1. If a slave, employed by the representative of a foreign government
without the owner's authority, be reclaimed by the owner with or
without legal process, the reclamation is not a breach of diplomatic
privilege, 7.
2. For injuries done by private persons to the representatives of foreign
governments, the Government of the United States affords redress
through its judicial tribunals. Ibid.
3. The Executive Department has no power to redress such injuries. Ibid.
4. The absence of a minister resident from his post, with permission of the
President, is not an offence for which his salary, during the time of
the absence, is to be withheld from him, 138,
5. The act of 1856 does not forbid an absence of less than ten days with-
out permission, or of more than that time with leave of the President.
Ibid.
6. A public minister, who was at home at the time of his recall, and who was
paid his salary down to the date of his recall, is not entitled, in addi-
tion, to compensation for such further time as would be necessarily
spent in coming home from the seat of his mission, 261.
1. When an officer of the United States is sued for the performance of his
duty, the Government is bound to protect him by paying the costs of
his defence. If he defends himself, and proves upon his trial that be
was executing the law or the orders of his superior, his expenses
ought to be reimbursed to him, 51.
2. Under the act of 1852, extraordinary expenses of a ministerial officer
in the execution of the law cannot be allowed by the President, unless
such expenses be regularly taxed; and taxation is not legal or regu-
lar unless it be made in and by the proper court, duly organized, with
a quorum of judges on the bench, in regular session, and a record is
made of their decision, 73.
3. The appointment of a commissioned officer is not perfected, and is
entirely within the power of the President, until a commission is
issued, 297.
4. Under the act of January 31, 1823, the President has power to dismiss
a defaulting officer without first giving him notice of the charges re-
ported against him, 313.
5. The acts of an officer de facto are always held to be good where the
public or third parties are concerned; and the legality of his appoint-
ment can never be inquired into except upon quo warranto, or some
other proceeding to oust him, or else in a suit brought or defended by
himself, which brings the very question whether he was an officer de
jure directly in issue, 432.
1. A person disfranchised as a citizen, by conviction for crime, under the
laws of the United States, can be restored to his rights by a pardon
issued before or after he has suffered the other penalties incident to
his conviction., 478.
1. A passport issued by an unauthorized person, substantially in the form
used by the State Department, is within the letter of section twenty-
three of the act of August 18, 1856, 350.
2. The prohibition contained in that act is not confined to the issuing and
verifying of such passports or certificates in foreign countries, but
applies equally to State and Federal functionaries residing here. Ibid.
3. A passport cannot be issued to any other than a citizen of the United
States. Ibid.
4. There is no form of certificate in the nature of a passport which can be
issued lawfully by a State officer. Ibid.
1. The payment of a duty upon a patent or caveat to the credit of the
Treasury is not a pledge or deposit of the money, but an absolute and
unconditional payment, 64.
2. If the patentee or caveator afterwards demands the money to be repaid
to him, he must show that his demand for it is founded on some law
within whose terms he can bring his case distinctly and clearly. Ibid.
3. There is but one provision in the act of July 4, 1836, authorizing a duty
once paid to be refunded, and that is found in the third sentence of the
seventh section. Ibid.
4. That sentence authorizes twenty dollars to be returned, not to a caveator,
nor one who has made an "incomplete application," but to a person
who has made an application which is perfect enough to be examined,
and which, in point of fact, has been examined and rejected. Ibid.
5. It follows that a party who merely files a caveat, paying the legal duty
of twenty dollars, cannot withdraw the caveat and demand a return
of ten dollars. Ibid.
6. A new and useful machine invented by a slave cannot be patented, 171.
7. Drawings accompanying an application for a patent may be signed
either by the inventor or by any person he may authorize, 378.
8. When the inventor of a machine, before a patent issues to him, makes
a full and complete assignment of all his right to another, the assignee
is entitled to have the patent issued in his own name: but, where the
assignment of the inventor's right is only partial, although the parts
excepted be very small, the assignee has no legal claim to the patent,
403.
9. An inventor stipulated with certain parties that they should have the
exclusive use and ownership of any and all inventions which he might
thereafter make for the cleaning of rice, in any and all "countries,"
in which the parties then were, or might thereafter be, interested in
four other patents taken out by the inventor. In three of the other
previous patents the parties had an interest coëxtensive with the Uni-
ted States; in the fourth, they had an interest throughout the United
States, except the cities of New York and Boston. Afterwards the
inventor made another machine for cleaning rice: Held, that, under
the contract mentioned, the assignees were entitled to have the patent
for the new machine issued in their own names. Ibid.
