Opinion of the Court. of Claims, depended only upon the consent of the United States, they not being amenable to suit except by such consent. Having consented to be sued in the Court of Claims, upon any claim founded upon a law of Congress, there is no more reason why the jurisdiction of the court should not be exercised when a State is a party, than when a private person is the suitor. The statute makes no exception of this kind, and this court can create none. The statute of limitations does not seem to us to have any application to the demand arising upon the swamp-land acts. The act of 1850 contemplates that the Secretary of the Interior will identify the lands described, and although the State could not be deprived of her rights by the inaction of that officer, Wright v. Roseberry, 121 U. S. 488, 501, she was not obliged to proceed in their assertion in the absence of such identification. By the act of 1855, which provided for the payment to the State of moneys received by the United States on the sales of swamp lands within her limits, the payment was made to depend upon proof of the sales by the authorized agent of the State before the Commissioner of the General Land Office. No such proof was ever made or offered, and, therefore, until in some other equally convincing mode the swampy character of the lands sold was established to the satisfaction of the Commissioner, no definite ascertainment of the amount due to the State was had, so as to constitute a ground of action for its recovery in the Court of Claims. The method of proving the character of such lands by having recourse to the field-notes of the public surveys of the Surveyor-General of the State was adopted by the Commissioner as early as 1850, and was followed by him in this case in 1885. On the 30th of June of that year, he found in this mode and certified that there was due to the State from such sales the amount stated above. From that date only the six years within which the action could be brought in the Court of Claims began to run; and this action was commenced in September of the following year. Nor do we regard the unpaid portion of the direct tax laid by the act of Congress of August 5, 1861, which was appor Opinion of the Court. tioned to Louisiana, as constituting any debt to the United States by the State in her political and corporate character, which can be set off against her demands. 12 Stat. 292, c. 45. That act imposed an annual direct tax of twenty millions "upon the United States," and apportioned it to the several States of the Union. It directed that the tax should "be assessed and laid on the value of all lands and lots of ground, with their improvements and dwelling houses." (Sec. 13.) It was assessed and laid upon the real property of private individuals in the States. Public property of the States and of the United States was exempted from the tax. Its apportionment was merely a designation of the amount which was to be levied upon and collected from this property of individuals in the several States, respectively. The provisions of the act are inconsistent with any theory of the obligation of the States to pay the sums levied. It provides for the appointment of officers to assess the property to the different holders, and to collect the tax, and directs with minute detail the proceedings to be taken to enforce the collection, either by a distraint and sale of the personal property of the owners, or, that failing, by a sale of the real property taxed. It allows, it is true, the different States to assume the amounts apportioned to them respectively, and to collect the same in their own way by their own officers. Many of the States did thus assume the amounts, and in such cases it may well be considered that for the sums assumed they became debtors to the United States, and, so far as any portion of those sums has not been paid, that they still remain debtors. But, unless such assumption was had, no liability attached to any State in her political and corporate character. The liability was upon the individual land owners within her limits. The act declares that the amount of the taxes assessed "shall be and remain a lien upon all lands and other real estate of the individuals who may be assessed for the same during two years after the time it shall annually become due and payable." (Sec. 33.) Louisiana never assumed the payment of the taxes apportioned to her, or of any portion of them. She allowed the government to proceed by its officers to collect the tax from the property holders. Opinion of the Court. The amount apportioned to her was $385,886.67; the amount collected from the owners of land was $314,500.84; leaving only a balance of $71,385.83. It is not for us to suggest in what way this balance may be collected. After the war, the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to suspend the collection of the tax in any of the States previously declared in insurrection, until January, 1868, and subsequently this authority was extended to January, 1869. 