1. Where, under the Confiscation Act of August 6, 1861, after a
libel showing a case within the act, an amended libel sets out a
case which shows that there can be no confiscation under the act,
both libel and amended libel should be dismissed.
2. The process prescribed by the Confiscation Acts cannot, by
the union of certain claimants of land proceeded against with the
United States otherwise than as informers, be made the means by
which the conflicting titles to the land between such person and
other claimants shall be settled.
3. Where land was sold to the so-called "Confederate States"
during the rebellion, and was captured by the United States, it
became on the extinction of the Confederacy and without further
proceeding, the property of the United States, and could be
properly sold by them.
4. Such sale rendered any proceeding against the persons who
owned the land prior to sale to the "Confederate States," wholly
improper.
5. Where the agents of the said Confederacy came to persons
owning iron works and informed them that they must either contract
to furnish iron at a uniform price or lease or sell the works to
the Confederacy or that they would be impressed, and the owners --
then much in debt -- after consultation -- the works being already
in charge of a guard from the Confederacy, which possessed despotic
power over skillful laborers -- considering that to "contract"
would cause a failure of their scheme and to lease would be
ruinous, resolved to sell.
held that such a sale was not
made under duress.
6. Where a subordinate court which had no jurisdiction in the
case has given judgment for the plaintiff or defendant or
improperly decreed affirmative relief to a claimant, an appellate
court must reverse. It is not enough to dismiss the suit.
In the year 1862, soon after the outbreak of the late rebellion,
one C. C. Huckabee and three other persons formed under the general
laws of Alabama a corporation called "The Bibb County Iron
Company," Huckabee being president and the other corporators
directors and, with him, the only stockholders. As the name of the
corporation indicates, its object was the working in iron, its
particular machinery being such as made it capable of manufacturing
cannon and other munitions of war. Rolling mills were erected and
lands, slaves, and mules bought.
Page 83 U. S. 415
When the company had thus got fairly going, the rebel government
sent one of its officers to Huckabee, the president, requiring him
and the corporation to make a contract with the Confederacy to
deliver iron to it at a uniform price named. [The iron had been
furnished at the price named, for some time before this, but no
formal contract to furnish it uniformly at that price existed.]
Huckabee refused to make any such contract. Finally, being sent for
again by the agents of the rebel government, he was told that the
agreement under which the iron was then furnished was not a
contract, and that he must make a contract. He then consulted with
his stockholders, and the result was that the company refused to
make any contract. He was then sent for a third time, and told that
the company must either contract on government terms, or lease the
works, or sell them to the Confederate States, and that otherwise
the works would be impressed. The company resolved, after some
weeks consideration, to sell. The influences which operated on the
owners, according to the statement of Huckabee, the president, were
these:
"We owed a large amount of money, about $300,000, and our debts
were increasing. We knew that if we
contracted, we could
not pay our debts and get back our capital. To
lease would
have been ruinous; and as we had been informed that if we did not
either contract, lease, or sell, the works would be impressed, we
regarded it best to sell. I cannot say that there could not have
been other reasons influencing the minds of other corporators than
myself to join in the resolution authorizing the sale."
It appeared that during most of the time that the iron company
had been in operation, a guard from the rebel army had been in
control of it, so far as to see that it sent no iron away except to
the rebel authorities. And moreover that the rebel powers possessed
an almost despotic power over the whole body of skillful laborers
in the region.
The sale was made, and a deed executed under the corporate seal
and the hands of the president and all the other
corporators, three in number, September 13th, 1863. The
Page 83 U. S. 416
consideration was $600,000, Confederate money, which was duly
paid, and after a discharge of the corporate debts, divided among
the stockholders; the persons who had executed the deed.
Confederate money was at this time worth one-fourteenth of the same
amount in federal money.
The deed recited that at a meeting of all the stockholders held
on September 9, 1863, it was resolved unanimously that the
president be authorized, for the sum of $600,000, to sell to the
Confederate States all lands, negroes, mules &c., and to
execute deeds of
warranty, and that the party of the
second part agreed to pay the said sum for the said property,
provided the
said stockholders united in the conveyance.
The deed contained full covenants of warranty. More than a month
subsequently to its date, to-wit, on the 25th November, 1863, it
was acknowledged before the probate judge, as having been
"executed voluntarily on the day of its date."
