board of county commissioners, on or before the first Monday of May. On the fourth Monday in May the governor, State auditor, and treasurer are to meet as a State board of equalization, and to decide upon the rate of the State tax, State school tax, and sinking fund tax for the current year.

The auditor is then to transmit this result to the county clerks on or before the second Monday in June, and on the first Monday in July the county commissioners are required to meet and levy the necessary taxes for the current year.

By section fifty-two it is declared that taxes upon real property shall be a perpetual lien thereupon, commencing from the 1st day of March of the current year, against all persons and bodies corporate, except the United States and the State of Nebraska.

By section fifteen all personal property is to be listed, assessed, and taxed in the county where the owner resides on the 1st day of March, but if the owner resides out of the State it is to be listed and taxed where it may be at the time of listing.

As to the second matter, whether the fees of the registers and receivers were or were not 'costs of selecting and conveying the lands,' within the meaning of the twenty-first section, the act of Congress, the only statute cited on either side, was one of July 1st, 1864, as follows:

'An Act to regulate the compensation of registers and receivers of the land offices in the several States and Territories, in the location of lands by States and corporations under grants from Congress.

'In the location of lands by States and corporations, under grants from Congress for railroads and other purposes,. . . the registers and receivers of the land offices of the several States and Territories in the districts where such lands may be located, for their services therein shall be entitled to receive a fee of $1 for each final location of one hundred and sixty acres, to be paid by the State or corporation making such location, the same to be accounted for in the same manner as fees and commissions on warrants and pre-emption locations, with limitations as to maximum of salary prescribed by existing laws, in accordance with such instructions as shall be given by the Commissioner of the General Land Office.'

The court below dismissed the bill. It said in its opinion:

'The fees to the registers and receivers of the local land offices, under the act of July 1st, 1864, are not embraced within those required to be paid by the twenty-first section of the act of 1864. These are fees for 'location,' not for 'selecting' and 'conveying' the land.

'But again, it may be remarked that the cost of surveying was paid in time to make the lands taxable; the work of selecting the lands was done by the company without, so far as shown, any expense to the government, and for the cost of conveying it does not appear that the government makes or has any claim.'

From the decree of dismissal the complainants took this appeal.

I. In Railway Company v. Prescott, this court held, that until the payment by the company of costs of 'surveying, selecting, and conveying' the lands, they were not liable to taxation. Though another point in that case has been questioned as not perhaps perfectly well considered, this point has been received by all as well founded.

Now, we say that, in this case, those costs have not been paid.

1. Our position is that the fees of the register and receiver were the 'costs of selecting and conveying' the lands mentioned in the twenty-first section of the act of Congress, because:

a. The statutes nowhere provide for the payment of any other expenses connected with the selection and conveyance of lands granted to railroads.

b. The surplus, after paying those officers the maximum allowed them, is turned into the General Land Office, to defray the expenses of further surveys.

c. While the term used in one act is 'location,' and in another 'selection,' each when applied to railroad grants means the same thing. The act making a grant to a railroad company, as in that to this company, always locates the grant and selects or designates the lands; but by reason of conflict with pre-emption and homestead rights, and other grants, a process, more or less complicated, is gone through with, which is properly described by either term.

2. The costs of patenting the lands were certainly 'costs of conveying' them, none of which, of course, were paid until after the other costs.

3. The revenue law of Nebraska fixes no day at which the fiscal year begins, nor does it, in terms, fix a day at which the owner of real estate becomes taxable in respect thereof. But section fifty-two of the General Statute 709, designating the 1st of March at which taxes become a lien, does impliedly fix that as the day at which the owner is liable for taxes thereon. If on that day lands are not taxable, they are not so at all for that year. Now, on the 1st of March, 1872, this company was not taxable in respect of these lands.

4. But if this be not so, certainly the process of assessment having been concluded on the first Monday in April (which in 1872 was the first of the month), after which day the lands were selected, and all the costs of selection and conveyance paid, these lands were not taxable to this company for that year.

a. The assessment of property is the essential prerequisite to a valid levy of taxes thereon.

b. The rule is general and imperative, that assessments can be made only when and as the statute prescribes.

c. And the assessment must be made within the time limited therefor.

d. Property not taxable at the day the assessment closes, is not taxable at all.

II. In Railway Company v. Prescott, this court says:

'While we recognize the doctrine heretofore laid down, that lands sold by the United States may be taxed before they have parted with the legal title, by issuing a patent, it is to be understood as applicable to cases where the right to the patent is complete, and the equitable title is fully vested in the party without anything more to be paid, or any act to be done, going to the foundation of his right.'

Even if we are wrong in insisting that the register's and receiver's fees were to cover the costs of selecting the lands, yet until the 19th day of April, 1872, this company had not a complete right to a patent, nor was the equitable title fully vested in it, because:

1. The twenty-first section of the act of Congress required the payment of these fees before the lands could be located, and the first step in that behalf was the certificate from the local to the General Land Office; so that more did remain to be paid until that day.

2. At that day, too, 'an act remained to be done, going to the foundation of the right' to the patent, namely, the location of the lands, which act was begun when the local land officers certified the lists made by the company's agent, and was concluded either when the lists were made by the commissioner or approved by the secretary.

The process of locating railroad grants is traceable in the recitals in the lists and patents, and is as follows:

(1.) The company makes its selections, which appear on its original lists filed in the local office.

(2.) These lists being corrected, are certified by the local to the General Land Office.

(3.) These lists are approved successively by the commissioner and secretary, after proper examinations and corrections made by them.

And it is not until all this process is concluded that the right becomes fixed, for not until then is any one quarter section definitively ascertained to be the company's. Here, while no list was certified by the local officers before April 19th, several, we may state as a matter of fact, were not certified until long afterwards; some, indeed, not until after the levy of the taxes in July.

It is argued on the other side, that because the costs of surveying (paid March 7th, 1872), and the register's and receiver's fees (paid April 19th and 20th following) were not paid a few days earlier, the lands were not taxable.

The State law does not in terms fix the time in which property shall be assessed. The assessment roll is to be returned to the county clerk 'on or before the second Monday of April.'

The board of equalization 'shall hold a session of at least three days, commencing on the third Monday of April.' After the assessment is equalized and corrected, and before the first Monday of May, the clerk shall make an abstract thereof.

Taxes are to be levied on the first Monday of July.

The position of the other side is that the power of the assessor was exhausted on the 8th of April, and of the board on the 17th of April. According to that theory, the register's and receiver's fees were paid two days or twelve days too late for taxation purposes. If the county officers had control of this matter of assessment as late as April 21st, then these lands were taxable even upon the theory set up.

It is not necessary, however, to base the right to tax these lands upon any calculations in or out of the three, or the eleven days. The case may well rest upon grounds less technical.

1. We assert that the lands were taxable, say on the 1st April, notwithstanding these fees were not yet paid.

The twenty-first section of the act of Congress provides that before the lands shall be conveyed, 'the costs of surveying, selecting, and conveying' them shall be paid, 'which amount shall. . . stand to the credit of the proper account, to be used by the Commissioner of the General Land Office for the prosecution of the surveys of the public lands along the line of the road.'

Thus all the money paid stands appropriated at the moment of payment to the single purpose of prosecuting surveys along the line of the road.

If there were no unsurveyed lands along the line of the road, what becomes of the money? All these lands were surveyed prior to 1871. The money, therefore, could not be used for the purpose of prosecuting surveys along the line of the road. The intention of Congress was to make the companies pay for surveying the lands they were to receive; not to reimburse the government for money already expended on surveys.

It would seem that the section could have no application to this grant. In Railway Company v. Prescott it did not appear that the lands along the line of the road had been surveyed, but the fact was otherwise as respects the Kansas Pacific, as well as the Union Pacific; at least as to the more westerly portions of the lines.

So, we may assert, that the section took effect as to the lands of these two companies, but not as to this grant.

But do the words 'selecting and conveying' mean acts of the register and receiver for which they are to receive fees? As to the selecting, it appears that this was done by the company; and, as said by the circuit judge, 'without, so far as shown, any expense to the government.'

In Railway Company v. Prescott the stress was laid upon the non-payment of the costs of surveying. Nothing is said about the fees of the register and receiver.

In the case of grants, to which the section applies, the reasons for requiring the payment of the costs of surveying are cogent. It may be said that the lands are not fully earned until this is done, though the road be completed and accepted. The lands must, indeed, be surveyed before the grant can attach to them. No one knows which the odd-numbered sections are until they are surveyed. This may be said to be one of the things mentioned in Railway Company v. Prescott as to be done, because going to the 'foundation' of the right to the lands.

But after this payment it would seem that the equitable title was complete, and that what follows relates only to the evidences of the legal title; such as payment of register's and receiver's fees, issuing and recording the patent, & c.

