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Semmes v. United States U.S. 21 (1875)

handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0463 and id is 1 raw text is: Oct. 1875.]

SEM=  S v. UNITED STATES.

their fellow-citizens or subjects might be assumed as sufficiently
attested by the works on international law and the acts and in-
structions of our own government. But the precise extent of
this iurisdiction is unknown to us.      Whether it applies to any
but residents in Turkey, or to travellers as well; whether to
persons not in the country at all, but having property there, or
claims against persons who axe there; whether to cases like the
present, -where neither party resides in Turkey, or is sojourning
there, -axe questions which axe not answered by the ordinary
statements made in reference to this jurisdiction. As the power
of the consuls of the United States, according to the treaties
and laws as they stood in 1864, depended on the laws or usages
of Turkey, those laws or usages should have been pleaded in
some manner, however briefly, so that the court could have
seen that the case was within them; for, failing to do this,
the plea was defective in substance, and judgment should have
been rendered for the plaintiff on the demurrer.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of the -District of (Jo-
lumbia must be reversed, and the cause remanded with
directions to allow the defendant to amend his plea on pay-
ment qf costs.
SF S V. Ui-TD STATES.
1. The power of amending a writ of error returnable to the Circuit Court is
vested in that court as fully as it is in the Supreme Court on writs of error
returnable to it.
2. The judgment of the Circuit Court ought not to be reversed for defects of
form in the process returnable on error to that court, which are amendable
by the express words of an act of Congress.
3. The proclamation of the President of the United States, bearing date Sept. 7,
1867, did not work the dismissal of legal proceedings against property seized
under the confiscation act of July 17, 1862, or provide for the restoration
of all rights of property to persons engaged in the rebellion.
4. Property so seized became the property of the United States from the date of
the decree of condemnation.
5. The writ of error vested the Circuit Court with complete jurisdiction; and
that court having reversed the second decree of the District Court, dismiss-
ing the libel, and adjudged that the first decree condemning the property
should remain in full force, might proceed to pass such decree as should
have been passed by the subordinate court; and, if a decree confirming
the sale of the property was necessary, it, was entirely competent for the
Circuit Court to pass it.

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