The Confederate government from that time managed the works,
casting great quantities of cannon, shell, shot, and other
implements of war, which were used to maintain the rebellion.
In March, 1865, the property was captured by the government
army. It remained for a short time under the military forces, and
was then taken possession of by the Treasury Department as captured
and abandoned property, and the rebel confederacy having become now
extinct, on the 3d of February, 1866, after public notice, was sold
for $45,000 to Francis Lyon, for himself and others, by the
Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned
Lands, under the authority of the President and Secretary of the
Treasury. Prior to the sale, Lyon went to Huckabee and asked him if
the title was good. He said he believed it was, and declined a
suggestion of Lyon to take part in the contemplated purchase (which
he said he would like to do), because he had not the money at the
time. The sale having been made, the money was paid and a deed
executed. The sale was confirmed by act of Congress, approved
December 15, 1866, which "released and confirmed to the
Page 83 U. S. 417
said Lyon any interest which the United States had in the land
described."
Prior to all this -- that is to say, on the 1st of October,
1865, the District Attorney of the United States, describing
himself as "prosecuting for the United States and an informer," had
exhibited an information in the District Court for the Middle
District of Alabama (in which the property was), against it
(describing it), "said to belong to the late so-called Confederate
States of America," and praying process to enforce the seizure,
condemnation, and confiscation of the same.
This proceeding was made under the Act of August 6, 1861, which
enacts that if, during the then existing rebellion,
"Any person or persons . . . shall purchase, or acquire, sell,
or give any property . . . with intent to use or employ the same,
or suffer the same to be used and employed in aiding, abetting, or
promoting such insurrection or resistance to the laws, or any
person or persons engaged therein, or if any person or persons
being the owner or owners of any such property, shall knowingly use
or employ, or consent to the use or employment of the same as
aforesaid, all such property is hereby declared to be lawful
subject of prize and capture wherever found, and it shall be the
duty of the President of the United States to cause the same to be
seized, confiscated, and condemned."
"The Attorney General or any district attorney of the United
States in which said property may at the time be, may institute the
proceedings of condemnation, and in such case they shall be wholly
for the benefit of the United States; or any person may file an
information with such attorney, in which case the proceedings shall
be for the use of
such informer and the United States in equal
parts."
Things stood in this way from October 1, 1865, when this
information was filed, till the 30th of May, 1866, when Lyon and
his co-purchasers were in possession. On that day, Huckabee and his
co-corporators in the old Bibb County Iron Company appeared as
claimants of the property against which the information had been
filed, asserting that they and no other persons were "the true and
legal
Page 83 U. S. 418
owners" of it, and that the property had not been knowingly used
and employed with the consent of the owners in aiding, abetting,
and promoting the rebellion, but, on the contrary thereof, that the
said property was built with the money and labor of them, the said
respondents, and for their sole use, and was never
voluntarily employed in the way alleged. They set up also
that they had all been pardoned for all participation in the
rebellion.
On the 24th of October, 1866, the Assistant Attorney General of
the United States wrote from Washington to the District Attorney in
Alabama to
dismiss the proceedings in confiscation
instituted by him, the property having been sold to Mr. Lyon by the
Commissioner of the Freedman's Bureau,
"unless Mr. Lyon should prefer that,
for the purpose of
securing and perfecting the title, be should desire them to be
continued for his own use and benefit; and
in that case the
proceedings will be carried on in the name of the United States, at
the cost and charges of Mr. Lyon."
Soon after this -- that is to say on the 26th of November, 1866,
and obviously with a view of carrying out the suggestion of
securing and perfecting the title in Lyon, Lyon and his
co-purchasers came forward, and were made defendants. They set out
the original ownership of "The Bibb County Iron Company," the sale
by it to the Confederate States, with the full knowledge of the
purpose to which the property was to be applied, the capture, in
March, 1865, of the property by the federal army, and the
subsequent sale and conveyance, by authority of the United States,
to them.
An amended information was also filed, setting out pretty much
what was in the original one, but setting out in addition the
capture of the property by the forces of the United States and
the sale and conveyance by the government to Lyon and his
co-purchasers, the Act of Congress confirming it, all fully and in
form, but still asking process of seizure, condemnation, and
confiscation as before. [
Footnote
1]
Lyon answered this amended information, setting out the
Page 83 U. S. 419
history down to his deed, a copy of the deed, and a copy of the
Act of Congress confirming his title.