If these views are correct, it follows that the case does not fall within the principles laid down in the case just cited, and that the twenty-first section of the act of Congress does not contain anything to defeat the right of the State to tax these lands. Indeed, the provisions of these sections were intended to be a burden upon the grants; but if the construction contended for on the other side be correct, they give the companies the most valuable franchise they can possess, immunity from taxation.

This immunity, it is to be observed, does not exist by reason of any statutory law, but if it exists at all it is by virtue of judicial construction. But the rule is firmly established that a statute granting exemptions from taxation shall receive the narrowest construction, when the statute is in the least degree ambiguous. Here, in the absence of any statute, the court is asked to declare the exemption as a matter of inference. In Christ Church Hospital v. The County of Philadelphia, in speaking of a tax-exemption statute this court says:

'It belongs to a class of statutes in which the narrowest meaning is to be taken which will fairly carry out the intent of the legislature.'

There is no implication in government grants.

Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.

The ground of exemption claimed by the bill in this case, so far as not disposed of by the case of Railroad Company v. McShane, just decided, rests upon the allegation that the costs of selecting, surveying, and conveying the lands had not been paid at the time of their assessment for taxes of the year 1872, these being the taxes in dispute. In regard to this ground, we find ourselves embarrassed by two very troublesome questions, if their solution is essential to a decision of the case, as was assumed in the argument.

1. What is the latest period at which, by the laws of Nebraska, the right to assess lands for taxation can be exercised for any given year?

2. What are the costs of selecting and conveying the lands of these railroad companies, mentioned in the third section of the act of 1864?

As the latter question is one to be solved by the acts of Congress or by the rules and regulations of the lands department, it would seem an appropriate one for a Federal court to answer.

But the lands granted to railroads generally by acts of Congress are the alternate sections on each side of the road within a certain limit, and, therefore, when the surveys are made and the line of the road laid down by protraction through these surveys, the sections and parts of sections are at once determined; and there is no choice or selection to be made.

It is true that by some statutes, and especially by the one granting the lands in question, where it is found that any odd section which would otherwise go to the company has been disposed of or pre-empted, the company may take other lands in place of it, and this it may select within certain distances from the road. But the selection, in such case is made by the company, and it is difficult to imagine what costs the government incurs in the selection which is to be paid by the company 'into the Treasury of the United States.' These lands thus selected in lieu of others also are such small part of the whole grant that the costs of selection could not amount to much, and the record in the case does not enable us to determine what particular parcels are of this character.

The act of July 1st, 1864, enacts that the register and receiver of the land office in which the lands granted to States and corporations for railroad and other purposes are located, are entitled to receive from such corporations a fee of one dollar for each final location of one hundred and sixty acres, to be accounted for as other fees are, with limitations of maximum salary prescribed by law.

Counsel for the appellant insists that these are the costs of selection referred to in the twenty-first section of the act of Congress of 1864. But those costs were to be paid into the treasury, and these are to be paid to the registers and receivers. Unless these officers receive fees beyond the maximum salary allowed to them, these fees would not go into the treasury, and certainly are not paid into it by the company, as that act requires the costs to be paid to which it refers.

Again, these fees are to be paid on all the lands located, which may fairly be construed to be all the lands ascertained to belong to the company under a grant, while the costs spoken of in the twenty-first section are the costs of selection, which can properly apply only to lands where a choice or option employing exercise of judgment has been used. Still, as these are the only costs or expenses which counsel on either side has been able to suggest as the costs of selecting the lands within the meaning of the statute, it is unsafe to say they are not the costs referred to.

There is equal uncertainty about what is meant by the costs of conveying the lands by the government. The conveyance is by patent, and we have been shown no statute which authorizes a charge or fee for issuing the patent, nor was counsel on either side able to refer us to any such, though both were familiar with the operations of the land department in the West.

Turning from this difficulty to the question of the time to which the taxability of property, real or personal, relates under the laws of Nebraska, we find an equal embarrassment. No decision of any court of that State has been made on the subject. No language of the revenue laws of the State fixes such a time expressly.

The provisions contained in General Act 907 are all the provisions we have been able to find bearing on the question, and they are far from conclusive. In regard to personal property, the first of March seems to be adopted as a criterion to determine who shall pay the tax, and what county shall receive it when it has changed locality or ownership during the year and before the tax is levied. This may also be the reason of fixing the lien of the tax on land on the same day, that vendor and vendee may have a rule to determine upon whom the burden shall fall. But from this time until the State board of equalization on the fourth Monday in May acts finally upon it, the assessment of property both real and personal is in progress and is incomplete, and the final levy of the tax does not take place until July. In the absence of any day or time fixed decisively by the statute or clearly deducible from it, and of any decision of any court of the State on the subject, or of any long and well-settled practice by the State authorities, we hesitate to say that when land is only exempt from taxation by reason of the claims upon it of the Federal government, and those claims are satisfied before the final proceedings are concluded, it would not be included in that assessment. In such case not half the current year for which the taxes are levied has expired. The general matter of assessment or valuation for taxation is still within the control of the proper officers, and if it is brought to their knowledge that the full ownership of the lands has passed from the United States to individuals or corporations it would seem equitable that they should bear their share of the burden of taxation.

We are the more inclined not to interfere in this case by the extraordinary remedy of injunction, because it is shown that as to all these lands, not only had all dues to the United States been paid before the final action of the State board of equalization, but patents had issued for all of them before this suit was brought. At the time, therefore, of filing this bill to prevent the collection of taxes on account of the interest of the United States in the lands on which they were levied, the United States had no interest in the land which would forbid their being taxed; nor is it clear that they had any when the lands were assessed. The costs of surveying were paid before even the precinct assessors assessed these lands, as they then thought they had a right to do, and it is extremely uncertain whether any costs of selecting or conveying the lands within the meaning of the act of Congress existed or were unpaid.

Under all the circumstances, without deciding that there is any particular day to which by the laws of Nebraska the liability for taxation of real estate must always be referred, or if there be, what that day is, we affirm the decree of the Circuit Court dismissing the bill in this case.

DECREE AFFIRMED.


text: Talk:Hunnewell v. Cass County/Opinion of the Court

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Taylor v. Thomas

IN error to the Supreme Court of Mississippi.

This case involved the question of the validity of certain notes, commonly known as 'cotton money,' issued and put in circulation by the State of Mississippi as currency during the late rebellion, and also the obligation of the State to receive the same in payment of taxes after the rebellion, and after the reorganization of the State government.

The case was thus:

Mississippi, through a convention convened by the action of the legislature, passed, on the 9th of January, 1861, an ordinance of secession, by which it was ordained 'that all the laws and ordinances by which the State became a member of the Federal Union were repealed, and that all obligations on the part of the said State, or the people thereof, were withdrawn, and that the State now resumed all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of the said laws and ordinances were coveyed to the government of the said United States, and was absolved from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred to the said Union, and should be henceforth a free, sovereign, and independent State.'

And in March of the same year, persons from different rebel States having met at Montgomery, Alabama, and made what they called a constitution for the permanent Federal government of the Confederate States of America, an additional ordinance was passed by the convention in Mississippi, ordaining that said constitution was adopted and ratified by the State of Mississippi, acting in its sovereign and its independent character; and that the State acceded to and became a member of the Confederacy provided for by the same.

Immediately after this the constitution of the State was so amended as to abrogate all provisions adapting it to the Constitution of the United States, and so changing it as to conform it to the connection between the State and the Southern Confederacy.

This was followed by measures taxing all the resources of the States in various forms to provide the means to sustain the Confederacy in its separation from the United States.

In the spring of 1861, the insurrection having broken out into war throughout the Southern States, military and naval measures became necessary to suppress it, and the government of the United States instituted a blockade of all the Southern ports, so that no staple of the States in rebellion could find a market.

On the 19th December, 1861, under such circumstances and in the condition of affairs just described, the insurrectionary government of the State passed an act entitled 'An act authorizing the issue of treasury notes as advances upon cotton.'

The act provided for the issue of $5,000,000, in notes of the donomination of $1, $2, $3, $5, $10, $20, and $100, to be paid out of the State treasury as advances to the people of the State on the crop of cotton grown in the State in the year 1861, at the rate of 5 cents per pound. The notes were to be in the following form:

Receivable in payment of all dues to the State and counties, except the military tax.

On demand, after proclamation to present, the State of Mississippi will pay to the bearer the sum of _____ dollar(s) out of proceeds of cotton pledged for the redemption of this note, at the Treasurer's office, in Jackson, Mississippi.

Issued ___ day of _____, 186_.

________,

Auditor of Public Accounts.

________,

Treasurer.

