Citizenship of Rebel Enemies. and the law. Such obedience to and observance of law will maintain peace when it exists, and will soonest relieve the country from the abnormal state of war. My conclusion, therefore, is, that if the persons who are charged with the assassination of the President committed the deed as public enemies, as I believe they did, and whether they did or not is a question to be decided by the tribunal before which they are tried, they not only can, but ought to be tried before a military tribunal. If the persons charged have offended against the laws of war, it would be as palpably wrong for the military to hand them over to the civil courts, as it would be wrong in a civil court to convict a man of murder who had, in time of war, killed another in battle. I am, sir, very respectfully, The PRESIDENT. Your obedient servant, JAMES SPEED. CITIZENSHIP OF REBEL ENEMIES. Citizens of the United States who resigned commissions in the navy of the United States and entered the rebel service did not lose their citizenship by becoming traitors, and if otherwise qualified, are competent to be officers of vessels of the United States. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, SIR: I have the honor to say, in reply to your letter of the 7th instant, that, in my opinion, if the two persons to whom you refer as having resigned commissions in the naval service of the United States, and accepted employment in the rebel naval service, were born in the United States, or, if born in a foreign country, were or have been naturalized as citizens of the United States, are, if otherwise qualified, competent, according to the act of June 28, 1864, to be officers of vessels of the United States. Sales for Direct Taxes. If they were citizens before they engaged in the rebellion they did not lose their citizenship by becoming traitors. They became liable to suffer the pains and penalties which the law inflicts upon convicted traitors; but I am not aware that forfeiture of citizenship is one of the pains and penalties. Belonging, as they do, according to the statement in your letter, to certain classes of traitors who have not been pardoned by the President, they are liable, at any time, to be tried, convicted, and punished for their treason. Their conduct, and associations also, impressed upon them the qualified character of enemies, but did not destroy their inherent character as citizens, which, by birth or otherwise, they acquired. I am, sir, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, JAMES SPEED. Hon. HUGH MCCULLOCH, Secretary of the Treasury. SALES FÖR DIRECT TAXES. Property cannot lawfully be sold for direct taxes while in the custody of the marshal under proceedings for confiscation. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, August 14, 1865. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2d of August, wherein you ask me: 1st. Are sales of property made by direct tax commissioner, under the act of June 7, 1862, pending proceedings for the confiscation of such property, null and void, by reason of the existence of the proceedings for confiscations? 2d. If such sales are null and void, has the Secretary of the Treasury any power under the law to order the refunding of the money received for such property at the tax sales? Barrow Cotton. When proceedings are instituted for the confiscation of property, it is seized by the Government, and taken into the actual possession of the marshal. Prima facie, it is the property of the Government, and cannot be sold by any other officer, whilst it is thus in the marshal's possession. A sale by the tax commissioner of property legally in the custody of the Government, and which it claims title to, must therefore be null and void. If the money paid by the purchaser at the tax sale has gone into the treasury, it cannot be drawn out except in pursuance of some act of appropriation. I am, sir, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, Hon. HUGH MCCULLOCH, Secretary of the Treasury. JAMES SPEED. BARROW COTTON. 1. There is no legal distinction between the case of the cotton claimed by David Barrow and the case of the Savannah cotton. 2. The criterion of a case of "captured" property within the meaning of the act of March 12, 1863, is the fact of actual and hostile seizure. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, August 14, 1865. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th instant, transmitting the petition and proofs in the matter of the claim of David Barrow for the proceeds of the sale of one hundred and eighty-eight bales of cotton seized by the United States forces, commanded by General Sherman, in the State of Mississippi, and requesting me to say whether the claim is within the scope of the opinion which I gave your Department recently in the case of the cotton captured at Savannah. The cotton, the proceeds of which you are requested to restore to Mr. Barrow, was seized in August, 1863, by Barrow Cotton. United States troops, on a plantation belonging to the claimant in Hines county, Mississippi. It appears that the claimant never resided on this plantation, and that at the time of the seizure, and previously thereto, he was domiciled in Louisiana, and engaged in the cultivation of his plantation in that State. I see no reason to doubt his ownership of the plantation in Mississippi, or of the cotton taken from it by our troops. It appears that on the 17th of September, 1863, about a month after the property was seized, he took an oath of allegiance to the United States, at Baton Rouge, but it does not appear that previously to the taking of the oath he was engaged, in arms or otherwise, in aiding or encouraging the rebellion. I do not mean to say that I discover strong affirmative proof showing that he never aided or encouraged the rebellion, but simply that the evidence contained in the papers before me does not affirmatively show active disloyalty on his part. I presume that he must be accorded the benefit of the doubt. The plantation and the cotton in question. seem to have been in the possession of his duly constituted agents at the time of the visit of the forces under General Sherman. They were present on the plantation and in the possession of the cotton, and engaged otherwise in the discharge of their duties when this seizure was made. I do not see, therefore, that the evidence before me would . support an allegation that the present cotton was "abandoned" property in the sense of the act of July 2, 1864. The cotton seems to have been transported by the military persons who seized it to Vicksburg, and by them shipped to a Treasury agent at Cincinnati, Ohio, who rereceived and sold it, pursuant to the statute of March 12, 1863, and who now holds, I presume, the proceeds of the sale. This is the outline of the case, as it is presented in the papers before me, and I must confess my inability to perceive any legal distinction between the facts of the present case and those of the case of the Savannah cotton, on which I have already pronounced my opinion. It is clearly a Barrow Cotton. case of "captured " property, within the meaning of the act of 1863, as I endeavored to interpret it in my former opinion. The question is not whether the property was liable to capture under the general public law, or any municipal law, but the criterion is the fact of actual and hostile seizure. That fact is as conspicuous in this case as in the case of the cotton captured at Savannah by General Sherman. All the affidavits concur in stating that the property was actually and hostilely seized and taken out of the possession of the owner by a military force operating belligerently in an insurrectionary State. The character of the owner and the quality of the property, whether public or private, whether surrounded by suspicious circumstances or palpably free from any cloud of suspicion, either as to ownership or intended use, are circumstances which do not legally enter, in my opinion, into the consideration of the present question. The fact not only appears that the present property was "captured," in the sense of the statute, but also that it came into the custody of a Treasury agent, and was sold by him in that character. The proceeds in his hands are, therefore, the proceeds of captured property, which was "received and collected" by a duly authorized agent of the Treasury, and in respect to the money realized by the sale of the property, the mandate of the statute must be obeyed. The statutory command is that the proceeds of the sales of all property in this predicament "shall be paid into the treasury of the United States." I am clear that the present case should be ruled by the doctrines announced in my previous opinion. I am, sir, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, 1 Hon. HUGH MCCULLOCH, Secretary of the Treasury. vol. xi.-21 JAMES SPEED. |