Huckabee and his co-corporators also answered this amended
libel, setting up that
"the so-called Confederate States were not a legal government,
but existed by mere force and compulsion, and that it therefore
never had any capacity under the laws of the United States or under
the law of nations to acquire the title to lands;"
setting up also that the deed given was executed under
duress.
In this state of things, the case came on for hearing, when the
district court dismissed the libel and amended libel and made a
decree vesting the property in Huckabee and his ancient
co-corporators or their assigns. From that decree the United States
and Lyon and his co-purchasers appealed.
Page 83 U. S. 424
MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
Pleadings, in informations for seizures upon land or for
confiscation of property, as well as in causes of admiralty or
maritime jurisdiction, or in actions at law, or suits in equity,
are governed by certain well established rules of practice, which
require that the allegations shall correspond with the facts as
proved, and that the information, as in the case of a libel,
declaration, or bill of complaint, if filed in a federal court,
shall show that the court has jurisdiction of the cause of action.
[
Footnote 2] Proper parties in
all cases are also required, and in all cases, except where there
is a setoff or cross-action, the damages or relief sought, if the
cause of action is sustained, should be adjudged and awarded to the
party promoting the suit and not to a stranger; and if the cause of
action is not sustained, the judgment or decree should be for the
opposite party, whether respondent or defendant.
Laws were passed by Congress at the commencement of the late
rebellion, to prevent combinations to oppose the laws of the United
States, and to provide for the confiscation of property used in the
insurrection, and to that end all
Page 83 U. S. 425
persons were forbidden by an act of Congress to
"purchase or acquire, sell or give any property, of whatsoever
kind or description, with intent to use or employ the same or
suffer the same to be used or employed in aiding, abetting, or
promoting such insurrection or resistance to the laws, or any
person or persons engaged therein,"
and the provision was that if any person, being the owner of any
such property, shall knowingly use or employ or consent to the use
or employment of the same as aforesaid, all such property shall be
the lawful subject of prize and capture wherever found, and it was
made the duty of the President to cause the same to be seized,
confiscated, and condemned. [
Footnote 3]
Pursuant to that act, the district attorney exhibited an
information against a certain tract of land, therein described,
containing three thousand six hundred acres, with the improvements
thereon, known as the Bibb County Iron Works, which belonged to the
late Confederate States, and which, as he alleges, had been
previously seized by the marshal under an order of seizure duly
issued, and he also alleges that the property had, for several
years, been knowingly used and employed by the owners, or with
their consent, in aiding, abetting, and promoting the late
insurrection and rebellion, and in aiding, abetting, and promoting
persons engaged in the insurrection, rebellion, and resistance to
the laws and authority of the United States, and that the property,
during those years, had been knowingly used and employed by the
owners, or with their consent, as a place for the mining and
manufacturing of iron ore into all kinds of machinery and
implements for military purposes by persons engaged in armed
rebellion and resistance to the laws and public authorities,
contrary to the statute in such case made and provided. Service was
made and the present defendants appeared and claimed to be the true
and lawful owners of the property, and they deny in separate and
distinct articles in the answer every material allegation of the
information. Apart from that, they also allege that they have
severally
Page 83 U. S. 426
received special pardon and full amnesty from the President for
all past offenses connected with the late war of the rebellion, and
that they respectively have fully complied with all the terms and
conditions of the several pardons, and therefore that the property
should be restored to them as the rightful owners.
Prior to the rebellion, the property in question was owned by a
corporation known as the Bibb County Iron Company, and it appears
that the present plaintiffs, at this stage of the litigation,
entered their appearance in the suit, and being admitted to become
parties and make claim, they alleged that the property belongs to
them as the joint owners of the same; that the original owners sold
the property to the late Confederate States for the sum of six
hundred thousand dollars and then and there received payment in
full for the same, and executed to the grantees a title deed of the
premises with full covenants of warranty, and that the purchasers
took full possession of the property with all the appurtenances
appertaining to the same; and they also aver that the grantors were
fully advised of the objects and purposes for which the property
was purchased, which were to furnish the grantee with iron to be
used in manufacturing arms and munitions of war to be used in
prosecuting the rebellion, and that the same was held, used,
occupied, and enjoyed by the grantees as the undisputed owners
until the same was captured by our military forces, having been
used throughout that period as the efficient means of furnishing
iron for arms, cannon-balls, and shells; that the property was
subsequently captured from the Confederate States by our military
forces and was put up and sold at public auction by the Assistant
Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned
Lands, who was authorized and lawfully empowered to sell and convey
the same in that manner, and that the plaintiff claimants, or one
of them, in behalf of himself and the others, became he purchasers
for the sum of forty-five thousand dollars, that being the highest
and best bid made for the same, and that the said commissioner,
being thereto duly authorized by the President and
Page 83 U. S. 427
Secretary of the Treasury, conveyed the property to the
plaintiff claimants.