On the petition of parties owning cotton and having it in their actual possession or control, and on their executing a bond with approved securities in double the amount of the advance conditioned for the delivery of the cotton, &c., the auditor was required to advance these notes to the amount and at the rate per pound above stated. The owner of the cotton was to keep it safely until after the removal of the then existing blockade of the Confederate ports, when, on the proclamation of the governor demanding it, the cotton was to be delivered at some city or seaport in the Confederate States within ninety days, and sold either for gold and silver or for these cotton notes, and the funds so received for the cotton were pledged for the redemption of the notes, and were not to be appropriated to any other purpose whatever; and such of the cotton notes as might be received in payment for the cotton were to be cancelled and destroyed. If the proceeds of the sale were not sufficient to discharge the advance in gold or silver, or in treasury notes, then the owner was to pay the amount requisite to make up the deficit. All funds received by the governor, whether in payment of the advances or for the proceeds of sales of the cotton, or for deficits, or recovered in suits on the bonds, were to be deposited with the State treasurer and placed in the State treasury. And the treasury notes issued under the act were to be receivable in payment of all taxes due or to become due to the State, or to any connty or school fund, or municipal corporation, except a military tax previously levied under 'An ordinance (of January 26th, 1861) to raise means for the defence of the State;' and when so received for taxes might be 'again paid out upon any warrant of the auditor drawn upon the general treasury,' until redeemed and cancelled as above stated. The cotton, until sold, was to be at the risk of the owner receiving the advance; but when sold the proceeds were to be subject to the order of the governor.

The legislature of Mississippi, which passed the law of 1861, had been elected prior to the so-called secession of the State.

In the year 1865-the rebellion being now suppressed and the supremacy of the government re-established-the legislature of Mississippi passed a law laying a tax of $2 per bale on cotton, and enacting that the collectors of taxes should collect it 'in the currency of the United States.'

A certain Taylor having fifty bales, the tax on which was of course $100, the collector of the taxes, one Thomas, demanded of him payment in currency of the United States. Taylor tendered to him the amount in $100 of the cotton notes, and refused to pay in currency of the United States. Hereupon the collector was about to distrain, when Taylor filed a bill-the present bill-to enjoin him, and to make him receive the $100 'cotton-note' in payment of the tax; he, Taylor, contending that the agreement of the State made in the act authorizing their issue, to receive the cotton bills in payment of taxes, was a 'contract' which the State had no power by its subsequent act of 1865 to impair.

The Supreme Court of the State, where the case finally came, adjudged the notes to be void. It said, in substance,

'We regard the act, in its operation and effects, to have been in aid of the late rebellion; a part of the financial system of the State, at a time of great pecuniary want, to supply not only a circulating medium for the people in the transactions of their ordinary business, but also to furnish the means by which an empty treasury of the State might be replenished.

'One section of the act provides that the notes shall be receivable in payment of all taxes now due or that may hereafter become due to the State, or to any county, or school fund, or municipal corporation, except the military tax; and that the said notes, when so received for taxes, may again be paid out by the treasurer upon any warrant of the auditor, drawn upon the general treasury. It will be thus seen that the notes were intended to supply an important part of the revenue by which the State government was to be sustained and enabled more effectually to aid the Confederate government in the prosecution of a sanguinary war, waged expressly for the purpose of subverting the government of the United States. The notes are therefore illegal and void.'

Taylor now brought the case here on error.

Messrs. F. P. Stanton and H. S. Foote, for the plaintiff in error:

I. The character of the act of 1861, authorizing the issue of the treasury notes, does not warrant the conclusion reached by the Supreme Court of Mississippi, that it was passed in aid of the rebellion.

The act was one of ordinary legislation. The shipment and sale of cotton hand been effectually prevented by the blockade. The crop of 1861 was on hand, wholly unavailable, although in ordinary times the cotton raised in the State was the chief, if not the only resource of the people, to supply a currency and to enable them to make the exchanges necessary to the very existence and support of society. This measure was a local one simply, avoiding all connection with any military operations, and providing only for the internal commerce of the State. The substance of it was to base a currency to the extent of $5,000,000 on the crop of cotton made in the year 1861, then fully matured and in hand, and to preserve this crop for shipment and sale until the raising of the blockade, which had suddenly arrested the whole trade of the region.

The act distinguishes these cotton-notes from the notes issued under the ordinance of the convention, entitled 'An ordinance to raise means for the defence of the State,' passed January 26th, 1861. This ordinance of the convention was confessedly passed in furtherance of the rebellion. But the act in question had no connection with it, but was in absolute contrast to it. The cotton notes were no more issued to aid in the war than if the government of Mississippi had procured so much gold and silver coin and advanced it to the people of the State on the pledge of their cotton crop of that year.

II. The decision made by the Supreme Court of Mississippi has been overruled by subsequent decisions in the same court.

The ruling in this case was a departure from the law as it had previously been settled in that State in the case of Hill v. Boyland, and other cases decided about the same time. The Supreme Court subsequently re-established the doctrine established in Hill v. Boyland, and thus overruled its own decision in the case now brought before this court. This, we think, will appear on reference to the cases of Mister v. McLean, Buchanan v. Smith et al., and Lawson v. Jeffries.

III. Decisions of this court, also, are inconsistent with the conclusion that the act of 1861 was in aid of the rebellion.

In the cases of White v. Hart, Huntington v. Texas, and Horn v. Lockhart, this court has settled the principle that 'at no time were the rebellious States out of the pale of the Union;' that 'if the government was in actual control of the State, the validity of its act must depend on the object and purpose of it;' and 'that the acts of the several States, executive, judicial, and legislative, during the war, so far as they did not impair or intend to impair the supremacy of the National authority, or the just rights of citizens under the Constitution, are, in general, to be treated as valid and binding.' The decision of the court below in this case was the opposite of these principles.

IV. In view of these decisions, which recognize the validity of acts passed by the insurrectionary States, so far as the acts were acts of ordinary legislation, it is unnecessary to advert to the circumstance, that the Mississippi legislature of 1861 had been elected prior to the secession of the State, and was the legislative power of the State not only de facto, but de jure, as well.

Messrs. G. F. Edmunds and T. W. Bartley, contra:

I. The legislation, and the acts done in pursuance of it, were in aid of the rebellion.

1. They were meant, palpably meant, to circumvent a state of things produced by the war. The shipment and sale of cotton, the chief staple of the South, and the one by which the rebellion was meant to be carried on, was cut off by the blockade, and this act was passed to enable it to hold out.

2. The notes were receivable in payment of all taxes except 'the military tax' (whatever that was), and were the general fund for paying the legislators, governors, and State troops.

To say that such a proceeding was a pure one and legal, is to offend common sense.

II. The impression of opposing counsel that the decision of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, in this case, has been overruled by subsequent cases in that court, is inaccurate. The cases cited were not strictly analogous, and turned upon questions essentially different.

III. The same may be said of the cases cited from this court as having overruled the position taken by the Supreme Court of Mississippi in this case. Those cases do not touch the questions in the present case; a reference to the cases cited will show this.

IV. If the lawfully elected legislature of Mississippi betrayed its trust by passing a law to assist in overthrowing the Constitution and government which it had taken an oath to support and maintain, this cannot help the case of the opposite side. It does but add turpitude and perfidy to illegal legislation.

[In addition to the argument of these points, the counsel on both sides argued the question as to whether the notes under consideration were 'bills of credit' within the Constitution, and such as that instrument ordains that 'no State shall emit.']

Mr. Justice CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

title: Taylor v. Thomas


text: Talk:Taylor v. Thomas

title: Talk:Taylor v. Thomas


text:
Taylor v. Thomas/Opinion of the Court

Beyond all doubt the finding of the appellate court of the State of Mississippi is correct, and the court here also unanimously concur in the conclusion reached by that court, that the treasury notes authorized to be issued by the act under consideration, inasmuch as they were issued 'against the public policy and in violation of the Constitution of the United States, are, therefore, illegal and void.'

Three principal propositions are submitted by the appellant to controvert that conclusion, which will be separately considered:

(1.) That the terms of the act authorizing the issue of the treasury notes do not warrant the conclusion reached by the State appellate court, that it was passed in aid of the rebellion.

(2.) That the subsequent decisions of the same court have overruled the decisions of that court in that case.

(3.) That certain decisions of this court are inconsistent with the conclusion that the act in question, when properly construed, affords any evidence that it was designed to accomplish any such purpose.

I. Subsequent to the passage of the secession ordinance every branch of the State government-executive, legislative, and judicial-claimed that the State ceased by that act to be one of the States of the Federal Union, and denied in the most solemn forms of proceeding that the people of the State owed any further allegiance to the Federal Constitution or obedience to the laws of the United States. Instead of that the whole people of the State joined with one accord in adopting a new constitution differing widely from the Federal Constitution, and by which, as they claimed, they severed and dissolved all connection with the Federal Union and established a new confederation between the people of that State and the other seceding States.

