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Mrs. Alexander's Cotton U.S. 404 (1865)

handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0409 and id is 1 raw text is: Mups. ALEXANDER'S COTTON. [Sup. Ct, Statement of the case. MRs. ALEXANDER'S COTTON. 1. The principle, that personal dispositions of the individual inhabitants of enemy territory as distinguished from those of the enemy people gene- rally, cannot, in questions of capture, be inquired into, applies in civil wars as in international. Hence, all the people of any district that was in insurrection against the United States in the Southern rebellion, are to be regarded as enemies, except in so far as by action of the Govern- ment itself that relation may have been changed. 2. Our Government, by its act of Congress of March 12th, 1863 (12 Stat. at Large, 591), to provide for the collection of abandoned property, &c., does make distinction between those whom the rule of international law would class as enemies; and, through forms which it prescribes, protects the rights of property of all persons in rebel regions who, during the rebellion, have, in fact, maintained a loyal adhesion to the Government; the general policy of our legislation during the rebellion having been to preserve, for loyal owners obliged by circumstances to remain in rebel States, all property or its proceeds which has come to the possession of the Government or its officers. 3. Cotton in the Southern rebel districts-constituting as it did the chief reliance of the rebels for means to purchase munitions of war, an ele- ment of strength to the rebellion-was a proper subject of capture by the Government during the rebellion on general principles of public law relating to war, though private property; and the legislation of Congress during the rebellion authorized such capturs. 4. Property captured on land by the officers and crews of a naval force of the United States, is not maritime prize; even though, like cotton, it may have been a proper subject of capture generally, as an element of strength to the enemy. Under the act of Congress of March 12th, 1863, such property captured during the rebellion should be turned over to the Treasury Department, by it to be sold, and the proceeds deposited in the National Treasury, so that any person asserting ownership of it may prefer his claim in the Court of Claims under the said act; and on making proof to the satisfaction of that tribuna: that ho has never given aid or comfort to the rebellion, have a return of the net proceeds decreed to him. IN the spring of 1864, a conjoint expedition of forces of the United States, consisting of the Ouachita and other gun- boats, with their officers and crews, under Rear Admiral Porter, and a body of troops under Major-General Banks, proceeded up the Red River, a tributary of the Mississippi, and which empties into that river three hundred and thirty-

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