CONFISCATION. 



203 





fortifications, or in Government works, etc.. as 

 the Secretary of War might from time to time 

 prescribe, and providing them rations, clothing, 

 and compensation. The Secretary of War was 

 also authorized to employ for similar dnty 

 twenty thousand male negro slaves, and their 

 owners were guaranteed against escape or 

 death. He was authorized to impress the 

 slaves when he could not hire them ; and gen- 

 eral orders No. 32, March 11, 1864, directed 

 the enrollment of the free negroes, and their 

 assignment to the performance of the duties 

 mentioned in the act. Also the employment 

 and impressment of slaves was ordered by the 

 same general orders. 



A convention of the Southern Governors 

 next recommended the measure. Other promi- 

 nent men approved of it, and at the close of 

 the year the arming of the slaves upon certain 

 conditions of service, was considered as sure to 

 ensue. 



The end of nearly four years of war present- 

 ed the people of. the Southern States under a 

 Government in the exercise of every power of 

 a national, central, military despotism. Con- 

 scription was carried to its last limit. Every 

 man between seventeen and fifty was subject to 

 military authority. None were exempt except 

 on considerations of public interest. Direct 

 taxes were laid in defiance of the theory of 

 their constitution. Such vast amounts of paper 

 money had been issued as to unsettle all values. 

 The holders of this paper money were com- 

 pelled to fund it or lose one third. All the 

 railroads were seized by the Government, and 

 some were destroyed, and others built. A 

 universal system of impressment of property 

 was established at Government prices in Gov- 

 ernment money. Of the exportations of the 

 great staples the Government held the monop- 

 oly. Those citizens who were permitted to 

 remain at home were required to execute a 

 bond to furnish their products to the Govern- 

 ment at its prices. The habeas corpus was sus- 

 pended and a passport system was established. 

 Notwithstanding all these sacrifices, the mili- 

 tary operations had resulted in loss in every 

 State, and the theatre of activity was reduced 

 to three Atlantic States. 



The action of the Federal Congress in 1861 

 -'2, in imposing a tax on real estate in insur- 

 rectionary States, and providing for its prompt 

 sale on non-payment, with a brief term for re- 

 demption, has produced thus far uncertain re- 

 sults. In some instances capitalists were con- 

 vinced that they would fail to secure sufficient 

 suitable labor to make their investment profit- 

 able, and declined to purchase. In others a 

 conflict of tities has arisen, which has prevent- 

 ed the cultivation of the land. All these trans- 

 actions have been confined to districts perma- 

 nently held by the Federal troops. 



CONFISCATION. The President having, 

 in the proclamation accompanying his message 

 of December 8th, 1863, declared a full j-ardon, 

 with restoration of all rights of property ex- 



cept as to slaves, to all who should take and 

 subscribe a certain oath, great numbers, whose 

 persons and property had come under the 

 operation of the confiscation laws, took the 

 oath prescribed. In February, the following 

 letter was issued from the office of the At- 

 torney-General to the district attorneys for their 

 direction in such cases : 



WASHTXGTOX. February 21. 



SIR : Many persons against whom criminal indict- 

 ments or against whom property -proceedings under 

 the confiscation laws are pending in the courts of 

 the United States, growing out of the participation 

 of such persons in the existing rebellion, have in 

 good faith taken the oath prescribed by the Procla- 

 mation of the President of the 8th of December, 

 1S63, and have therefore entitled themselves to the 

 full pardon and restoration of all rights of property, 

 except as to slaves, and where the rights of third 



that person from the penalties incurred by his crime, 

 and, where an indictment is pending against him 

 therefor, the production of the pardon, signed by the 

 President, or of satisfactory evidence that he has 

 complied with the conditions on which the pardon 

 is offered, if he be not of the class exempted from 

 the benefits of the proclamation, will be a sufficient 

 reason for discontinuing such criminal proceedings 

 and discharging him from custody therein. !Xor is 

 it less doubtful that a bona fide acceptance of the 

 terms of the President's proclamation by persons 

 guilty of acts of rebellion, and not of the excepted 

 class", will secure to such a person a restoration of 

 all the rights of property, except as to slaves, and 

 where the rights of third parties shall have inter- 

 vened ; notwithstanding such property may, by rea- 

 son of those acts of rebellion, have been subject to 

 confiscation under the provisions of the confiscation 

 acts of August 6, 1861, chapter 69, and July IT, IS-ii, 

 chapter 195. For, without adverting to any other 

 source of power in the President to restore their 

 rights of property, the 13th section of the act of July 

 1, authorizes the President at any time there- 

 after, by proclamation, to extend to persons who 

 may have participated in the existing rebellion, in 

 any State or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with 

 such exceptions and at such times and on such con- 

 ditions as he may deem expedient for the public wel- 

 fare. It will hardly be questioned, I suppose, that 

 the purpose of this section, inserted in a law mainly 

 intended to reach the property of persons engaged 

 in the rebellion, was to invest the President with full 



Eower to relieve such persons on such conditions as 

 e should prescribe from the penalty of IOSL of their 

 property by confiscation. 



Although the proceedings for confiscation under 

 the acts of August 6, 1861, and July 17, 1S02, are in 

 run against the property seized, vet under both acts 

 the ground of condemnation is the personal guilt of 

 the owner in aiding the rebellion. By the pardon 

 and amnesty, not only is the punishment of that per- 

 sonal guilt remitted, but the offence itself is effaced, 

 that being the special effect of an act of amnesty of 

 the Government. Of course, it arrests and puts to 

 an end all penal proceedings founded thereon, 

 whether they touch the person or the property of 

 the offender. There is, therefore, no case of judicial 

 proceedings to enforce the penalties of acts of rebel- 

 lion which cannot be reached and cured by the con- 

 stitutional or statutory powers of the President to 

 grant pardon and amnesty, whether those proceed- 

 m2S be against the person of the offender by crimi- 

 nal indictment, or against his property under the 

 confiscation acts referred to. 



The President has accordingly directed me to in- 

 struct you, that in any case where proceedings liare 