Beyond doubt, those allegations were entirely inconsistent with
the theory of the original information, as they show that the
property, at the time the information was filed, was vested in the
grantees of the United States, by virtue of a deed duly executed,
and given for a valuable consideration paid by the purchasers, who,
it is admitted, have never committed any such acts of forfeiture as
those charged in the information. Allegations of the kind, however,
are not sufficient without proof to oust the jurisdiction of the
court. But the district attorney subsequently filed an amended
information, and he also alleges that the property was captured
from the Confederate States, and that the same was seized by order
of the President, and that it was, by his order and that of the
Secretary of the Treasury, sold to the highest bidder as captured
property belonging to the United States, and that the same was
purchased, as aforesaid, by the plaintiff claimants for the sum
stated in the claim of the grantees. Such an averment in the
information is sufficient proof of the fact, as against the
prosecutor, especially as he confirms the allegation by referring
to the Act of Congress, which provides that "any interest which the
United States have in the lands described in the deed . . . be and
the same is hereby released and confirmed to the said grantees."
[
Footnote 4]
Absolute condemnation of the property to the United States was
claimed in the first pleading, but the district attorney
substantially admits in the amended information that no such decree
can be entered, as he avers that the property is liable to
condemnation, in confirmation of the title of the grantees under
the United States, which would be a proceeding wholly without
precedent in the jurisprudence of the United States.
Responsive to that, the present defendants filed an amended
answer excepting to the amended information; because it
Page 83 U. S. 428
appears that the United States have no longer any interest in
the prosecution, as they have released their right in the property
to the other claimants, and because the jurisdiction of the court
is ousted as relates to the property sought to be condemned.
It also appears that C. C. Huckabee, one of the present
defendants, filed a separate answer in which he alleges that he is
the sole owner of a certain described portion of the lands
mentioned in the information; and he also avers that the deed
conveying the same to the Confederate States which he and his
associates gave was executed under duress and in obedience to the
commands of an unlawful power which neither he nor they could
resist, and that the deed is void on that account; and he denies
that the lands were ever captured by our military forces or that
the lands were ever seized under any warrant of seizure, as alleged
in the information. Hearing was had upon the merits before the
court, the parties having waived a jury and filed a stipulation to
that effect. Witnesses were examined and other proofs were
introduced, and the court entered a decree dismissing both the
original and the amended informations.
Such a decree is usually regarded as exhausting the jurisdiction
of the court, except in maritime cases, where there is a fund in
the registry of the court to be restored to the rightful owner, but
the court in this case proceeded to adjudge and decree that the
claim of C. C. Huckabee, one of the defendants, be allowed and
sustained to certain rights and privileges therein mentioned,
including all the timber on a described portion of the lands, and
the right of cutting and transporting the same, and that the title
to the said described lands be adjudged to be in the said claimant,
and that the marshal restore the possession of the said lands to
the said claimant, and that the claim of all the defendants be
sustained and allowed to another described portion of the lands in
controversy, including also the right to the timber for certain
purposes, and to the iron ore in certain described localities; and
it was also adjudged and decreed that the
Page 83 U. S. 429
present plaintiffs, except the United States, should pay the
costs of the suit. Exceptions were taken by the present plaintiffs
to the rulings of the court and to the decree, and they sued out
the present writ of error.
Evidence of the most satisfactory character, consisting of the
deed signed by the corporation and by the several defendants, who
owned all of the stock of the company, was introduced by the United
States to show that the lands and improvements in question were
conveyed by the original owners to the Confederate States, and that
the purchasers paid to the grantors the agreed consideration of six
hundred thousand dollars, and it appeared that they entered into
full possession of the premises and used and employed the lands and
improvements for the purposes alleged in the amended information.
