States, and that private property belonging to British subjects should belong to the State of Pennsylvania. Wilcox . Henry, 1 Dallas, 69, supreme court of Pennsylvania, 1782. British subjects adhering to the British Government during the war of American independence "became personally answerable for the conduct of that Government, of which they remained a part; and their property, wherever found (on land or water) became liable to confiscation. On this ground Congress, on the 24th of July, 1776, confiscated any British property taken on the seas. See 2 Ruth. Inst. lib. 2, c. 9, s. 13, p. 531, 559. Vatt. lib. 2, c. 7, s. 81, & c. 18, s. 344; lib. 3, c. 5, s. 74, & c. 9, s. 161 & 193." Ware v. Hylton (1796), 3 Dallas, 199, 225, opinion of Chace, J. By the law of nations the debts, credits, and corporal property of an enemy, found in the country on the breaking out of war, are confiscable. Cargo of ship Emulous, 1 Gallison, 562. British property found in the United States, on land, at the commencement of hostilities with Great Britain, can not be condemned as enemy's property without a legislative act authorizing its confiscation. The act of the legislature declaring war is not such an act. Timber floating into a salt-water creek which is not navigable, but where the tide ebbs and flows, leaving the ends of the timber resting on the mud at low water, and secured and prevented from floating away at high tide by booms and stakes, is to be considered as landed. Brown v. United States (1814), 8 Cranch, 110. Dana, in a note to Wheaton, says that, in the case just cited, it was "decided primarily and unequivocally that, by the law of nations, the right exists to seize and confiscate any property of an enemy found in the country on the happening of war." This statement, though it is of the same import as the commentary made by many other writers, is not justified by the facts. If it should be said that the court expressed an opinion, or uttered a dictum, to the effect alleged, the statement would be quite correct; but the only point decided by the court was that the property before it was not subject to confiscation. See Dana's Wheaton, § 304, note 156. See, also, Wharton's Com. on Am. Law, § 216. As to the actual practice of the United States, as illustrated in the civil J The seizure of enemy property by the United States as prize of war on land, jure belli, is not authorized by the law of nations, and can be upheld only by an act of Congress. United States v. Seventeen hundred and fifty-six Shares of Capital Stock, 5 Blatchf. 231. The humane maxims of the modern law of nations, which exempt private property of noncombatant enemies from capture as booty of war, found expression in the abandoned and captured property act of March 12, 1863. "No titles were divested in the insurgent States unless in pursuance of a judgment rendered after due legal proceedings. The government recognized to the fullest extent the humane maxims of the modern law of nations, which exempt private property of noncombatant enemies from capture as booty of war." Chase, C. J., United States, v. Klein, 13 Wall. 128, 137. See, to same general effect, Lamar v. Browne, 92 U. S. 194. See the abandoned and captured property cases, and particularly the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury to Chief Justice Nott, infra, § 1152. After the surrender of New Orleans to General Butler, and the issuing of his proclamation of May 1, 1862, declaring that "all rights of property of whatever kind will be held inviolate, subject only to the laws of the United States," private property in the district under his command was not subject to military seizure as booty of war, though not exempt from confiscation under the acts of Congress as enemies' property, if in truth it was such. Planters' Bank v. Union Bank, 16 Wallace, 483. It is no bar to the recovery of a claim that it was confiscated during the rebellion by a Confederate court because due to a loyal citizen. Stevens v. Griffith, 111 U. S. 48. The funds of the Treasury derived from the property captured anterior to the abandoned or captured property act have never been treated as booty coming within the rule of international warfare by either the executive or legislative branches of the Government. Goodman v. United States, 14 Ct. Cl. 547. Land forces which make captures on land can not be considered as making maritime captures merely because they are transported a part of the way to their destination by vessels in the service of the Government. United States v. 269 Bales of Cotton, Woolworth, 236, cited with approval in Oakes v. United States (1899), 174 U. S. 778, 787. "45. All captures and booty belong, according to the modern law of war, primarily to the government of the captor. "Prize money, under local law. whether on sea or land, can now only be claimed "46. Neither officers nor soldiers are allowed to make use of their position or power in the hostile country for private gain, not even for commercial transactions otherwise legitimate. Offenses to the contrary committed by commissioned officers will be punished with cashiering or such other punishment as the nature of the offense may require; if by soldiers, they shall be punished according to the nature of the offense." Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the The question of the right of the United States to confiscate the property of enemies in the Philippine Islands is discussed in a report of Mr. Magoon, law officer, Division of Insular Affairs, War Department, February 1, 1901, Magoon's Reports, 264. By a decree of January 30, 1891, President Balmaceda, of Chile, issued a decree forbidding registrars of real estate in the Republic to inscribe sales or mortgages of property belonging to certain specified persons. The decree recited as the reason for its issuance that the participation of some persons in the disturbance of public order, begun by the rising of the navy, rendered it necessary to provide for the indemnification of the losses caused to the State and private persons by that disturbance. Blue Book, Chile, No. 1 (1892), 43. This decree became brutum fulmen by the fall of the government that issued it. (3) CONFISCATION ACTS, 1861, 1862. $1151. The only acts of Congress providing for the confiscation of property belonging to persons in rebellion were the act of August 6, 1861, which applied only to property acquired with intent to use or employ it, or to suffer it to be used or employed, in aiding or abetting the insurrection or in resisting the laws; and the act of July 17, 1862, 12 Stat. 589, which authorized seizure and confiscation only for future acts. Conrad v. Waples (1877), 96 U. S. 279. The declaration that "all sales, transfers, and conveyances" of property of certain classes of persons, which by the act was made subject to seizure, should be null and void, invalidated such trans actions only as against the United States, and not as against any Conrad v. Waples (1877), 96 U. S. 279, 288, citing Corbett v. Nutt, 10 Where, under act of Congress, August 6, 1861, ch. 60, entitled "An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," lands were seized and condemned, it was held that the purchaser of them under a decree took an estate in fee. Kirk v. Lynd, 106 U. S. 315. See. also, Kirk v. Lewis, 4 Woods C. C. 100. If a bank holds on general deposit collections made for another bank, the relations of the banks are those of debtor and creditor, and an assignment of the debt by the creditor bank vests in the assignee a right to the amount assigned paramount to that given by confiscation proceedings instituted under the acts of 1861 and 1862, after the execution of the assignment; and especially is this so where the confiscation proceedings were irregular for want of proper process upon the debtor bank. Phoenix Bank v. Risley (1884), 111 U. S. 125. The conclusions of the Supreme Court rested on the grounds (1) that the money against which the confiscation proceedings were directed was the money of the debtor, and not of the creditor, bank, and (2) that no such seizure or attachment was made of the debt, if any existed, as gave the court, by which the decree of confiscation was entered, jurisdiction of the debt. The act of August 6, 1861, was passed by Congress in the exercise of its power "to make rules concerning captures on land and water," and was aimed exclusively at the seizure and confiscation of property used in aid of the insurrection. The act of July 17, 1862, proceeded upon the entirely different principle of confiscating property without regard to its use, by way of punishing the owner for being engaged in rebellion and not returning to his allegiance. Oakes v. United States (1899), 174 U. S. 778, 790–791. The fact that, prior to the passage of the act of 1862, a person was "engaged in the rebellion, as a member of the Confederate Congress, and giving constant aid and comfort to the insurrectionary government," did not affect his title to or power to dispose of his property. "Until some provision was made by law, the courts of the United States could not decree a confiscation of his property, and direct its sale. This follows from the doctrine declared in Brown The United States, reported in the 8th of Cranch." Conrad v. Waples (1877), 96 U. S. 279, 284. υ. By section 5 of the act of July 17, 1862, 12 Stats. 589, provision was made for the confiscation of the estates of certain persons then in rebellion and by joint resolution 63 of the same date, 12 Stats. 627, it was provided that proceedings under the act should not be so construed as to work the forfeiture of the real estate of the offender beyond his natural life. During the war certain lands in Cincinnati, Ohio, belonging to one J., who had entered the Confederate army, were confiscated, and J.'s life estate therein was sold under this legislation to C. Subsequently, after the close of the war, J. conveyed his fee in the lands to C. by a deed with covenants of general warranty. Thereafter an action of ejectment was brought against C. by the children and only heirs of J., then deceased, who claimed that the conveyance of the fee was unlawful. In the case of Wallach v. Van Riswick, 92 U. S. 202, and in subsequent cases, it was held that the confiscation and sale of the life interest under the act, while it left in the owner a naked fee, disabled him from conveying his reversionary interest, although on his death his heirs would take the property from him by descent. This doctrine was affirmed and amplified in Avegno v. Schmidt, 113 U. S. 292, and Shields v. Schiff, 124 U. S. 351. Held, that the deed of warranty, accompanied with a covenant of seizin, estopped J. and all persons claiming under him from asserting title to the land against the grantee and his heirs and assigns, or from conveying it to other parties, and that this conclusion was to be especially maintained in view of the proclamation of pardon and amnesty made by the President December 25, 1868, upwards of three years after the deed, since the amnesty and pardon, in removing the disability, if any, which rested upon J. in respect of his estate, created an enlargement of it, the benefit of which inured equally to his grantee, though it did not affect the right of the purchaser under the decree of confiscation. Jenkins v. Collard (1892), 145 U. S. 546. That the forfeiture under the act of July 17, 1862, and the joint resolution See Szymanski v. Zunts, 20 Fed. Rep. 361. A petition was filed in the Court of Claims to recover from the United States a sum of money, the alleged value of a lot which had been condemned for the use of the Government in the city of Washington. It appeared that the lot, prior to its condemnation, had been confiscated and sold under the act of July 17, 1862, and the joint resolution of the same date. On the proceedings for condemnation, the lot was in due course appraised and the amount was duly paid by |