Such measures and pretensions led immediately to conflict of jurisdiction and presently to open hostilities, which showed that every prospect of compromise was at an end. Military preparations became necessary on both sides, and the several seceding States found it impossible to avoid increased and onerous taxation, and no one of the number felt the pressure in that regard more heavily than the State where these parties reside.

Different expedients were adopted to replenish the empty treasury of the State, of which none perhaps afforded greater promise than the measure embodied in the act providing for the issue of treasury notes, as it had the effect to call forth the product of the great staple of the State from its secret depositories, and to render it available as the basis of an extended paper circulation. Legislative authority to issue such notes was accordingly granted, but the requirement was that the notes, when executed in the prescribed form, should be deposited in the treasury of the State, to be paid out by the auditor as advances to such of the people of the State as should comply with the before-mentioned terms and conditions prescribed in the act authorizing their issue.

Other provisions of the act also afford very strong confirmatory proof that the act was passed in aid of the rebellion, as, for example, the section which provides that whenever the then present blockade of the ports of the Confederate States should be removed (which was to be determined by the proclamation of the governor declaring the fact) the governor should in the same form require all persons to whom advances had been made, to deliver the cotton specified in their respective receipts within ninety days from the date of the proclamation. Nothing could be received by the governor in lieu of the cotton 'but gold and silver or the treasury notes issued under the act,' and the express requirement is that all the funds so received by the governor in payment of the advances shall be deposited with the treasurer, and be placed in the treasury of the State.

Attempt is made in argument to show the inference drawn from those provisions, that the act was passed in aid of the rebellion, is repelled by another provision of the same act, which in effect provides that such treasury notes shall not be receivable in payment of the tax levied under a prior law and which is denominated a military tax, but it is a sufficient answer to that suggestion to say that by the terms of the act said notes are made receivable in payment of all taxes then due to the State or counties except the military tax, and that when so received the notes might 'again be paid out by the treasurer upon any warrant of the auditor drawn upon the general treasury.' Nor is there anything in that exception inconsistent with the theory that the act was passed in aid of the rebellion, as it is highly probable that the legislature supposed that the other provisions of the act were sufficient to insure confidence in the paper emission without making the notes receivable in payment of the military tax.

Suppose that is so, still it is insisted that the conclusion of the State court that the act was passed in aid of the rebellion cannot be supported, because the members of the legislature which passed the act were elected before the ordinance of secession was adopted; but two answers may be made to that proposition, either of which is sufficient to show that it is destitute of merit: (1.) That the act, if passed in aid of the rebellion, would be void even if passed by a legislature otherwise innocent of any treasonable act. (2.) That the legislature in question, subsequent to the adoption of the secession ordinance and of the ordinance by which the State acceded to and became a member of the insurrectionary confederacy, ceased to represent the State as a constitutional member of the Federal Union.

Members of the legislature may perpetrate treasonable acts after the legislature is organized as well as before they take their seats, nor is the question affected in the least by the fact that the legislature was duly organized before the State seceded, as the public history of the period shows that the whole government and people of the State joined in the rebellion before the act in question was passed through the forms of legislation.

II. Extended discussion of the second proposition submitted by the appellant will be unnecessary, as the cases referred to in support of the theory that the prior decision of that court upon the subject under consideration is overruled, do not afford the proposition any countenance whatever. They are as follows: Buchanan v. Smith, Mister v. McLean, and Lawson v. Jeffries. Neither of these cases support the proposition for which they are cited. On the contrary they decide, in substance and effect, that acts necessary to peace and good order among citizens-such, for example, as laws which sanction and protect marriage and domestic relations, govern the course of descents, regulate the conveyance and transfer of property, provide remedies for injuries to person and estate, and other similar acts which would be valid if emanating from a lawful government-must be regarded as valid when proceeding from an actual, though unlawful, government, but that acts in furtherance and support of rebellion and against the just rights of the citizens must be regarded as invalid, which accords with the rule of decision adopted and promulgated in the prior decision of the same court, and which is all that need be said responsive to that proposition.

III. Under the circumstances it will not be necessary to add much to what has been remarked responsive to the preceding proposition to refute the third one of the series, as the language of the final proposition decided by the State appellate court is borrowed from the decision in Texas v. White of this court upon the same subject.

Certain acts, such as those described by the State appellate court, it is admitted are valid, but the late Chief Justice, as the organ of the court, proceded to say that acts in furtherance or support of rebellion against the United States, or intended to defeat the just rights of the citizens, and other acts of like nature, must be regarded as invalid and void. Nor is there anything in the case of White v. Hart which is in the slightest degree inconsistent with the rule laid down in the preceding case.

Exactly the same doctrines were laid down in the case of Huntington v. Texas, in which the opinion of the court was also given by the late Chief Justice. Bonds for the payment of money to a large amount were issued, before the rebellion, by the United States to the State of Texas, to adjust certain claims made by that State growing out of a dispute as to her boundaries. Part of those bonds were still in the treasury of the State when the rebellion broke out. Texas joined the rebellion, and during that period some of those bonds were used by the ruling power of the State. War ensued, but in the progress of events the rebellion was crushed. Various efforts were subsequently made to reorganize the State as one of the States of the Federal Union, and those efforts were so far successful before the suit in the case last cited was commenced that the Supreme Court decided that the State was competent to sue. She brought that suit to recover part of those bonds. Defences of various kinds were set up by the defendant in the subordinate court. Exceptions were filed by him to the ruling of the court and the case was removed here by writ of error.

In disposing of the case here the court remarked as follows: 'Whether the alienation of the bonds by the usurping government divests the title of the State depends, as we have said, upon other circumstances than the quality of the government. If the government was in the actual control of the State the validity of its alienation must depend on the object and purpose of it. If that was just in itself and laudable, the alienation was valid, but if the object and purpose were bo break up the Union and to overthrow the constitutional government, the alienation was invalid.'

Surely such remarks do not serve to support the proposition of the appellant; and he is equally unfortunate in his reference to the case of Horn v. Lockhart, in which the opinion was given by Mr. Justice Field. 'Order,' say the court in that case, 'was to be preserved, police regulations maintained, crime prosecuted, property protected, contracts enforced, marriages celebrated, estates settled, and the transfer and descent of property regulated precisely as in times of peace. No one that we are aware of,' say the court, 'seriously questions the validity of judicial or legislative acts in the insurrectionary States touching these and kindred subjects where they were not hostile in their purpose or mode of enforcement to the authority of the national government, and did not impair the rights of citizens under the Constitution.'

Viewed in the light of the qualifying phrase the remarks reproduced accord with the present views of the court, as the qualifying phrase is equivalent to an affirmative decision that judicial and legislative acts hostile in their purpose or mode of enforcement to the authority of the national goverment, or which impaired the rights of citizens under the Constitution, are invalid and void, which in principle is exactly what the State appellate court decided in this case.

DECREE AFFIRMED.

title: Taylor v. Thomas/Opinion of the Court


text: Talk:Taylor v. Thomas/Opinion of the Court


text:
United States v. Saunders (89 U.S. 492)

APPEAL from the Court of Claims; the case being thus:

On the 28th of July, 1866, Congress enacted:

'That there be allowed and paid to the officers, clerks, committee clerks, messengers, and all other employees of the Senate and House of Representatives, and to the Globe and official reporters of each House, and the stenographer of the House, and to the Capitol police, and the three superintendents of the public gardens, their clerks and assistants, and to the Librarian, assistant librarians, messengers, and other employees of the Congressional Library, an addition of twenty per cent. on their present pay, to commence with the present Congress.'

This act was repealed July 12th, 1870.

By a joint resolution of the 28th of February following, it was resolved -- 'That there shall be allowed and paid to. . . its civil officers, clerks, messengers, and watchmen and employees in the executive mansion, and in any of the following named departments, or any bureau thereof, to wit: State, Treasury, War, Navy, Interior, Post Office, Attorney-General, Agricultural, and including civil officers and. . . clerks and employees in the office of the coast survey, naval observatory, navy-yard, arsenal, paymastergeneral, &c., & c., and additional compensation of twenty per cent. on their respective salaries as fixed by law, &c.,. . . for one year.'

With these two proceedings of Congress, the act of 1866 and the joint resolution of 1870 in force, one Saunders, who was engaged at a salary in superintending the public gardens of the Department of Agriculture, at Washington, applied and got an addition of 20 per cent. to it under the joint resolution, for the one year, during which the resolution gave the increase.

