Mail Company v. Flanders

Mr. Hoar, for the United States, represented here by the appellees. Authority was conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury, by the act of the twelfth of March, 1863, to appoint special agents to receive and collect abandoned or captured property in any State or Territory designated as in insurrection, by the proclamation of the President issued on the first day of July in the preceding year. Such property, so received or collected, may be appropriated to public use on due appraisement and certificate thereof, or may be forwarded for sale within the loyal States as the public interest may require; and the further provision is that all sales of the property shall be at auction to the highest bidder, and that the proceeds thereof shall be paid into the treasury.2