Equally satisfactory evidence was also introduced by the United
States to show that the entire property was captured by our
military forces during the war of the rebellion and that the whole
premises were sold under the orders of the President, as alleged,
and that the same were conveyed by the commissioner who conducted
the sale for the consideration of forty-five thousand dollars to
the plaintiff claimants, or to one of them, for his benefit and
that of his associates.
Subsequent to the capture by our military forces, the possession
of the lands and improvements was continued in the United States
until the sale and conveyance by the said commissioner to the
present grantees on the third of February, 1866, at which time they
received possession of the premises from the commissioner, and have
continued in possession of the same to the present time, under an
absolute deed from the commissioner, conveying to the grantees all
the right, title, and interest which the United States had in the
property at the time of the sale and conveyance, which conveyance
has since been confirmed by an act of Congress. [
Footnote 5]
Four principal grounds are assumed by the present defendants
Page 83 U. S. 430
in support of the decree dismissing the informations, and the
supplemental decree granting affirmative relief to the present
defendants:
(1) That private persons, other than mere informers, cannot join
with the United States in prosecuting an information for the
confiscation of property, nor can the United States prosecute such
a suit for the mere purpose of confirming the title of a third
party.
(2) That the jurisdiction of the court was ousted by the sale
and conveyance of the property to the grantees in the deed from the
said commissioner, it also appearing that the conveyance was
subsequently confirmed by an act of Congress.
(3) That the property was not subject to capture by our military
forces, as the deed from the original owners to the Confederate
States was void, having been executed by the owners of the property
under duress.
(4) That if the grantees under the United States have a good
title, then the court below had no jurisdiction of the case, as
they have, if disturbed in their possession, a plain, adequate, and
complete remedy at law.
Enough appears in the act of Congress forbidding the owners of
property to use and employ it or to suffer it to be used and
employed for such a purpose, with their consent, to show that the
first objection is well taken, as it is made the duty of the
President to cause the same to be seized, confiscated, and
condemned, and the provision is that the proceedings for
condemnation may be instituted by the attorney-general or by the
district attorney of the proper district, and that the proceedings
instituted by those officers "shall be wholly for the benefit of
the United States;" nor is the force of the objection in any degree
obviated by the fact that the same section of the act provides that
any person may file an information with one of those officers and
that, in that state of the case, "the proceedings shall be for the
use of such informer and the United States in equal parts," as it
is clear that the latter clause of the section affords no support
to the theory that private persons, other than an informer, may
join with the United States in prosecuting
Page 83 U. S. 431
such an information, or that the United States may prosecute
such a suit for the mere purpose of confirming the title of a third
party. [
Footnote 6]
Informations of the kind should propound in distinct articles
the causes of forfeiture, and should aver that the same are
contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided,
and the rule is that inasmuch as the information is in the nature
of a criminal proceeding, the allegations must conform strictly to
the statute upon which it is founded, which is sufficient to show
that the theory of the amended information cannot be sustained.
[
Footnote 7]
2. Property owned by the United States certainly is not subject
to confiscation under the information in this case, and inasmuch as
it appears that the property was seized, sold, and conveyed by the
order of the President, as alleged in the amended information, and
that the conveyance so made has been confirmed by an act of
Congress, the second objection must also be sustained, as it must
be assumed, in view of what is alleged in the information and fully
proved, that the property at the time of the sale and conveyance
belonged to the United States.
