APPEAL from the Court of Claims; the case being this:
Congress, by act of July 13th, 1861, passed soon after the outbreak of the late rebellion, enacted that it might be lawful for the President, by proclamation, to declare that the inhabitants of any State or part of a State where such insurrection was existing were in a state of such insurrection, and that thereupon (with a proviso that the President might, to a limited extent and under regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, license it) all 'commercial intercourse by and between the same and citizens thereof, and citizens of the rest of the United States, should cease, and be unlawful so long as such condition of hostility should continue.' By a subsequent act of July, 17th, 1862, it was enacted—
'That to insure the speedy termination of the present rebellion, it shall be the duty of the President of the United States to cause the seizure of all the estate and property, money, stocks, credits, and effects of the persons hereinafter named in this section, and to apply and use the same and the proceeds thereof for the support of the army of the United States.'
The enumeration of persons includes several classes of persons; and the section concludes by declaring that
'All sales, transfers, or conveyances of any such property shall be null and void.'
Another section goes on to say:
'And if any person within any State or Territory of the United States, other than those named as aforesaid, after the passage of this act, being engaged in armed rebellion against the government of the United States, or aiding or abetting such rebellion, shall not within sixty days after public warning and proclamation duly given and made by the President of the United States, cease to aid, countenance, and abet such rebellion, and return to his allegiance to the United States, all the estate and property, money, stocks, and credits of such persons shall be liable to seizure as aforesaid, and it shall be the duty of the President to seize and use them as aforesaid, or the proceeds thereof. And all sales, transfers, or conveyances of any such property, after the expiration of the said sixty days from the date of such warning and proclamation, shall be null and void.'
By a still later act, one passed when the armies of the United States were beginning to march into the rebellious regions the act, namely, of March 12th, 1863 -entitled 'An act to provide for the collection of abandoned property, &c., in insurrectionary districts within the United States,' it was provided as follows:
'And person claiming to have been the owner of any such abandoned or captured property may, at any time within two years after the suppression of the rebellion, prefer his claim to the proceeds thereof in the Court of Claims; and on proof to the satisfaction of said court (1) of his ownership of said property, (2) of his right to the proceeds thereof, and (3) that he has never given any aid or comfort to the present rebellion, receive the residue of such proceeds, after the deduction of any purchase-money which may have been paid, together with the expense of transportation and sale of said property, and any other lawful expenses attending the disposition thereof.'
The time mentioned in this act as that within which a party might prefer his claim, 'any time,' to wit, 'within two years after the suppression of the rebellion,' was one which, as events in the conclusion of the rebellion subsequently proved, was not, to common apprehension, entirely definite. As matter of fact, rebellious districts were brought under the control of the government in different parts of the South at different times, and in April, 1865, the armies of the rebel generals Lee and Johnston surrendered; their surrender being followed by that of Taylor's army, on the 4th of May, and by that of Kirby Smith's, on the 26th of the same month. With this last-named surrender, all armed resistance, in the least formidable, to the authority of the government ceased, and, as matter of fact, the rebellion was prostrate, though rebel cruisers continued their depredations on our commerce, and though there were, in Texas and elsewhere, some wandering bands of robbers. Still, after Kirby Smith's surrender, May 26th, 1865, intercourse, commercial and other, between the inhabitants of the different sections, began to resume itself; trade opened, more or less, on its ancient basis, remittances were made, debts were paid or compromised, and bills of exchange were drawn between the inhabitants of the two sections.