Subsequently, assuming that the act of Congress was a continuing act and not one making an allowance for one year only, and assuming also that his employment brought him within its provisions, he filed a petition in the Court of Claims, alleging that he was 'Superintendent of Gardens in the Department of Agriculture,' from March 4th, 1865, to July 1st, 1870, and asking the addition of 20 per cent. given by the act of Congress during that time.

The Court of Claims found as a fact that 'he held the position and performed the duties of Superintendent of the Public Gardens of the Department of Agriculture,' and during the time for which the 20 per cent. was claimed; and conceiving that he came within the act, gave him the addition prayed for.

From this, its decision, the United States appealed.

The only question considered by this court was whether Saunders was within the act of Congress.

Mr. G. H. Williams, Attorney-General, and Mr. John Goforth, for the appellant; Mr. J. W. Denver, contra.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court.

title: United States v. Saunders (89 U.S. 492)


text: Talk:United States v. Saunders (89 U.S. 492)


text:
United States v. Saunders (89 U.S. 492)/Opinion of the Court

We are clearly of opinion that the claimant, in this case, was not within the intent and meaning of the eighteenth section of the act of July 28th, 1866.

The Court of Claims finds, it is true, that he held the position of superintendent of the public garden of the Agricultural Department during the period for which the claim is made. But it is well known that the botanical garden near the Capitol has been regarded as a public garden for many years, and long before the experimental garden of the Agricultural Department was established; and that it was managed by a superintendent and assistant superintendents. It is equally well known that this garden has for a long period, if not always, been under the immediate direction and control of the Joint Library Committee of Congress. The public statutes contain a long series of appropriations for both garden and superintendents. Thus, in the appropriation bill of July 2d, 1864, for the year ending June 30th, 1865, the following appropriation was made:

'Botanic Garden.-For grading, draining, procuring manure, tools, fuel, and repairs, purchasing trees and shrubs, under the direction of the Library Committee of Congress, $3300.

'For pay of superintendent of Botanic Garden, and assistants in the Botanic Garden and green-houses, to be expended under the direction of the Library Committee of Congress, $6145.80.'

A similar provision is made in the appropriation bill for the year ending June 30th, 1866, adding $2500 to be expended under direction of the Joint Committee of the Library, for erecting four green-houses. The like appropriation for salaries was made in the appropriation bill for the year ending June 30th, 1867. Then comes the act in question, increasing the salaries 20 per cent., to commence with that Congress, to wit, March 4th, 1865. The act increases the salaries of 'the three superintendents of the public gardens.' Now, in the next appropriation bill, for the year ending June 30th, 1868, not only is the ordinary appropriation made for the 'botanic garden under direction of the Library Committee of Congress, $3300;' and, 'for pay of superintendent and assistants, and assistants in the botanic garden and green-house, under direction of the Library Committee of Congress, $6145.80;' but a continuation of the 20 per centum is added, thus: 'for 20 per centum additional on the pay of the above, $1229.16.' The designation, 'superintendent and assistants,' implies at least three in number. No such appropriation is found in reference to the experimental garden attached to the Department of Agriculture. Whilst the botanic garden, under the direction of the Joint Library Committee of Congress, with its superintendent and assistants eo nomine, have thus been the subject of appropriations for a long period, the experimental garden, established by the Department of Agriculture, was comparatively recent, and regarded as an appendage of that department, and the appropriations therefor had been made under the general head of appropriations for the said department, and no appropriation for any superintendent thereof, eo nomine, had ever been made up to the time of the passage of the act of July 28th, 1866. The appropriation had been for the 'experimental garden,' and for the salary of the foreman and laborers.

From this legislative history it is apparent that the botanic garden near the Capitol was regarded as a public garden; that it had a superintendent and assistant superintendents; that appropriations had for years been made for their salaries as superintendent and assistants by name; and that they were employed, and the garden was managed, under the immediate direction of the Joint Library Committee of the two Houses of Congress. They were, in fact, employees of this committee.

Now, it seems to us that the eighteenth section of the act of July 28th, 1866, which provides for the addition of the 20 per centum now claimed by the appellee, had reference only to persons employed under the direction of the two Houses of Congress, or their committees, and not to those of any of the executive departments. The section itself is its own best interpreter. In view of the long supervision over the botanic garden by the Library Committee, and of the previous legislation referred to, language could hardly be plainer than that which it contains.

But there is additional evidence that this increase of salary was intended to be confined to persons employed under the immediate direction of the two Houses of Congress and their committees, in the fact, that by a joint resolution of February 28th, 1867, 20 per cent. was added to the salaries of all employees of the several executive departments, including the Department of Agriculture, for one year from and after the 30th of June, 1866; and the claimant actually received such addition accordingly. It is not reasonable to suppose that Congress intended to single out this particular employ e from all the government employees as alone entitled to a double additon of 20 per cent. to his compensation, which he certainly would receive for the year named, if his construction of the act of July 28th, 1866, is the correct one.

JUDGMENT REVERSED, and the cause remanded with directions to

DISMISS THE PETITION.


text: Talk:United States v. Saunders (89 U.S. 492)/Opinion of the Court


text: Piatt's Administrator v. United States

title: Piatt's Administrator v. United States


text: Talk:Piatt's Administrator v. United States


text:
Piatt's Administrator v. United States/Opinion of the Court

APPEAL from the Court of Claims; the case being thus:

J. H. Piatt, on the 26th of January, 1814-during our second war with Great Britain-by a written contract with the then Secretary of War, General Armstrong, became a contractor of supplies for the Northwestern Army for one year, to begin on the 1st day of June, 1814, and end on the 31st day of May, 1815, at an average rate of twenty cents the ration; and as the usage then was to make advances in money to contractors, he retained in his hands, as an advance from the department, the balance of the commissariat fund; which at the close of his engagements amounted to $48,230.77.

On the 26th of January, 1814, when the contract was made, the government was in good credit and paying its debts in gold and silver. By the 1st of June following, when it was to take effect, the gold and silver were exhausted, and the government had resorted to treasury notes, which passed at a discount. In the month of August, 1814, the enemy captured Washington and burnt the capitol; an event which assisted to depress the business of the country. All the banks south and west of New York suspended specie payments. The currency soon became the irredeemable paper of State banks. Its value went down and the price of produce went up, till supplies could not be had for less than forty-five cents the ration.

By the 1st of January, 1815, after expending the balance of the commissariat fund, and all other funds he had received, the United States owed him, for supplies already delivered, a large sum of money, and his drafts on the government lay under protest for the want of funds in the treasury to pay them.

In this condition of things, and in an exigent moment, on the 26th of December, 1814-the army in the Northwest being about to make a move-requisition was made on him for a large further supply of rations. He went, on the 1st of January, 1815, to Washington, to lay matters before the War Department; and, as the Court of Claims found as facts of the case, 'at a personal interview there with him, notified to Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of War, that he would furnish no more rations under the contract. Secretary Monroe admitted to Piatt the inability of the government to comply with the terms of the contract on their part, both as to money already due, and as to money which might become due for future supplies. But the military exigency then rendering it necessary that a large quantity of rations should be furnished immediately for the Northwestern Army, it was thereupon agreed by parol, between Piatt and the secretary, that if Piatt would furnish the rations which might be required, he should receive for them whatever price they should be reasonably worth at the time and place of delivery; and that the defendants, instead of paying as required by the terms of the original contract, should defer payment until such time or times as they should have the requisite funds.'

Under the parol agreement, Piatt furnished and delivered to the government 73,007,010 rations, the reasonable value of which, at the times and places at which they were furnished, was 45 cents per ration, amounting in the aggregate to $328,531

But, on the settlement of Piatt's account at the close of the war, the officers of the treasury, having no knowledge or evidence of the parol agreement under which the rations were furnished, allowed and paid to him only the price designated in the original written contract, amounting in the aggregate to 148,791

And leaving due a balance of $179,739 67Piatt performed, as he alleged, other valuable services for the government-transportation, &c., to friendly Indians and to distressed refugees of Michigan-(confessedly outside of those contemplated by either the original or the parol agreement), to the value of $63,620

In September, 1819, an action was brought by the United States against him, and he was arrested on a capias ad respondendum for an alleged balance of $48,230.77, due from him as commissary of subsistence. He how brought his claim before Congress, but the Judiciary Committee of the Senate reported against it. However, while the suit was still pending, and he on bail, Congress (8th May, 1820) passed a private act for his reliet, as follows:

'Be it enacted, That the proper accounting officers of the Treasury Department be, and they are hereby, authorized and required to settle the accounts of J. H. Piatt, including his accounts for transportation, on just and equitable principles, giving all due weight and consideration to the settlements and allowances already made, and to the assurances and decisions of the War Department:

'Provided, That the sum allowed under the said assurances shall not exceed the amount now claimed by the United States, and for which suits have been commenced against the said Piatt.'

