ence how honest the plaintiff was, nor how he viewed the said transaction in its moral aspect.

For the reason that the court erred in charging the jury, and for the reason that there was no evidence to sustain some of the material allegations of the petition, the court also erred in overruling the defendant's motion for a new trial.

The judgment is reversed and a new trial ordered.

KINGMAN, C. J., concurred. BREWER, J., did not sit.

United States Circuit Court.

Southern District of Georgia.

UNITED STATES v. STARK ET AL.

The Confederate States never had any existence as a sovereign power. All the laws of the United States were in force at all times and in all places within the territory of the United States during the war, whether the places were within the military lines of the Confederate forces or not.

The concession of belligerent rights did not recognise or confer any right on the Confederate States to collect duties on imports at a port within their lines.

Therefore payment to a Confederate collector of the port of Savannah, of duties on goods which ran the blockade, is no defence to an action by the United States for the duties under the revenue laws.

The principles of the decisions in U. S. v. Hayward, 2 Gall. 486, and U. S. v. Rice, 4 Wheat. 247, do not apply to such a case. Those were cases where the territory passed under the sovereignty of a foreign power during a public war.

THIS was an action brought to recover the sum of $959.04, the duties on a quantity of molasses, valued at $3996, imported by the defendants into the port of Savannah on the 7th day of May 1861. The defendants pleaded the general issue, and payment of the duties.

The case was submitted to the jury on the following agreed facts: The goods were imported into the port of Savannah by the defendants at the time named in the declaration, and the amount of duties was as stated in the declaration, and they had never been paid to the United States. John Boston, United States collector of customs at the port of Savannah, resigned his office on January 31st 1861, and he was collector of customs for the Confederate States at the port of Savannah at the time of the importation of the goods mentioned in the declaration.

At that time the port of Savannah was in the paramount forcible military possession of the Confederate authorities, and

by such paramount military authority the United States govern ment, both civil and military, was excluded.

The duties on said goods were paid to the collector of customs of the Confederate government.

John D. Pope, United States District Attorney, for plaintiff. Law, Lovell, and Falligant, for defendants.

WOODS, J., charged the jury as follows:

:

By the Act of Congress of 30th of July, 1846, § 1 (9 Stat. at Large, p. 42), it is provided that there shall be levied, collected, and paid on goods, wares, and merchandise imported into the United States from a foreign country the duties prescribed by the act. The United States is therefore entitled to recover in this action, unless the defendants present some valid reason why they should be relieved from the payment of the duties on the goods imported by them.

Defendants insist that the agreed facts and public history, of which the court takes judicial notice, shows such a state of affairs that at the time of the importation they were under no obligation to pay duties to the United States. They say that the Confederate States, being a belligerent power at war with the United States, and holding by military force territory captured from the United States, acquired a sovereignty over such territory, and during such occupancy allegiance within such territory was due to the Confederate states-and they, and they only were entitled to receive duties on imports, and that in effect the port of Savannah was not a port of the United States, but was a port of the Confederate States.

In support of this view the cases of United States v. Hayward, 2 Gall. 486, and United States v. Rice, 4 Wheat. 247, are cited. Both these cases were actions for the recovery of duties on goods imported into Castine during the war of 1812 with Great Britain, and after that place had been captured by and surrendered to the British forces. The Circuit Court of the United States in the first case, and the Supreme Court of the United States in the other, held that the goods imported were not liable to pay duties to the United States.

The ground upon which these decisions were based is stated by the court in the case of United States v. Hayward, in these words: "By the conquest and occupation of Castine, that terri

tory passed under the allegiance and sovereignty of the enemy. The sovereignty of the United States over the territory was of course suspended, and the laws of the United States could no longer be rightfully enforced or be obligatory upon the inhabitants who remained and submitted to the conquerors. Castine, therefore, could not strictly be deemed a port of the United States, for its sovereignty no longer extended over the place."

So in The United States v. Rice, the Supreme Court of the United States says: "Under the circumstances we are all of opinion that the claim for duties cannot be sustained. By the conquest and military occupation, the enemy acquired that firm possession which enabled him to exercise the fullest rights of sovereignty over that place.

"The sovereignty of the United States over the territory was of course suspended, and the laws of the United States could no longer be rightfully enforced there, or be obligatory upon the inhabitants who remained and submitted to the conquerors. By the surrender, the inhabitants passed under a temporary allegiance to the British government, and were bound by such laws, and such only, as it chose to recognise and impose. From the nature of the case no other laws could be obligatory upon them, for where there is no protection or allegiance or sovereignty, there can be no claim to obedience. Castine was therefore, during this period, so far as respected our revenue laws, to be deemed a foreign port."

