clamation to go beyond the law, it would be a mere brutum fulmen. § 451. Amnesty. Amnesty is an act of oblivion for past offenses; it is granted to offenders-not to enemies as such; it effaces a crime or misdemeanor; it is usually proclaimed in favor of a class of criminals or wrongdoers, rather than to an individual, for the purpose of promoting public order. When it is tendered to insurrectionists, it is not to them as belligerents but as offending subjects: for the act is one of clemency from the sovereign, and necessarily presupposes the right of the sovereign to recognition and obedience when it proposes to both forgive and forget the violations of duty on the part of those who ought to have obeyed. Amnesty is ordinarily granted without the previous existence of any prosecution against the offenders: pardon is usually after conviction, though not necessarily so. Amnesty cannot affect a civil action pending against enemy property any more than pardon can.

Amnesty creates no oblivion of facts, except the fact of the crime or offense. If a mob be pardoned and amnestied for an outbreak, the fact that one's store has been pillaged remains, and civil action for damage could not be defeated by the plea that government had granted amnesty.1

§ 452. Remission of Forfeiture. There is a statute under which the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to mitigate or remit fines, forfeitures or penalties, and to remove disabilities, incurred by authority of any provisions of law for the suppression of insurrection. Application must be made to the district judge, who, after hearing the petitioner and any opponent, must refer the matter to the Secretary for decision.

1 For further on the subject of pardon and amnesty, see the cases of Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, and ex parte Garland, Id. 333, and the learned briefs there epitomised on the effect of pardon and amnesty, pro and con, with the numerous cases and incidents cited. The court, sustaining the pardon for the offense of Garland, said, (p. 381,) "There is this limitation to its operation: it does

not restore offices forfeited, or property or interests vested in others in consequence of the conviction and judgment. 4 Black. Com. 402; 6 Bacon's Abridg., tit. 'Pardon; ' Hawkins, book 2, c. 37, §§ 34, 54:" Field, J.

2 Rev. Stat., § 5292, where it is found imbedded with various other authorizations to remit fines and forfeitures imposed by other statutes.

Of the two acts professedly, by title, for the suppression of insurrection, but one provides for fines and disabilities; and that one is the "Act to Suppress Insurrection," etc., approved July 17, 1862-the first four sections of which provided relative to those subjects, and not the remaining sections. Disability to hold office under the United States, and a fine not limited by the statute, are among the penalties for treason, which may result in practical forfeiture of all the convict's

estate.

It is certain that this statute has no reference to the remission of the confiscation of enemy property. It can have no reference to remission of forfeiture worked by fine, where property has been sold and the title vested, unless it means that, in such case, the loss is to be made up to the convict, out of the public treasury. Neither the power of pardon by the President, nor remission by the Secretary, can possibly affect the new title from confiscation, after it has been vested in the United States or a purchaser from the government. The provision seems to be more plausibly referable to the treasury regulations under the non-intercourse acts. § 453. Another. There is a striking similarity between the pardon and the death of one who has alienated his property by forfeiting it, with reference to the new title vested in the United States or in another person. It has been seen that pardon subsequent to the vesting cannot affect the title: can death? The divested person's heir is but a continuance of himself; and if by his death the title comes back to his heir, it virtually comes back to himself. Title is wholly vested in the United. States by confiscation, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly and definitely decided; and therefore there can be no way of divesting it but by grant. This cannot be, because there is no statute authorizing it expressly or impliedly, except those that authorize sale; and grant by donation cannot be directed by statute for want of constitutional warrant. Neither the pardon nor the death of the prior owner can affect the title derived from any source; certainly it cannot, when derived from a proceeding in rem which is as conclusive against heirs at law as it is against

Death of the Former Owner After Title Vested in

every other

person, since the decree, after general notice, is res adjudicata quoad omnes.

To give condemned property to the heir is to give it back to the former owner; for hæres est alter ipse, et filius'est pars patris: "an heir is another self, and a son is a part of the father." As Lord Coke said, Hares est eadem persona cum antecessore:1 "The heir is the same person with the ancestor." And again: Hæres est pars antecessoris: "The heir is a part of the ancestor." And, by the civil law, hæredibus nihil aliud est, quam successio in universum jus, quod defunctus habuerit:3 "The right of inheritance is nothing else than the faculty of succeeding to all the rights of the deceased."

§ 454. Suggestions. More space has been devoted to the explanatory resolution than would have been required had it not been sometimes applied to enemy property, though equivalent to the clause of the Constitution which limits forfeiting for treason; for it thus tended to affect the whole subject of Things Hostile.*

Such misapplication tended to destroy the distinction between hostile and guilty things, and even between personal suits and proceedings in rem: hence the necessity of showing that it cannot rightfully claim the support of authoritative decisions.

The perspicuous treatment of Proceedings in Rem, as a system, required that Things Hostile should be accurately distinguished from the other two classes of things; and therefore the relation of this book to the others, with its bearing upon them, would be a sufficient apology for its existence, were it not entitled to its place as a component part of the general subject, and also for the practical importance of its topic.

The temptation to enlarge upon the interesting and ever growing subject of International Law has been withstood, so that only so far as concerned enemy property and proceedings against it has that branch of jurisprudence been discussed.

The subject of enforcing liens against enemy property, under the statute,1 properly belongs to the next book, in which it will be treated. 2

1 United States Rev. Stat., § 5322. 2 Post, chap. liii.

455. Debtor-Property and the Right Enforceable Against it. The jus ad rem, or relative right to a thing to the extent of the lien-bearing debt upon it; or, more briefly, the right in a thing to the amount of the debt,' is almost always the one which the action against indebted things is employed to enforce. The major right, synonymous with title or ownership, is usually accompanied by possession, so far as this class

1 Ante, § 27.

2 Bouvier's Law Dict., Verbo, “Jus in re;" Ante, § 27.