Under this act, the accounting officers of the treasury settled the accounts of Piatt thus:

1st. They allowed him a crdit of $63,620.48 for the transportation, &c., furnished by him for the use of the Indians and refugees, not embraced within either of the agreements before described.

2d. They allowed him a credit upon a certain specified portion of the rations delivered upon the parol agreement, equal to the amount then claimed by the United States in the suit against him, to wit, the sum of $48,230.77. The credit was thus ascertained: They first estimated the reasonable value of the specific portion of the rations thus referred to; they then deducted therefrom the price per ration already paid to him; and from the balance thus ascertained, they made a further deduction sufficient to reduce the amount of the credit to the said sum of $48,230.77, as required by the proviso to the act of Congress, mentioned on the preceding page.

The allowance of the $48,230.77 which did not require the payment of money, was passed to his credit, and the action against him dismissed.

The $63,620.48 allowed for the transportation, &c., &c., to the Indians and refugees was not paid, there having been no appropriation applicable to that claim. His creditors became impatient and put him into prison; and he died in the prison bounds in the city of Washington on the 12th of February, 1822.

Congress subsequently (24th May, 1824) passed an act, making an appropriation for this last-mentioned account, and there was paid under the act, to the administrator of Piatt, the sum of $63,620.48, the same being for the transportation, &c., furnished to Indians and refugees, and not for army supplies.

But the balance of his original claim under the parol contract for $179,739

having been reduced by only 48,230

his administrator now alleged that his estate was entitled to $131,508

and for this sum filed a petition-the petition in the present case-in the Court of Claims.

The petition set out, with circumstance and color, a case which, in its essence, was the same as above given; and after stating the interview with Mr. Monroe, and that Mr. Monroe admitted that the right of the United States to enforce the original written contract had been forfeited by its failure to make payment according to its contract, and that Piatt had a right to refuse to furnish rations under the call made December 26th, 1814, alleged that Mr. Monroe had 'appealed to him as a patriot not to desert his country in that day of its trial, assuring him that he should be fully indemnified, and should not be a loser.' The petition then alleged that on the faith of these assurances he, Piatt, had gone on and furnished the subsequently required rations to the amount stated.

Though it did not seem to have been doubted that the rations actually cost the amount claimed, the officers of the treasury, feeling themselves bound only by what appeared of record in the department, allowed in the settlement of the account for rations furnished after the 1st day of January, 1815, no more than the original contract price per ration. The petition then said:

'Under these circumstances Piatt brought his claim before the Secretary of War, Mr. Crawford, who would have settled it on the principles for which the said Piatt then contended, and which your petitioner now claims to be legal and just, but that, by reason of what he considered countervailing evidence, he had doubts whether such assurances had ever been given.'

The Court of Claims, however, as already stated, found as a fact of the case that they had been given.

Being equally divided upon the right of the claimant to recover, the court could only give a judgment pro form a, and for the purposes of an appeal to the Supreme Court, decided accordingly as conclusions of law:

I. That the parol agreement entered into by Piatt and Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of War, after the forfeiture and abandonment of the original written contract, being a new contract upon a new consideration was valid, and, under such agreement, the government became indebted to Piatt for the reasonable value of the rations furnished under it, and for the balance of $131,508.90.

II. But that this action was barred by the allowance made by the accounting officers of the treasury under the private act of May 8th, 1820, which must be construed to have been intended by Congress as a settlement of all claims against the defendants.

The petition was accordingly dismissed, and Piatt's ad ministrator appealed, assigning this second conclusion of law for error.

Messrs. William Johnson and Thomas Wilson, for the appellant:

I. The act of 1820 cannot be, and never was intended by Congress to be, a settlement of all of Piatt's claims against the government, because--

1st. The proviso attached to the act limits the settlement, prevents it from being full and complete, and prescribes a narrower or smaller amount of relief than that of justice.

This takes the case out of decisions such as United States v. Child, and similar cases which will doubtless be cited on the other side. Where a settlement is made and a party accepts payment under it, he is generally estopped to claim more. And why? Because the arbitrators have taken into consideration everything bearing on the case, and have allowed it full weight. Thus, presumptively, the settlement was fair. But when, by the very order of settlement, the arbitrator is told, 'Though the party may have a plain right to such and such items of credit you must not allow them,' clearly such a settlement is not made on a just principle, and it ought not to estop further claim.

2d. The act does not say that what was to be done was to be 'in full payment,' or 'in full satisfaction' of his claim, and if the intention that it should be had existed, apt words could have been used to declare it.

3d. The accounting officers of the treasury did not regard the act in the way in which the government now regards it, for they proceeded to state Piatt's accounts, and allowed him in that statement the item of $63,620.48, while the only relief which could have been afforded him under the act was for the sum of $48,230.77, for which a suit had been brought.

4th. Upon the report of the accounting officers, the subsequent Congress appropriated and paid the above sum of $63,620.48.

The intention of Congress in passing the act was apparently this: Congress knew that a balance stood on the books of the treasury against Piatt for moneys due from him as an officer; that a suit had been brought by the United States to recover that balance; that he had been arrested, thrown into prison, and was then on bail; that he alleged that on a true statement of the accounts between him and the United States, it would be shown that he was not indebted to the United States, and that possibly the United States would be found to be indebted to him. Congress, without expressing any opinion upon the facts of the case, enacted that the accounting officers should settle his accounts 'on just and equitable principles, giving all due weight and consideration to the settlements and allowances already made, and to the assurances and decisions of the War Department;' and if, upon the making of this settlement or statement it should be found that Piatt was not indebted to the United States, that there was enough coming to him upon these accounts, 'assurances,' transportation, and the like, to offset the balance claimed from him in the suits commenced, then that this balance should be cancelled and the suits dismissed and he discharged from jail; but if these accounts should not be sufficient to entirely offset this balance, then it should do so pro tanto, and upon payment of the remainder he should be discharged from jail.

All question as to payment to him of other moneys which he might claim was reserved for future consideration.

The purpose of Congress seems to have been much the same as when it passed the act for the relief of William Peck. Peck was indebted to the United States, was sued, judgment recovered against him, and he imprisoned for the debt. Congress declared that he should be released from imprisonment, provided, first, that he should assign all the property 'which he may now own or be entitled to' to the United States; and second, that any property which he might thereafter acquire should be liable to be taken.

On a question whether the debt was released by his discharge from imprisonment, this court, in Hunter v. United States, says:

'From this proviso it clearly appears that the release from imprisonment was the only object of the statute, and a proper construction of it does not release the judgment.'

II. The circumstances in which Piatt was placed at this time prevent any such legal effect, exen if the intention were clearly expressed in the act.

From the facts, as admitted or found, it is plain that, instead of Piatt being indebted to the United States in the sum of $48,230.77, for which he had been sued, the United States was indebted to him in the two sums of $63,620.48 and $131,508.90. Instead of being the debtor, he was the creditor. Instead of his owing the United States, the United States owed him; and instead of the suit being The United States v. Piatt,' it might properly have been Pitt v. The United States.'

These were the circumstances under which the act of 1820 was passed.

Now when a debtor, being a powerful party, on a false allegation of the state of accounts between him and his creditor, arrests that creditor, and throws him into jail, and then, while his creditor is thus illegally imprisoned, offers him a settlement which the creditor accepts in order to be released, such settlement, so made, is surely of no binding force as a settlement, however definitely or plainly it may have been stipulated and agreed upon.

Mr. G. H. Williams, Attorney-General, and Mr. John Goforth, Assistant Attorney-General, contra:

Piatt's claim was in dispute. Mr. Crawford doubted the alleged assurances of Mr. Monroe. Piatt could not get the claim allowed.

Being under arrest, the act of May 8th, 1820, was passed, requiring the officers of the treasury to 'settle his accounts,' including his accounts for transportation.

The word settle has an established legal meaning, and implied the mutual adjustment of accounts between different parties, and an agreement upon the balance.

There was no limit to any claim he might make except the one upon the assurances. All the accounts between the government and himself-all things in dispute-were meant, it is obvious, to be included in the reference to the accounting officers and settled.

Piatt went before the accounting officers and presented his proofs, and made his claims much in excess of the amount awarded him. The settlement was made upon proofs; as to the assurances he was allowed $48,230.77, all that under the act could be allowed.

As to the assurances, the sum of $48,230.77 was paid by passing the amount to his credit and so balancing his debt. A further sum of $63,620.48 was found to be due him, for transportation of friendly Indians and refugees. He accepted these settlements without protest.

The $63,620.48 was paid by an appropriation, made by Congress A.D. 1824.

