THIS was an appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Florida.
The facts of the case are stated in the opinion of the court.
It was argued by Mr. Crittenden, who placed the case upon the ground which will be presently stated, and by Mr. Johnson for the appellee. There were also briefs filed on the same side by Mr. Sherman, Mr. W. Cost Johnson, and Mr. Ewing.
Mr. Crittenden, after giving a history of the cause and the laws, proceeded.
The District Judge, being satisfied with the causes assigned why this claim was not presented under the act of 1834, adjudicated to the petitioner, upon his claim and proof, as the amount or value of his losses, $6,080, and for interest thereon at the rate of 5 per cent. from the tenth of May, 1813, to the 26th June, 1835, $6,726.83, making in all $12,806.83.
From this decision the District Attorney prayed an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, 'to the end, that he might, if the laws allowed it, prosecute such appeal if instructed to do so.' I know nothing more of this proceeding than that, upon this appeal, the case has been brought to this court; and being here, it would be quite agreeable to me if the court would, by its high authority, settle and determine all the questions that arise out of this case, and which are presented before the Treasury Department in many others of a like character, and especially the question respecting the allowance of interest on the amount of the losses or injuries sustained by the claimants.
These questions have from the first been subjects of controversy between the claimants and the Secretary of the Treasury, and are likely to continue so till some higher authority shall interpose. It would be conducive to the public interest, and certainly desirable to the government, to obtain the judgment and directions of this enlightened court on this vexed subject.
In the adjustment or adjudication of these Florida claims by the Florida judges, interest was allowed, except in a few instances. The first of these adjudications were presented to the Secretary of the Treasury for payment in the year 1825, and others have been constantly and successively presented from that time to the present. The number of claims thus presented is about two hundred, and the amount paid has exceeded one million of dollars. But from the first, and in every case where interest had been allowed by the Florida judge, the principal only was paid, and the interest disallowed and rejected by the Secretary of the Treasury. For the period of the last twenty-five years this has been the unvaried and uniform course of decision and action by every successive Secretary of the Treasury, who has acted on the subject, sustained by the official opinions of several attorneys-general, and without the expressed dissent of any one of them officially declared.
It is respectfully insisted on the part of the United States that such a uniform and long continued series and course of decision has made the disallowance of interest, in whatever form awarded, a res adjudicata.
Congress had power to create a special tribunal, with jurisdiction to examine and adjust or adjudge these claims arising under the treaty with Spain. Their power in this respect was plenary and discretionary. By the acts above referred to they exercised that power, and created such a tribunal. It was a judicatory tribunal which they established, consisting of two parts or members, namely, one of the territorial judges of Florida to act and decide in the first instance; and secondly, the Secretary to exercise a revisory power or jurisdiction over the decisions of the Florida judge, paying the amount of them only 'on being satisfied that the same is just and equitable within the provisions of the treaty.' To this tribunal, thus constituted, Congress gave authority to decide on these claims; the decision of the Secretary of the Treasury being revisory and final. His decision was in its nature judicial, and made of the matter decided, a res adjudicata, in every rational and legitimate sense of those terms. The decision of a special or limited tribunal upon a subject within its jurisdiction is just as conclusive and binding as the judgments of courts of the highest and most unlimited jurisdiction.
The present case is, in its origin, and in respect to the question of interest, identical with the other Florida cases above alluded to.