14 Stat. 331, c. 298, 14; 15 Stat. 260, c. 69. The Secretary acted upon this authority, and suspended the collection. It is stated that, since 1869, no attempts have been made by the executive department to enforce its collection in those States. Be that as it may, it is enough for the disposition of the present case, that the unpaid balance of the tax apportioned to Louisiana constitutes no debt on the part of the State in her political and corporate character to the United States. We perceive no error in the judgment of the court below, and it is, therefore, UNITED STATES v. ALABAMA. Appeals from the Court of Claims. Affirmed. UNITED STATES v. MISSISSIPPI. tions presented in these cases are covered by the decision in the case of The United States v. The State of Louisiana; and, in conformity with it, the judgments in them must be affirmed. So ordered. Mr. Attorney General and Mr. Heber J. May for appellant in each case. Mr. Van H. Manning for appellee in each case. Statement of the Case. THE EXCELSIOR. APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA. Submitted October 11, 1887. - Decided October 24, 1887. In this case the services rendered by a corporation whose business was that of a wrecker and salvor, to a vessel in distress were held to be salvage services of a meritorious character. No agreement having been made for a fixed sum to be paid, nor any binding engagement to pay at all events, although there was an agreement to submit to arbitration the amount to be received for the service, in case the two principals could not agree upon a sum, it was held that there was no bar to the claim for salvage. Comments upon the effect of a conversation at the time between the masters of the two vessels. The effect of the agreement to submit to arbitration considered. A salvage of $5600 having been awarded by the Circuit Court on the basis of 34 per cent on $160,000 of value saved, this court, not being able to say, as a question of law, that the allowance was excessive, affirmed the decree. THIS was a libel in rem, in admiralty, in a cause of salvage, filed by the Baker Salvage Company, a corporation of Virginia, against the steamer Excelsior and her cargo, in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia. That court awarded to the libellant, by a decree made on the 21st of February, 1884, the sum of $5600, as salvage, being 3 per cent, on $160,000, the value of the Excelsior having been found at $150,000, and the value of her cargo at $10,000. 19 Fed. Rep. 436. The claimant appealed to the Circuit Court, which, on the 19th of May, 1884, affirmed the decree of the District Court, with interest on the $5600 from the date of the decree of the District Court, until paid, at the rate of six per cent per annum, and the costs of suit. The Circuit Court found the following facts and conclusions of law: "On the afternoon of the fourth of December, 1882, at five o'clock, the steamer Excelsior, Captain T. E. Baldwin, of the Statement of the Case. Potomac Steamboat Company, plying between Norfolk, Va., and Washington, D. C., touching at Old Point, Fortress Monroe, left her dock at Norfolk, steamed down the Elizabeth River and into Hampton Roads, heading the usual course to make a landing at Old Point wharf. She had on board a competent crew and an average number of passengers, the agreed value of the steamer being one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and of her cargo ten thousand dollars. "As the Excelsior was heading the aforesaid course in Hampton Roads, at or near six P.M., the United States steam tug Fortune came into collision with her, by an accident. The Fortune struck the Excelsior, which is of wood, on the starboard bow, making a hole in her hull at least 8 by 10 feet; and, it being apparent that the Excelsior must otherwise sink in deep water, from the quantity she was making in her hull through the hole in her bow, she was promptly headed for the shore, going ashore on the south side of Hampton bar, at about its middle point, about two miles from Old Point wharf, three or four miles from Sewell's Point, between half a mile and a mile from the Soldiers' Home shore, the nearest shore, and within a hundred yards of the channel, where she sank, full of water, with a hole extending from her hurricane deck far down under water, lying almost head on to the shore, in water ranging in depth from six to seven feet at her bow to from ten to twelve feet at her stern. "After ascertaining the above soundings and landing his passengers at Old Point Comfort, Captain Baldwin, of the Excelsior, proceeded to the same point and sent the following telegram to The Baker Salvage Company, at Norfolk, Va.: "December 4th, 1882. "Send assistance, with steam pumps, to Excelsior, on Hampton bar. Get here by low water.' follows: "Subsequently, Captain Baldwin sent another telegram, as "Dec. 4th, 1882. "Del'y guaranteed. Bring steamer Resolute, a diver, with appliances.' |