Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
413
1 S.Ct. 300
27 L.Ed. 166
WALKER'S EX'RS and another
v.
UNITED STATES.
December 4, 1882.
In this action, brought under the captured and abandoned property
act of March 12, 1863, the present appellants seek to recover from the
United States the net proceeds (alleged to be at least $600,000) of
certain cotton, seized and sold by the agents of the government in the
year 1865. The petition was dismissed in the court of claims, and from
the judgment of dismissal this appeal has been prosecuted. The facts,
as found by that court, are substantially these:
Prior to the year 1865, John Scott, the chief agent for produce loan for
the confederate government in Alabama and east Mississippi,
purchased in lots, at different times, and of different planters in those
states, 3,405 bales of cotton, taking from the planter, on each
purchase, a receipt and agreement in the following form:
'State of Mississippi, County of _____, Town or Post-office _____:
'November 27, 1862.
'The undersigned, having sold to the confederate states of America,
and received the value of the same in bonds, the receipt whereof is
hereby acknowledged, 135 bales of cotton, marked, numbered, and
classed as in the margin, which is now deposited at _____
plantation, hereby agrees to take due care of said cotton while on his
plantation, and to deliver the same, at his own expense, at _____, in
the state of Mississippi, to the order of the secretary of the treasury,
or his agents or their assigns.'
In each instance he delivered to the planter a certificate in the
following from:
'Given under my hand and the seal of the treasury department, on the
year and day above mentioned.
'JOHN SCOTT,
'Chief Agt. Produce Loan for Ala. and East Miss.
'P'r J. G. ULRICK, Agt.'
Prior to these transactions, to-wit, on the sixth day of March, 1865,
President Lincoln gave to Samuel P. Walker (whose executors are
claimants in this case) an order, of which the following is a copy:
'EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 6, 1865.
'Whereas, Samuel P. Walker, of Memphis, Tennessee, claims to own
products of the insurrectionary states near Grenada and Canton,
Mississippi, and Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, and has
arrangements with parties in the same vicinities for other products of
the insurrectionary states, all which he proposes to sell and deliver to
agents authorized to purchase for the United States the products of
the insurrectionary states, under the act of congress of July 2, 1864,
and the regulations of the secretary of the treasury, it is ordered that
all such products which a purchasing agent of the government has
agreed to purchase, and the said Walker has stipulated to deliver, as
shown by the certificate of the purchasing agent, authorized by
Regulations VIII., Form No. 1, appended to regulations attached
hereto by such agent, and being transported, or in store awaiting
transportation, for fulfillment of stipulations and in pursuance of the
regulations of the secretary of the treasury, shall be free from seizure,
detention, or forfeiture to the United States; and officers of the army
and navy and civil officers of the government will observe this order,
and will give the said Walker, his agents, and means of
transportation, and said products, free and unmolested passage
through the lines, (other than blockade lines,) and safe conduct
within the lines while going for or returning with said products, or
while said products are in store awaiting transportation for the
purposes aforesaid.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.'
On the twelfth day of April, 1865, the city of Mobile, which had been
continuously invested from 1862, was captured by the Union forces.
On that day, at Mobile, Walker, who was a resident and citizen of
Memphis, Tennessee, purchased from O'Grady the 3,405 bales of
cotton referred to, (and which was still in the hands of the planters
under their arrangement with Scott,) taken from him a bill of sale,
which was attached to a list specifying the number of bales, weight,
and the names of the counties where the cotton was originally
purchased from planters. The bill of sale was as follows:
'For value received of Samuel P. Walker, I hereby transfer, sell, and
assign the above lots of cotton, amounting to 3,405 bales, without
recourse upon me, and the holders thereof will please deliver the
same to the said Walker or his authorized agent.
'April 12, 1865.
D. O'GRADY.'
At the same time O'Grady delivered and indorsed to Walker the
planters' certificates, which the former had received from Scott. The
cotton remained on the plantations, and the only delivery to Scott,
O'Grady, or Walker was by the planters' certificates, and their transfer
by indorsement, as hereinbefore stated.
On the fifth of May, 1865, by the surrender of General Taylor,
commanding the confederate forces in Alabama and Mississippi, the
counties in which this cotton was held passed under the military
control of the General E. R. S. Canby, commanding the Union forces
at Mobile. The United States military authorities seized all the lines of
railroads and steam-boats in that section, and on May 10, 1865, the
following order was issued by General Canby: 'HEADQUARTERS
ARMY AND DIVISION OF WEST MISSISSIPPI,
'MOBILE, ALABAMA, May 10, 1865.
'(General Field Orders, No. 39.)
'The cotton belonging to the confederate government in east
year 1865, and the final conveyance delayed until April 6, 1865, and
finally completed on that day, by reason of the ill-health of Scott, (the
confederate produce loan agent,) and for other reasons.' But the
negotiations here referred to were, manifestly, not the arrangements
which Walker claimed to have had on March 6, 1865, for products of
the insurrectionary districts. There is nothing to show that he ever
had any communication upon the subject of this cotton with the
confederate produce loan agent, or with O'Grady, until after the
capture of Mobile. The negotiations, which were not completed until
April 6, 1865, by reason of Scott's ill-health, and 'for other reasons,'
were evidently those by which Scott proposed to sell to O'Grady, and
with which Walker, it must be assumed, had no connection whatever.
The case, as it stands, seems to be one in which the claimants seek to
bring within the operation of the order of March 6, 1865, a
transaction in cotton not covered, not intended to be covered, by it.
The contract, upon the finding of facts, must be regarded as one made
between Walker and O'Grady, in palpable violation of the laws of the
United States forbidding commercial intercourse between persons
respectively residing in places occupied by the national forces, within
districts the inhabitants whereof were declared to be in insurrection.
It is, therefore, according to the settled doctrines of this court, a
contract from which could arise, in favor of Walker, no right to the
cotton, as against the United States, which could be enforced in the
courts of the Union.
Without, therefore, giving other reasons, quite apparent upon the
record, and which would make it our duty to sustain the judgment of
the court of claims, we content ourselves with affirming it upon the
grounds indicated.
It is so ordered.