66); and it would be a monstrous conclusion, that he is to suffer the loss of his property for acts which, in judgment of law, are neither criminal nor illegal. The acts of Collie were not offences against the law of nations, nor crimes or offences under the municipal law of the United States. The United States had no international right to punish him, or affect him with the actual or potential forfeiture, or appropriation, of this property, on account of any thing he did during the hostilities. His acts involved, under the public law, only a certain fixed penalty; and the United States, without transcending their power under the law of nations, and an infraction of their international obligations to him and his sovereign, could not, directly or indirectly, annex to them any other penal consequences whatever.

IV.

In development of the foregoing propositions, we submit the following:

1. Collie is a native-born British subject. Throughout the hostilities, he was domiciled in his own country. His international status was that of a neutral. His cotton, warehoused on land, in Savannah, in December, 1864, was de jure and de facto neutral property. In respect to this cotton, he was not an enemy, de jure or de facto, in any sense known to publicists. If captured at sea, independently of breach of blockade, it could not have been confiscated, in a prize court, as actually or constructively the property of an enemy of the United States. The Venus, 8 Cranch, 253; Twiss, Law of Nations, War, 300.

2. The act of March 12, 1863, is to be so interpreted and applied, as far as its language admits, as not to be inconsistent with the comity of nations, or the established rules of international law, as understood in this country. All general terms must be narrowed in construction so as to harmonize the statute with the public law. The Charming Betsy, 2 Cranch, 64; United States v. Fisher, id. 358; Talbot v. Seeman, 1 id. 1; Maxwell on Statutes, 122; Queen v. Keyn, Law Rep. 2 Ex. D. 63, 85, 210.

3. The subjects of neutral States were entitled, under the

public law, to stand, with respect to their captured property, upon the same footing, at least, with the inhabitants of the hostile territory, who, in judgment of law, were public enemies of the United States. The Prize Cases, 2 Black, 687; Mrs. Alexander's Cotton, 2 Wall. 419. It was not competent, therefore, for the United States, while providing for the restoration of the captured property of the latter, to appropriate like property of the former. Such discrimination would be a breach of the comity of nations, and a violation of the established principles of international law. The act of March 12, 1863, must be so construed, if possible, as to avoid such a result.

4. By the operation of that statute, and the proclamations of pardon and amnesty, as they have been given effect by this court, the United States have restored, or provided for the restoration of, the proceeds of the captured property of their enemies, rebel-enemies, and traitors in the late civil war. If, therefore, this court should finally declare that the United States have, in effect, discriminated, by this legislation, against the subjects or citizens of friendly foreign States, whose property fell under the operation of the Captured Property Act, it would be for their governments to enforce their rights by international reclamation against the United States. Rutherford's Institutes, vol. ii. bk. 2, c. 9, sect. 19; Wheaton's Life of Pinkney, pp. 193, 372; 2 Phill. Int. Law, 4 et seq.; Lamar v. Browne, 92 U. S. 187.

5. The modern public law discountenances and condemns as barbarous the capture and appropriation, as booty of war, of private commercial property, warehoused on land, in territory, like the city of Savannah in December, 1864, in the firm and safe occupation, control, and government of the invading belligerent. 1 Kent, Com. 92; Twiss, Law of Nations, War, sects. 64, 65; Mr. Dana's note on Distinction between Enemy's Property at Sea and on Land, Wheaton, p. 451, also p. 439; Bluntschli, Le Droit International Codif., sect. 656; Ortolan, Diplomatie de la Mer, liv. iii. c. 2.

6. This court has said that Congress recognized in this statute the enlightened maxims of the modern public law in regard to the immunity of private property on land from capture as hooty of war, and that these captures were made, not for

booty, but to cripple the enemy. United States v. Padelford, 9 Wall. 531; United States v. Klein, 13 id. 128; Haycraft v. United States, 22 id. 81. The statute, in this view, has been expressly held to be a remedial statute, "requiring such a liberal construction as will give effect to the beneficent intention of Congress." United States v. Padelford, supra. It must receive, therefore, in every case, such an equitable interpretation as will prevent a failure of the remedy. 1 Kent, Com. 465.

7. This court cannot now decide that the capture worked a confiscation of this property, and divested absolutely the title and interest of the owner, without overruling all it has ever said in regard to this species of property. The solemn and explicit language of the court is, "that the title to the proceeds of property which came to the possession of the government by capture, with the exceptions already noticed, was in no case divested out of the original owner." United States v. Klein,

supra.