3. Duress, it must be admitted, is a good defense to a deed, or
any other written obligation, if it be proved that the instrument
was procured by such means; nor is it necessary to show, in order
to establish such a defense, that actual violence was used, because
consent is the very essence of a contract, and if there be
compulsion there is no binding consent, and it is well settled that
moral compulsion, such as that produced by threats to take life or
to inflict great bodily harm, as well as that produced by
imprisonment, is sufficient in legal contemplation to destroy free
agency, without which there can be no contract, because in that
state of the case
Page 83 U. S. 432
there is no consent. [
Footnote
8] Unlawful duress is a good defense to a contract if it
includes such degree of constraint or danger, either actually
inflicted or threatened and impending, as is sufficient in severity
or apprehension to overcome the mind and will of a person of
ordinary firmness. [
Footnote 9]
Decided cases may be found which deny that contracts procured by
menace of a mere battery to the person, or of trespass to lands, or
loss of goods, can be avoided on that account, as such threats it
is said are not of a nature to overcome the will of a firm and
prudent man; but many other decisions of high authority adopt a
more liberal rule, and hold that contracts procured by threats of
battery to the person, or of destruction of property, may be
avoided by proof of such facts, because, in such a case, there is
nothing but the form of a contract without the substance. [
Footnote 10] Positive menace of
battery to the person, or of trespass to lands, or of destruction
of goods, may undoubtedly be, in many cases, sufficient to overcome
the mind and will of a person entirely competent, in all other
respects, to contract, and it is clear that a contract made under
such circumstances, is as utterly without the voluntary consent of
the party menaced, as if he were induced to sign it by actual
violence; nor is the reason assigned for the more stringent rule,
that he should rely upon the law for redress, satisfactory, as the
law may not afford him anything like a sufficient and adequate
compensation for the injury. [
Footnote 11] Much discussion of the topic, however, is
unnecessary, as the record does not exhibit any sufficient
evidence, in either point of view, to support such a defense or to
warrant the court in finding for the defendants upon any such
ground, which is all that need be said upon the subject, as it is
obvious that that objection cannot be sustained. [
Footnote 12]
Page 83 U. S. 433
4. Argument to show that the court below had no jurisdiction of
the case if the plaintiff claimants had a good title to the
premises is hardly necessary, as both the pleadings and evidence
show that they were in the possession of the lands and improvements
when the prosecution was commenced. Sufficient has been remarked to
show that their title is a good one as against the United States,
and it is quite clear that the present defendants do not have any
such standing in the pleadings in this information as to give them
the right to call it in question, as the suit is one in the name
and for the benefit of the United States. [
Footnote 13] Such being the character of the
suit, the mistake of the district attorney in supposing that it
might be prosecuted to confirm the title of the plaintiff claimants
cannot have the effect to give the court any jurisdiction of the
case, much less to give the court jurisdiction to determine that
the title to the premises is in the defendants and to eject the
plaintiffs, holding under the United States, and to decree that the
possession of the lands and improvements shall be delivered to the
defendants. What the district attorney expected to accomplish by
continuing to prosecute the information after the seizure and sale
of the property by the United States is not perfectly certain,
unless he supposed the court might treat the information as one in
the nature of a bill in equity to remove a cloud upon the title of
the grantees under the United States, arising from the pretense of
the present defendants that the deed which they executed to the
Confederate States was void as having been procured by duress.
Concede that, still it is evident that it was an attempt to
accomplish what the court under such a pleading had no jurisdiction
to grant, as the parties interested were citizens of the same
state, and no such issue was alleged in the information, and if
there had been, and the parties had been citizens of different
states, it would nevertheless be clear that the court could not
grant any such relief under any process founded upon the Act of
Congress, entitled an act to confiscate property. [
Footnote 14] Doubtless
Page 83 U. S. 434
a bill in equity would lie in a proper court to remove a cloud
upon their title, but it is obvious that for any encroachment upon
their possessions they had a plain, adequate, and complete remedy
at law. They claimed title under the United States, and the record
shows that the title of the United States was derived by conquest
from the government of the late Confederate States. Our military
forces captured the property while it was in the possession of the
Confederate States as means for prosecuting the war of the
rebellion, and it appears that the captors took immediate
possession of the property and continued to occupy it under the
directions of the executive authority until the government of the
Confederate States ceased to exist and the unlawful confederation
became extinct, when it was sold by the orders of the executive and
conveyed to the plaintiff claimants.
