Carlisle v. United States

Messrs. Carlisle and McPherson, for the appellants; Mr. C. H. Hill, Assistant Attorney-General, contra. The circumstances attending the manufacture and sale of the saltpetre, as disclosed in the findings of the court, plainly show that the claimants knew that the saltpetre was to be used by the Confederates in the manufacture of gunpowder for the prosecution of the war of the rebellion, and there is little doubt that the sale was made in order to aid the Confederates in accomplishing their treasonable purposes. By thus furnishing materials for the prosecution of the war whilst they were domiciled in the country, knowing the uses to which the materials were to be applied, the claimants became participators in the treason of the Confederates equally as if they had been original conspirators with them. The Court of Claims, therefore, did not err in its conclusion that the act of the claimants in selling the saltpetre to the Confederates, under these circumstances, was an act of aid and comfort to the rebellion. We have already held in Hanauer v. Doane,1 and we repeat and reaffirm what we there said, that 'he who, being bound by his allegiance to a government, sells goods to the agent of an armed combination to overthrow that government, knowing that the purchaser buys them for that treasonable purpose, is himself guilty of treason or a misprision thereof. He voluntarily aids the treason. He cannot be permitted to stand on the nice metaphysical distinction that, although he knows that the purchaser buys the goods for the purpose of aiding the rebellion, he does not sell them for that purpose. The consequences of his acts are too serious and enormous to admit of such a plea. He must be taken to intend the consequences of his own voluntary act.' But the aid and comfort thus given to the rebellion by the claimants did not justify a denial of their right to recover the proceeds of their property in the treasury of the United States after the proclamation of pardon and amnesty made by the President on the 25th of December, 1868, unless their character as aliens excludes them from the benefit of that proclamation, a question which we shall presently consider. Assuming that they are within the terms of the proclamation, the pardon and amnesty granted relieve them from the legal consequences of their participation in the rebellion, and from the necessity of proving that they had not thus participated, which otherwise would have been indispensable to a recovery. It is true, the pardon and amnesty do not and cannot alter the actual fact that aid and comfort were given by the claimants, but they forever close the eyes of the court to the perception of that fact as an element in its judgment, no rights of third parties having intervened.