1. Where a revolutionary soldier, who has performed services which would
have entitled him to a pension, has died without being placed on the
pension list, neither his children nor grandchildren are entitled, after
his death, to make the application, and get the pension which he might
have got by taking the proper steps in his lifetime, 83.
2. The same rule is applicable to the case of a revolutionary soldier's
widow who has died without being on the pension list, and whose
children or grandchildren make the application in her right. Ibid.
3. The acts of July 29, 1848, February 3, 1853, and August 5, 1854, do not
authorize the payment of a pension to a widow for the period em-
braced by her second coverture, 247.
4. The five years' half-pay granted to widows, under the act of February
3, 1853, commences at the time of the deaths, respectively, of the de-
ceased officers or soldiers, 277.
1. In what cases postmasters shall be held, and in what cases not, for
stamps sent to them, and not sold or returned to the department, 105,
1. A person who intends to make the carrying of letters periodically for
hire his regular business, or part of his business, in opposition to the
public carriers, is legally incapable of receiving authority to take
letters out of the post office for that purpose, however such authority
may be attempted to be conferred, 161.
2. Under the act of August 30, 1852, the publisher of a weekly newspaper
has no right to send through the mails free of postage newspapers de-
liverable to resident subscribers, 477.
1. It is the duty of the Post Office Department to take into its possession
all money known to be stolen from the mail, and restore it to the
rightful owner, 70.
2. When the officer who arrests the thief takes the stolen money from him,
he has no right to hold it against the demand of the Post Office De-
partment, on the pretence that it is not absolutely and positively
identified by the parties who claim to be its rightful owners. Ibid.
3. Where the fact of the theft is established, and the circumstantial evidence
makes it reasonably clear that the money found upon the thief was the
money stolen from the mail, the officer cannot legally detain it. Ibid.
4. The Post Office Department has no power, without authority of law, to
enforce a rule, that bids for carrying the mails should not be with-
drawn after a certain time, whether accepted or not, 174.
5. A promise not to withdraw a proposal before the Department decides
upon it is not binding in law on the bidder. Ibid.
6. A bid may be signed by the party without writing his name at the foot
of the instrument. Ibid.
7. A withdrawal of a proposal must be notified. Ibid.
8. After the date of the act of March 3, 1859, and the removal of the post
office at Boston from State street, the Postmaster General had no au-
thority to restore the office to State street until the indemnity provided
for in the proviso to the seventh section of that act was furnished, 315.
9. The authority of the Postmaster General to pay for the mail service,
specified in section 5 of the act of June 14, 1858, out of any money
not otherwise appropriated, is plain, positive, and independent of any
limitation in the act of July 2, 1836, 382.
10. If a mail contractor refuse, after being instructed, to give information
as to the preparations made by him for the performance of his con-
tract, his contract may be annulled by the department, 392.
11. Under the act of June 21, 1860, the Postmaster General is required to
increase the service on the mail route between Sacramento, California,
and Portland, Oregon, and raise the compensation therefor, without
any reference to the mail service from Portland to Olympia, Wash-
ington Territory, 434.
12. The Post Office Department has authority to make a regulation which will
prevent the service from being prostituted to purposes of fraud, 454.
13. It may order the non-delivery of letters addressed to persons under
names which are known to have been assumed as part of a system to
defraud the public. Ibid.
14. But the fraudulent intent in any case ought to be very clear before
such an order is enforced. Ibid.
15. Under the act of January 13, 1857, authorizing the Postmaster Gen-
eral to execute a contract with certain parties for carrying the mails
from Cumberland to Greensburg, at the sum of $4,320 per annum, the
Postmaster General had authority to make a contract with those
persons in the usual form and with the ordinary stipulations, 500.
PRESIDENT.
1. The President may appoint a private secretary, at a salary of $2,500; a
secretary to sign patents, at a salary of $1,500; and designate a clerk
in the Land Office to assist the latter officer, 17.
1. The act of Congress requires the advertising of the executive depart-
ments to be given to the two newspapers printed in the city of Wash-
ington which have the largest permanent subscription, and permits
the President to select a third, 54.
2. Where a daily, weekly, and tri-weekly newspaper are printed and
published in the same office, by the same person, and under the same
name, they are not different papers, but different editions of the same
paper. Ibid.
3. The advertising should be given to those papers which have the largest
permanent subscription to all their issues. Ibid.
1. The act of 1797, which provides that when the estate of a deceased
debtor to the United States is insufficient to pay all his debts, the
debt due to the Government shall be first satisfied, does not create any
lien upon the debtor's property, but merely points out a mode of dis-
tribution, 28.
2. The priority of the United States, therefore, cannot reach back over
any valid lien, whether it be general or specific. Ibid.