All captures in war vest primarily in the sovereign, but in
respect to real property, Chancellor Kent says, the acquisition by
the conqueror is not fully consummated until confirmed by a treaty
of peace or by the entire submission or destruction of the state to
which it belonged, which latter rule controls the question in the
case before the court, as, the confederation having been utterly
destroyed, no treaty of peace was or could be made, as a treaty
requires at least two contracting parties. [
Footnote 15] Power to acquire territory either
by conquest or treaty is vested by the Constitution in the United
States. Conquered territory, however, is usually held as a mere
military occupation until the fate of the nation from which it is
conquered is determined, but if the nation is entirely subdued, or
in case it be destroyed and ceases to exist, the right of
occupation becomes permanent, and the title vests absolutely in the
conqueror. [
Footnote 16]
Complete conquest, by
Page 83 U. S. 435
whatever mode it may be perfected, carries with it all the
rights of the former government, or in other words, the conqueror,
by the completion of his conquest, becomes the absolute owner of
the property conquered from the enemy, nation, or state. His rights
are no longer limited to mere occupation of what he has taken into
his actual possession, but they extend to all the property and
rights of the conquered state, including even debts as well as
personal and real property. [
Footnote 17]
Tested by these considerations, it must be assumed for the
further purposes of this investigation that the title acquired by
the plaintiff claimants from the United States was a valid title,
and if so, then it is clear that the court below had no
jurisdiction of the cause of action alleged in the information, as
the plaintiffs, if disturbed in their possession of the premises,
had a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law. Discussion of
that rule of decision at this time, however, is unnecessary, as the
whole subject was considered by this Court in a recent case, to
which reference is made as one entirely applicable in principle to
the case before the court. [
Footnote 18]
Numerous exceptions were taken by the plaintiffs to the rulings
of the court in admitting and rejecting evidence, several of which
it is obvious were erroneous, but in the view taken of the case, it
is not necessary to reexamine any such questions, as the Court is
of the opinion that the court below had no jurisdiction to render
any decree in the case upon the merits of the controversy.
Usually where a court has no jurisdiction of a case, the correct
practice is to dismiss the suit, but a different rule necessarily
prevails in an appellate court in cases where the subordinate court
was without jurisdiction and has given
Page 83 U. S. 436
judgment or decree for the plaintiff or improperly decreed
affirmative relief to a claimant. In such a case, the judgment or
decree in the court below must be reversed, else the party which
prevailed there would have the benefit of such judgment or decree,
though rendered by a court which had no authority to hear and
determine the matter in controversy.
Decree in all things reversed for the want of jurisdiction
in the court below, and the cause remanded with directions to
dismiss the case, including the original and amended informations,
and the claims of all the claimants.
[
Footnote 1]
The idea of Mr. Lyon apparently was that any title which the
United States got by confiscation would inure to him by way of
estoppel.
[
Footnote 2]
McKinlay v.
Morrish, 21 How. 346.
[
Footnote 3]
12 Stat. at Large 319.
[
Footnote 4]
14 Stat. at Large 616.
[
Footnote 5]
14 Stat. at Large 616.
[
Footnote 6]
12 Stat. at Large 319;
Confiscation
Cases, 7 Wall. 462;
Jecker
v. Montgomery, 18 How. 124; 2 Parsons on Shipping
385;
The Betsy, 1 Mason 354.
[
Footnote 7]
The Hoppet, 7
Cranch 389;
The Caroline,
7 Cranch 500;
The Charles, 1 Brockenborough 347;
The Mary Ann,
8 Wheat. 380; 2 Parsons M. Law 681.
[
Footnote 8]
Brown v.
Pierce, 7 Wall. 214.
[
Footnote 9]
Chitty on Contracts 217; 2 Greenleaf on Evidence 283.
[
Footnote 10]
Foshay v. Fergurson, 5 Hill 158;
Central Bank v.
Copeland, 18 Md. 317;
Eadie v. Slimmon, 26 N.Y. 12; 1
Story's Equity Jurisprudence, 9th ed. 239.
[
Footnote 11]
Baker v.
Morton, 12 Wall. 158.
[
Footnote 12]
Ryder Wombwell Law Reports. 4 Exchequer 39;
Giblin v.
McMullen, Law Reports, 2 Privy Council Appeals 335.
[
Footnote 13]
Confiscation
Cases, 7 Wall. 462.
[
Footnote 14]
12 Stat. at Large 319.
[
Footnote 15]
1 Kent's Commentaries (11th ed.) 110; Lawrence's Wheaton (2d
ed.), 55;
United States v.
Percheman, 7 Pet. 86.
[
Footnote 16]
Insurance Co. v.
Canter, 1 Pet. 511;
Hogsheads of Sugar v.
Boyle, 9 Cranch 195;
Shanks
v. Dupont, 3 Pet. 246;
United
States v. Rice, 4 Wheat. 254;
The Amy
Warwick, 2 Sprague 143;
Johnson v.
McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 588.
[
Footnote 17]
Halleck's International Law, 839;
Elphinstone v.
Bedreechund, 1 Knapp's Privy Council Cases 329; Vattel 365; 3
Phillmore's International Law 505.
[
Footnote 18]
Insurance Co. v.
Bailey, 13 Wall. 621;
Hipp v.
Babin, 19 How. 271.