An allowance by the legislature in full, when accepted by a claimant, is an estoppel of further claim. That the claimant has no other remedy at the time does not affect the question. This appears to be settled by the case of Mason v. United States, in this court, and by other cases here.

No compulsion was exercised over Piatt at any stage of the proceedings.

Mr. Justice CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

Attempt is made, chiefly on two grounds, to vindicate the conclusion of the Court of Claims, that the cause of action is barred by the allowance reported by the accounting officers of the treasury. The grounds are:

(1.) That the auditor passed to the credit of the deceased claimant the amount claimed by the United States as due from him as commissary of subsistence, and that he, the claimant, accepted the settlement without protest.

(2.) That Congress intended by the act directing the adjustment of his accounts that the settlement should be final and conclusive; that the act was in the nature of an offer for a disputed claim, and that the acceptance of the adjustment is a bar to the claim.

1. Verbal agreements between the parties to a written contract made before or at the time of the executions of the contract are, in general, inadmissible to vary its terms or to affect its construction, as all such agreements are considered as merged in the written contract. Both parties admit that proposition, nor is it denied by the defendants that oral agreements subsequently made, on a new and valuable consideration, before the breach of the contract, may have the effect to enlarge the time of performance of the contract, if it is not one within the statute of frauds, or that such an oral agreement may have the effect to vary any of the terms of the written contract or to waive or discharge it altogether.

Exceptions, it is everywhere admitted, exist to the rule that parol evidence is not admissible to contradict or vary the terms of a written instrument. Most of such exceptions are enumerated by Mr. Greenleaf, and in the course of that enumeration he says: 'Neither is the rule infringed by the admission of oral evidence to prove a new and distinct agreement upon a new consideration, whether it be as a substitute for the old or in addition to and beyond it; and if subsequent and involving the same subject-matter it is immaterial whether the new agreement be entirely oral or whether it refers to and partially or totally adopts the provisions of the written contract, provided the old agreement be rescinded and abandoned.'

Sufficient appears in the very nature of the new arrangement to show that the promise of the United States was made upon a good and valid consideration, as nothing is better settled than the rule that if there is a benefit to the defendant and a loss to the plaintiff consequent upon and directly resulting from the defendant's promise in behalf of the plaintiff, there is a sufficient consideration moving from the plaintiff to enable the latter to maintain an action upon the promise to recover compensation.

Other authorities state the rule much stronger, authorizing the conclusion that benefit to the party by whom the promise is made, or to a third person at his instance, or damage sustained at the instance of the party promising by the party in whose favor the promise is made is sufficient to constitute a good and valuable consideration for the support of an action of assumpsit.

Modern authorities supporting the proposition that parol evidence is admissible to prove such a new agreement, under the circumstances disclosed in this case, are very numerous and are quite sufficient to show that the proposition may be regarded as an established rule of decision.

Apply that rule to the case and it is quite clear that the whole amount claimed by the plaintiff was due to the deceased claimant at the time his accounts were adjusted by the accounting officers of the treasury in addition to the amount claimed by the United States in set-off for balance due from him as commissary of subsistence. Well-founded doubt upon that subject cannot be entertained, as it satisfactorily appears that in order to reduce his claim to an amount not exceeding the claim of the United States, those officers found it necessary to deduct from the aggregate estimate of the value of the rations furnished under the parol agreement, an amount exactly equal to the balance found due to the claimant by the subordinate court from whose judgment the appeal is prosecuted in this case.

Nothing was paid to the claimant under that private act except what was allowed to the claimant for services and expenses in furnishing transportation and rations for the use of Indians and indigent citizens. He was discharged from arrest and the balance due from him to the United States for the moneys in his hands as commissary of subsistence was also discharged, but nothing was paid to him for the large balance now found to be due by the court below. Argument to show that such a settlement is not a bar to the residue of the claim is unnecessary, as the proposition is utterly destitute of merit and repugnant to the plainest dictates both of law and justice.

2. Opposed to that is the suggestion, in behalf of the United States, that the act of Congress was in the nature of an offer of compromise, and that the acceptance of the adjustment is a bar to the claim.

Support to that proposition is attempted to be drawn from the decision of this court in the case of Mason v. United States, but the court here is very clearly of the opinion that the case cited affords no countenance whatever to any such conclusion. Muskets were wanted by the United States in that case, and it appears that the plaintiff in that controversy contracted to manufacture and deliver at a specified time large quantities of such arms at the price specified in the contract. Arms of the kind were delivered and paid for, and the plaintiff was notified by order of the Secretary of War that a larger quantity would be received. Preparations were accordingly made by the plaintiff to fill the second order, but the Secretary of War subsequently appointed a special commission to audit and adjust all such orders and claims. They reported that the contract should be confirmed to a certain extent upon the condition that the contractor should, within fifteen days after notice of their decision, execute a bond, with good and sufficient sureties, for the performance of the modified contract, and the case shows that he executed the modified contract and gave the required bond. By that contract he engaged to manufacture thirty thousand muskets, and the finding of the subordinate court showed that the contract was fulfilled by both parties.

What the court decided in that case was that the claimant voluntarily accepted the modification of the contract as suggested by the commissioners and that he executed the new contract in the place of the one superseded, which new contract he must have understood was intended to define the obligations of all concerned. Beyond all doubt the new contract in that case was substituted for the old one, and the court held that no party, after accepting such a compromise and executing such a discharge, could be justified in claiming damages for a breach of the prior contract which had been voluntarily modified and surrendered.

Other cases to the same effect have been decided by this court. None of those cases, however, proceed upon the ground that such a commission possesses any judicial power to bind the parties by their decision or to give the decision any conclusive effect. Claimants in such cases may appear before the commission or not, as they choose, but the decision is, if they do appear and accept the terms awarded as a final settlement of the controversy, without protest, they must be understood as having precluded themselves from further claim and litigation.

Where a party accepts the amount awarded in such a case it is just to conclude that he acquiesces in the decision of the tribunal by which a part of the claim is rejected as well as in the finding in his favor, but the accounting officers in this case were forbidden by law to allow the claimant anything beyond the amount in his hands as commissary of subsistence, and they obeyed the directions given in the act of Congress. Manifestly the claimant had no opinion upon the subject, and in the opinion of the court it would be an unreasonable construction of the act of Congress to suppose that its framers intended that the claimant should relinquish the large balance found to be due him in consideration of his discharge from arrest and the discontinuance of the suit against him for the recovery of the amount due from him to the United States.

Certain cases from the State reports are referred to which it is supposed assert a different rule, but the court here is of a different opinion.

Suffice it to say that in the case before the court no appropriation whatever was made in favor of the claimant. Where the claim is disputed and an appropriation is made in favor of the claimant for an amount less than the amount claimed, and appropriation purports to be in full payment of the demand, the rule may be different, but it is sufficient to say in response to those authorities that nothing was appropriated in this case, and the accounting officers of the treasury were forbidden to allow anything beyond what was involved in the pending suit against the claimant.

JUDGMENT REVERSED, and the cause remanded with instructions to render JUDGMENT IN FAVOR OF THE PETITIONER for $131,508.90, the amount found to be due him in the findings of the Court of Claims.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY, with whom concurred Justices SWAYNE, DAVIS, and HUNT, dissenting:


text: Talk:Piatt's Administrator v. United States/Opinion of the Court


text:
Piatt's Administrator v. United States/Dissent Bradley

Mr. Justice BRADLEY, with whom concurred Justices SWAYNE, DAVIS, and HUNT, dissenting:

I dissent from the judgment of the court in this case. In my view the case was decided and settled more than fifty years ago. The claim cannot be established without opening that settlement, and declaring that a valid contract was made which had been decided not to be a valid contract, but only a mere claim for some equitable allowance which was in fact made and accepted at that time.

Piatt, the original claimant, was an army contractor in the Northwest during the war of 1812. Becoming embarrassed by not receiving funds from the government, and from the great rise in the prices of provisions, he threatened to throw up his contract; but, the allegation is, that at the request of Mr. Monroe, then acting Secretary of War, and upon his assurances that he should not be the loser, he went on, and furnished supplies to a large amount. For these supplies he claimed a large allowance beyond the amount stipulated in his contract. The petition, after alleging that the officers of the treasury, feeling themselves bound only by what appeared of record in the department, allowed to Piatt, in the settlement of his account for rations furnished after the first day of January, 1815, no more than the original contract price per ration, states further that Piatt then brought his claim before the Secretary of War, Mr. Crawford, who would have settled it on the principles for which Piatt then contended, 'but that, by reason of what the considered countervailing evidence, he had doubts whether such assurances had ever been given.'

Thus it is seen that there were two sides to the question at that early day, when all the events were fresh, and when Mr. Monroe was living at the seat of government, and accessible at any moment.