3. Where a collector of customs executed a mortgage upon his real estate to
indemnify his sureties, and then died insolvent, and in debt to the
United States, the mortgage to the sureties is valid and effectual
against the United States. Ibid.
1. An injunction, or any other judicial process, is not necessary to pre-
vent a railway company from taking possession of a fort or other
military property of the Government. If such an invasion is
threatened, the officer at the post ought to be instructed to resist it
by force, 106.
2. The commissioners of the harbor of Portland have no authority to pre-
vent the deposition of stone or other materials deemed necessary by
the officers of the United States for the construction of a fort on Hog
Island Ledge, in that harbor, 319.
3. An officer in command of a military post has the right to protect it by
force from occupation or injury at the hands of trespassers, 476.
4. An officer in command of such a post has no authority to lease the lands
for private purposes to persons who are not in the employment of the
Government. Ibid.
1. An assistant surgeon in the army was dismissed by the sentence of a
court-martial. He was subsequently nominated as assistant surgeon,
and confirmed by the Senate, with a recommendation that he should
take rank according to the date of his original commission. This rank
would entitle him, according to the usual rules of promotion, to be
appointed a full surgeon. But while he was out of the army all the
places of full surgeon had been filled by the promotion of his juniors:
Held, that the promotion of the juniors was legal, and that the only
benefit which the officer in question could derive from his rank was
the right to be appointed a full surgeon upon the happening of the
next vacancy, 20.
1. A person to whom Congress has authorized the payment of a certain
sum in satisfaction of an acknowledged debt has an absolute title to
the money, which no executive officer has authority to resist, 197.
2. Against a claim so allowed by Congress the Secretary of the Treasury
cannot set off a debt alleged to be due by the claimant to the United
States, upon which no suit has ever been brought or judgment recov-
ered, and the justice of which is denied by the party. Ibid.
RESIDE, CLAIM OF (Continued.)
3. The United States, like other creditors, must establish their rights against
a citizen by due course of law and before the proper tribunals, there
being no law which gives to the Secretary of the Treasury the power to
adjudicate upon disputed claims of the Government against individuals.
Ibid.
4. It is especially necessary to observe this rule where the demand of the
United States is based upon a transaction of remote date, where the
parties and witnesses are dead, and the papers probably lost or de-
stroyed. Ibid.
5. Where a mail contractor, in 1834, drew a bill upon the Post Office De-
partment which was accepted by the Treasurer, this is not upon its face
a contract which makes the drawer primarily debtor to the holder; he
is but surety for the acceptor, unless it can be proved that he had no
funds in the hands of the drawee; that he procured the acceptance and
passed the bill away for his own purposes. Ibid.
6. In the absence of any proof, it will be presumed that the bill was not
accepted for the mere accommodation of the drawer, and that presump-
tion is strengthened by evidence which shows that about the time when
the bill is dated a large number of similar bills were drawn and accepted
in the same way and sold in the market by the Post Office Department
for its own use. Ibid.
7. If the drawer of the bill was originally liable to the holder, and in equity
bound to pay it, but it remained without demand and unacknowledged
in the hands of the holder for more than six years, his liability ceased
by lapse of time; and if it was afterwards paid by Congress to the
holder, that fact would not revive the extinguished liability of the
drawer. Ibid.
8. There is no statute of limitations against the Government, and mere lapse
of time can therefore not be applied as a legal bar to a public claim;
but the natural presumption of fact which arises from lapse of time is as
just an element of decision against the Government as against an indi-
vidual. Ibid.
9. Where the accounts of a mail contractor have been fully settled, and no
attempt has been made to disturb them for many years, they are con-
clusive, and no charge can now be made against him which ought to
have been settled then. Ibid.
10. An act of Congress granting money to one mail contractor, or ordering
the same amount to be charged upon the account of another, whose ac-
counts have been long since settled, is void and of no effect as against
the latter. Ibid.
1. The Senate has no power, by a resolution of its own, to direct the pay-
ment of the salary of a deceased member to his assignee, 446.
1. The commander of an American vessel is required to deliver his register,
and other ship's papers to the consul at a foreign port only in cases
where he is coinpelled to make an entry at the custom-house, 256.
1. An act of Congress directed the Secretary of War to settle, upon princi-
ples of justice and equity, the claim of certain persons named as officers,
musicians, and privates of a militia company in South Carolina, during
the war of 1812, and to pay the amount adjudicated to be due to said
parties. It was discovered after the award that three of the persons
named in the act were negro slaves. One of them, Mingal Crawford,
at the time of rendering the military service, was owned by Gabriel
Crawford, since deceased, and his administrator claimed the amount
found to be due to Mingal, who at the time of the adjudication of the
Secretary was the property of another person: Held, that neither
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