It is clear, from the extract just quoted, that the decision in those cases was placed on the ground that Great Britain had acquired the sovereignty of Castine, and that the inhabitants owed the British government allegiance. If the Confederate States were a sovereignty, and were entitled as against the United States to the allegiance of the people living within the territory held by them, then these cases are directly in point as supporting the defendant's views. But the Confederate States as a sovereign power never had an existence. It was never recognised as such by any department of the government of the United States, or by any other nation on the globe. There never was a moment when any human being owed it allegiance; on the contrary. allegiance was due to the United States and to their laws from all the inhabitants of the territory held by the military power of the Confederate States, and any violation of the laws of the

United States was punishable by the authority of the United States. The government of the United States might prosecute for violation of its laws during the rebellion. It has assumed to pardon those guilty of offences against its statutes, and a large number of prominent citizens of the late insurgent states now hold the pardon of the President for offences against the laws of the country, committed during the rebellion, within the territory held by the military power of the Confederate States. Can we say, then, that a rebellion which never had a government which was recognised as such, was a sovereign, that it acquired sovereignty over territory held by force of its arms, and that the people of the territory controlled by it owed allegiance to a government which never had an existence? Clearly not.

That these views are the views of the Supreme Court of the United States will appear from the adjudicated cases.

In Hickman v. Jones, 9 Wall. 200, Mr. Justice SWAYNE, speaking for the court, says: "The rebellion, out of which the war grew, was without any legal sanction. In the eye of the law it had the same properties as if it had been the insurrection of a county or smaller municipal territory against the state to which it belonged. The proportions and duration of the struggle did not affect its character, nor was there a rebel government de facto in such a sense as to give any legal efficacy to its acts. It was not recognised by the national or any foreign government. It did not for a moment displace the rightful government. That government was always in existence in the regular discharge of its functions, and constantly exercising all its military power to put down the resistance to its authority in the insurrectionary states. The union of the states for all the purposes of the Constitution is as perfect and indissoluble as the union of the integral parts of the states themselves."

Again in the case of The United States v. Kechles, 9 Wall. 86, Mr. Justice MILLER, as the organ of the court, says :

"It certainly cannot be admitted for a moment that a statute of the Confederate States, or the order of its postmaster-general, could have any legal effect in making the payment to Clements valid. The whole Confederate power must be regarded as a usurpation of unlawful authority, incapable of passing any valid .aws, and certainly incapable of divesting, by an act of its Congress, or an order of one of its departments, any right of property of the United States."

In Shortridge v. Macon, tried by Mr. Chief Justice CHASE, in the Circuit Court for the District of North Carolina, he says: "War levied against the United States by citizens of the Republic under the pretended authority of the new state government of North Carolina, or the new central government which assumed the title of Confederate States, was treason against the United States. ** On no occasion and by no act have the United States ever renounced their constitutional jurisdiction over the whole territory, or over all the citizens of the Republic, or conceded to citizens in arms against their country the character of alien enemies or to their pretended government the character generally of a de facto government. There is nothing in the prize cases which gives countenance to the doctrine which counsel endeavors to deduce from it, that the insurgent states, by the act of rebellion and by levying war against the nation, became foreign states, and their inhabitants alien enemies."

These cases show how broadly the case at bar differs from the case of United States v. Hayward, and United States v. Rice, relied on by counsel for defendants. Those cases were placed on the ground that the inhabitants of Castine owed allegiance to the sovereignty of Great Britain and obedience to her laws. The Confederate States were not a sovereignty, its inhabitants did not owe it allegiance, were not bound by its laws. On the contrary, the authority of the United States extended over them at all times. Their duty of allegiance and obedience to its laws was continuous and unbroken.

All the laws of the United States, the act levying duties on imports included, were in force at all times and in all places within the territory of the United States, as much in Savannah as in New York, and all the citizens of the United States, whether within or without the insurrectionary districts, owed them obedience. If, as held by Mr. Chief Justice CHASE, the laws of the United States against treason were in force over the inhabitants of the insurgent states, clearly the revenue laws were also n force

But it is claimed for defendants that the Confederate States were belligerents, and that belligerent occupation gave them the right to revenues of the port or country occupied. We cannot concur in this view. It is difficult to conceive of a more dangerous and pernicious doctrine. It would place in the hands of