In 1820, Piatt was arrested for $48,230.77, the balance found due to the government in his accounts, as ascertained by the settlement at the department. He then brought his claim before Congress, and the Judiciary Committee of the Senate reported adversely thereto. But on the 8th of May an act was passed for his relief.

Thereupon his accounts were restated under the provisions of the act; and the officers of the department, after allowing him the sum of $63,620.48 for provisions furnished to friendly Indians and to distressed settlers of Michigan (which was entirely outside of his contract, and was afterwards paid in full), allowed him a credit on the footing of the assurances of Mr. Monroe for $48,230.77, the full amount of the claim for which he had been arrested. He was thereupon discharged from custody on the 25th of July, 1820, and died in February, 1822. The present claim is prosecuted by his representatives.

Upon these facts it seems difficult to resist the conviction that, in the contemplation of both parties (Piatt and the government), this case was then and there forever ended and determined. Between individuals it must necessarily have been so. Had such a disputed and doubtful claim been held by one man against another, and left to arbitration, subject to the condition that no sum should be awarded beyond a certain amount, and had that amount been awarded and accepted, can there be a doubt that the award would have been binding and conclusive? I think not.

The present case is stronger. Congress proposed to allow Piatt a settlement of his claim by the Treasury Department, in which due weight and consideration should be given to the assurances in question, provided that the sum allowed under them should not exceed the amount claimed by the United States against him, and for which suit had been commenced. He accepted the law, had the benefit of the settlement, and was allowed under the assurances the amount named, which justly cancelled the debt for which he was sued and arrested by the government. Thereupon he was discharged. The declaration of Congress thus made binding by the acts of the party that nothing should be allowed against the government on that claim beyond a certain amount named, was equivalent to a solemn adjudication. It amounted to a declaration of the government that it would not suffer itself to be pursued or molested for a greater sum. Can it now be contended that the act of 1855 constituting the Court of Claims, and allowing suits to be brought against the government on contracts made with it, has opened this adjudication-that settlement and determination of the case? In my judgment, certainly not. The act constituting the Court of Claims was not intended to disturb past adjudications and settlements, and to open afresh claims that had been disposed of. The Court of Claims had no right to go behind the final settlement, and attempt to establish the original facts of the case. Its findings of fact, in this respect, were illegal and void. The government has never consented to be sued on this claim, or on any claims similarly situated.

The conclusion of law to which the court came, I think, was correct, and the decree should be affirmed.


text: Talk:Piatt's Administrator v. United States/Dissent Bradley


text:
Robinson v. Elliott

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Indiana; the case, as appeared by bill and demurrer, being thus:

On the 7th of July, 1871, John and Seth Coolidge, brothers, were partners in the retail dry goods trade in Evansville, Indiana, having been thus in business there since the year 1863. On the day just named they owed to a Mrs. Sloan $3174, for money previously borrowed of her to aid them in their business.

They also owed the First National Bank of Evansville $7600, evidenced by seven promissory notes of the firm-all maturing between the 25th of July and the 6th of October of the year 1871 on which one Robinson was then an accommodation indorser; and to secure to Mrs. Sloan the payment of what was due to her and to indemnify Robinson as indorser, they made to them a chattel mortgage upon their stock of goods then in their rented store, including also the furniture and fixtures connected with the same.

The mortgage, after reciting the libaility of the firm to Robinson, on the notes indorsed by him, stated that it was contemplated, that in order to take up the notes, or some of them, it might become necessary to renew the same, or to discount other notes. The recital of the indebtedness to Mrs. Sloan, by note at four months, with interest, was also made with the statement that, if not convenient to the firm to pay it at maturity, it might be renewed from time to time, as the parties should agree.

After these recitals, and that of the mutual understanding of the parties concerning the continuance of the debts, the property was conveyed; the mortgage proceeding thus:'And it is hereby expressly agreed that until default shall be made in the payment of some one of said notes, or some paper in renewal thereof, the parties of the first part may remain in possession of said goods, wares, and merchandise, and may sell the same as heretofore and supply their places with other goods, and the goods substituted by purchase for those sold shall, upon being put into said store or any other store in said city where the same may be put for sale by said parties of the first part, be subjected to the lien of this mortgage.'

The instrument concluded with separate powers to the mortgagees, Robinson and Mrs. Sloan, on default in payment of their respective claims, to seize and sell sufficient goods to satisfy the same.

All the debts owing by the firm at the date of the mortgage, other than those secured by it, have been paid, except $3500 due to one Alfred Coolidge, father of the two partners Coolidge, for borrowed money.

The mortgagors remained in possession of the property, and bought and sold as they had been accustomed to do, from the date of the mortgage, to August 7th, 1873, when Seth Coolidge, one of the partners, died. During this interval of twenty-five months the interest and less than $100 of the principal of Mrs. Sloan's debt was paid, and the interest and about one-third of the principal of the bank debt. The note of Mrs. Sloan's was not renewed, but was overdue about twenty-one months. Robinson continued to indorse for the firm. Immediately after the death of Seth Coolidge the property of the firm, consisting of the old stock, goods subsequently purchased, and debts due the firm, was inventoried and appraised, and found to be very little in excess of the debts owing by the firm. This inventory and appraisement was completed on September 15th, and on the following day Robinson and Mrs. Sloan seized the goods and were about to sell them. However, on the 26th of September and before the ten days required by the terms of the mortgage for notice of sale had expired, proceedings in bankruptcy were begun against the surviving partner, Seth Coolidge, and an injunction was got to stay any sale. Coolidge having been decreed a bankrupt, one Elliott, on the 15th of November, 1873, was appointed his assignee, and demanded the goods from Robinson and Mrs. Sloan. They refused to deliver them to him. Hereupon Robinson and Mrs. Sloan filed a bill against Elliott, setting forth the facts as above given, and praying that an account might be taken of what was due to them, and that the goods might be sold to pay it. Elliott, the assignee, demurred, and the court below sustained the demurrer, and rendered a decree dismissing the bill. Robinson and Mrs. Sloan then brought the case here.

The Statute of Frauds of Indiana makes the following provisions:

'SECTION 10. No assignment of goods by way of mortgage shall be valid against any other person than the parties thereto, when such goods are not delivered to the mortgagee or assignee, and retained by him, unless such assignment or mortgage shall be acknowledged, as provided in cases of deeds of conveyance, and recorded in the recorder's office of the county where the mortgagor resides, within ten days after the execution thereof.

'SECTION 21. The question of fraudulent intent in all cases arising under the provisions of this act, shall be deemed a question of fact, nor shall any conveyance or charge be adjudged fraudulent as against creditors or purchasers solely upon the ground that it was not founded on a valuable consideration.'

Messrs. A. Inglehart and A. L. Robinson, for the appellants:

It is manifest from the tenth and twenty-first sections of the Statute of Frauds of Indiana, that the legislature of that State, while intending to guard against frauds, intended also to permit the use of personal property by way of chattel mortgages as a security for the payment of debts, in the same manner that real estate is used for that purpose, and that questions of fraud, which might arise under the law, should be questions of fact and not of law.

Previous to the enactment of this statute of registration, it was necessary to the validity of chattel mortgages that there should be a manual delivery of the mortgaged property to the mortgagee, who should continue to hold the same in his possession, but under this statute the record of the mortgage is substituted for such delivery, and is full and complete notice to all the world of the rights and interests of the parties.

The questions which present themselves in this case have not, it is true, been fully and clearly determined by the Supreme Court of Indiana. But we submit that the decisions which have been made are all in our favor, and settle these propositions:

1. Where the mortgage has been duly recorded in time, the same is prim a facie valid.

2. Where the mortgage is recorded and contains such a provision as the one in the mortgage here, it is still prim a facie valid, and the question of fraud is a question for the jury. In other words, that there is no such thing recognized in our courts in this class of cases as fraud per se.

3. Where a mortgage is made in terms to include afteracquired property, the mortgage will attach to the property when it is acquired, and will operate as a lien upon it in equity.

The case of Maple v. Burnside would, indeed, seem to have decided the question under consideration. The main question before the court was, whether Maple, the attachment defendant, had sold, conveyed, or otherwise disposed of his property with the intent to cheat, hinder, or delay any of his creditors. The fact of fraud relied on was the making of a chattel mortgage, permitting the mortgagor to remain in possession of the goods, and deal with them as his own.

The court below, among others, gave the following instruction:

'If, after the mortgage was given, the defendant remained in possession of the property mortgaged, after the time named in it, using and trading with the property as the owner, it is a fraud, and you must find for the plaintiff.'

In delivering the opinion of the court, Hanna, J., says:

title: Robinson v. Elliott


text: Talk:Robinson v. Elliott

title: Talk:Robinson v. Elliott


text: Category:United States Department of the Treasury