8. The status of this species of property was absolutely determined by the will of Congress, as expressed in the act of March 12, 1863. Brown v. United States, 8 Cranch, 110. And the adjudicated law of this court is, that the proceeds of property taken into the custody of public officers, under that act, were impressed with a trust in favor of the former owners, and that the remedy provided for their recovery was granted, therefore, not as a matter of favor, but in performance of a duty devolving upon the government. Upon all sound principles of interpretation, therefore, the most liberal construction must be placed upon the grant of the remedy of which the words of the statute are susceptible. Vattel, bk. 2, c. 17, sect. 307.

9. The manifest policy and purpose of the statute were to impose a disability to reclaim and recover the proceeds of this species of property upon those only who committed the municipal offence of treason, or of giving aid or comfort to the rebellion, as defined by the statutes of the United States. The distinction meant to be made was between those whom the rules of international law classed as enemies; and those only who violate their allegiance were intended to be affected

with the statutory disability. Mrs. Alexander's Cotton, 2 Wall. 404.

10. The words of the third section of the act of 1863, under consideration, are words of technical signification in the jurisprudence of the United States, and import the political crime of treason as known to the criminal law of the country. 2 Burr's Trial, 401; United States v. Greathouse et al., 4 Sawyer, 472; United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76; United States v. Palmer, 3 id. 610; Carlisle v. United States, 16 Wall. 117. The claimant never committed this or any other criminal offence against the United States. He never, therefore, gave "aid or comfort to the rebellion," within the meaning of the statute.

11. This court, in a long line of solemn adjudications, has, in effect, declared that the interpretation we place upon these words is the true one, and that those only who were amenable to the laws of the United States prescribing punishment for treason and for giving aid and comfort to the rebellion, and violated those laws, are to be deemed affected by this statutory penal disability. The court has construed the statute as a penal fulmination against those who were guilty of participation in the treason of the rebellion. The disability has been adjudged to be directly annexed to the offence of giving aid and comfort to the rebellion, and as a penalty for that offence; otherwise it could never have been held removable by pardon, so as to give the pardoned claimant a standing in the Court of Claims. Mrs. Alexander's Cotton, United States v. Padelford, United States v. Klein, Carlisle v. United States, supra; Armstrong v. United States, 13 Wall. 154; Pargoud v. United States, id. 156.

12. Upon no other view, as applied to the subjects of foreign States, is the statute conformable to the principles of international law, the rules of natural justice, or the general doctrines of the municipal jurisprudence of the United States and other civilized nations. The United States had no international right to subject citizens of foreign States, not amenable to their jurisdiction, to the treatment received by their domestic criminals.

V.

If it shall be held that the claimant has been excluded from the benefits of the act of March 12, 1863, by reason or on account of his acts during the war, such exclusion can be regarded in no other light than as a punishment for such acts, and thus constitutes them, however wrongfully, offences against the United States. It was competent for the President to relieve him from such punishment, and he did so by his proclamation of general amnesty of Dec. 25, 1868. 15 Stat. 712.

The power of the President to pardon is coextensive with that of Congress to punish, and includes as well the remission of penalties and forfeitures, as the removal of disabilities annexed to the commission of offences against the United States. United States v. Wilson, 7 Pet. 150; Ex parte Wells, 18 How. 307.

Mr. Attorney-General Devens and Mr. Assistant-AttorneyGeneral Smith, contra.

I.

While conceding the recognition of belligerent rights as belonging to both parties during the late civil war, we do not overlook the important qualification that the United States did not, by recognition of the insurgents as belligerents, abridge any of its sovereign powers, but merely waived their assertion as to persons engaged in rebellion.

Because of this state of belligerency, the United States possessed the right of capture. The seizure of this cotton was an exercise of it. Haycraft v. United States, 22 Wall. 81.

Legislation did not confer, but only modified, this right. Smith v. Brazleton, 1 Heisk. (Tenn.) 59-61; Price v. Poynter, 1 Bush, 388-395; Mrs. Alexander's Cotton, 2 Wall. 419, 420; The Prize Cases, 2 Black, 671; Brown v. United States, 8 Cranch, 122, 123, 149–151, 154; Upton, Mar. Warf. (1861), 87; No. Am. Rev. for April, 1872, 399; Planters' Bank v. Union Bank, 16 Wall. 483; Coolidge v. Guthrie, 8 Am. Law