Opinion of the court. spirits are removed from the place where distilled without a compliance with those requirements.* Persons distilling spirits, and the owners of stills used for the purpose of distilling spirits, are required to keep books and to make certain entries therein, and to render certain accounts to assessors, and if they do not comply with those requirements they also are subject to certain penalties for the neglect.† Bonded warehouses are established for the storage of spirits to be placed therein to secure the payment of the duties imposed by law, and the provision is that if any person shall ship, transport, or remove any spirits under any other than the proper mark or brand, known to the trade as designating the kind and quality of the contents of the casks or packages containing the same, or cause the same to be done, he shall forfeit the same, and shall, on conviction thereof, be subject to and pay a fine of five hundred dollars.‡ Cautious merchants, in consequence of those regulations, and many others equally stringent, are often disinclined to purchase spirits at the place where distilled lest they should be subject to forfeiture, if equally favorable terms are offered by other parties who have made deposits in the bonded warehouses. Distillers, therefore, intending to evade the payment of the duties may find it a most effectual way to accomplish their unlawful designs, in case they can, by bribery or otherwise, secure the co-operation of the inspector, storekeeper, or collector, to remove the spirits to a bonded warehouse, as spirits placed in that depository are less subject to suspicion and sell more readily than before they were removed from the place where distilled. Spirits placed in such a depository sell more readily than before they were removed, because they are regarded as less likely to be subject to forfeiture than while they remained in the distillery, but it is clear that the theory that an intent to defraud the United States cannot be predicated of a removal of spirits from the place where distilled to a bonded ware 14 Stat. at Large, 156; 14 Id. 481. † Ib. 157. Ib. 155, 156. Opinion of Field, J., the Chief Justice, and Miller, J., dissenting. house is an erroneous theory, as it is manifest that the dishonest distiller, if he can obtain the assistance of the inspector, storekeeper, or collector, as a partner or agent, will find such a removal an essential step in almost every scheme. which he may devise to accomplish his wicked designs. Viewed in any light, therefore, the court is of the opinion that the judgment of the Circuit Court is erroneous. Questions are also presented in the record under the fifth and sixth articles of the information, but the court having come to the conclusion that the United States are entitled to judgment upon the fourth article of the information, do not deem it necessary to express any opinion as to the other questions. JUDGMENT REVERSED and the cause remanded with instructions to render JUDGMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES. Mr. Justice FIELD, with whom concurred the CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice MILLER, dissenting. I am unable to concur in the judgment of the majority of the court, and will briefly state the grounds of my dissent. The proceeding is an information for the forfeiture of one hundred barrels of distilled spirits. The forfeiture is not decreed, on the ground that the government has not received the taxes levied on the spirits, for it is admitted that these have been paid; nor on the ground that the claimant has committed or participated in the commission of any fraud in the acquisition of the property, for it is conceded that he purchased the spirits in good faith without knowledge of any defect or taint in his vendor's title. Nor is the forfeiture inflicted for any violation of law, in act or deed, on the part of the distiller of whom the claimant purchased. He only removed the spirits from the place of their manufacture to the bonded warehouse of the United States, and that was a lawful, and not an unlawful act. The forfeiture is decreed because the former owner, in removing the spirits to the bonded warehouse, intended at the time to defraud the gov Opinion of Field, J., the Chief Justice, and Miller, J., dissenting. ernment of the tax thereon-an intent, however, which he never attempted to carry into execution. We thus have this singular and, I venture to say, unprecedented fact, in the history of judicial decisions in this country, that the property of a citizen honestly acquired, without suspicion of wrong in his vendor, is forfeited and taken from him because such vendor, at some period whilst owning the property, conceived the intent to defraud the government of the tax thereon, althe gh such intent was never developed in action, and for the execution of which no step was eve taken. The presumption is that the majority of the court are right in this decision, and that the minority are mistaken in their views of the law governing the case. It is, therefore, with diffidence that I venture to dissent from their judgment, a diffidence which is greatly augmented by the declaration of the majority, that it is impossible to escape the conclusion which they have reached. But for this conclusion I should have supposed that it would have been impossible, at this day and in this age, and in our country, to obtain a decree confiscating the property of a citizen for anything which a former owner of the property may have intended to do, but never did, with respect to it. I should have said that the intentions of the mind, lying dormant in the brain, had long since ceased to be subjects for which legislatures prescribed punishment. Against threatened injuries to person or property remedies. are provided; and this, it is believed, is the extent to which legislation can legitimately go with respect to intentions, however fraudulent or wicked, so long as they remain undeveloped by action. Penalties and forfeitures are not inflicted at this day in any civilized and free government for the motives with which lawful acts are done. The inability to ascertain, with certainty, the intentions of a party, except as they are exhibited in his acts, and the injustice which must necessarily follow any attempt to inflict punishment for them, except as they are thus exhibited, have hitherto, in this country, prevented any legislation of Opinion of Field, J., the Chief Justice, and Miller, J., dissenting. that character, unless such legislation is found in the present revenue act of Congress. The injustice in its operation of such legislation, assuming such legislation to exist, could not be more strikingly illustrated than in the present case. But I am not prepared to admit, notwithstanding the cogency and persuasiveness of the able and elaborate argument in the opinion of the majority, that there is any such legislation on our statute-book. The act of Congress under which this proceeding was taken provides, in its twenty-eighth section,* for the establishment of bonded warehouses for the storage of spirits "to secure the payment of the internal revenue tax thereon,” and, in its forty-fifth section, prohibits "the removal of distilled spirits from the place where the same are distilled otherwise than into a bonded warehouse, as provided by law," imposing penalties upon parties making such removal, and declaring that "the distilled spirits so removed" shall be forfeited to the United States. The same act declares, in its fourteenth section, that if any goods or commodities, upon which a tax is imposed, or the materials, utensils, or vessels, proper or intended to be used in their manufacture, are removed, deposited, or concealed in any place, "with intent to defraud the United States of such tax, or any part thereof," they shall be forfeited to the United States. And it is upon the language of this section, as applied to the facts admitted by the parties, that the majority of the court found the decree of forfei ture. The language is undoubtedly broad enough to cover any removal of spirits, upon which a tax has been imposed, from their place of manufacture; and, if it has any reference to articles of that character, it must be construed in connection with the language of the forty-fifth section. And the evident meaning of the two sections, if they are construed together, is, that the removal, for which a forfeiture is declared, is a removal to some other place than a bonded * 14 Stat. at Large, 155. † Ib. 163. Ib. 151. Opinion of Field, J, the Chief Justice, and Miller, J, dissenting. warehouse of the United States. Of a removal to such warehouse it is difficult to perceive how an intent to defraud the government can be, in truth, affirmed. It would be as reasonable to declare that a debtor had an intention to defraud his creditor when he placed in the hands of the latter the money to pay his demand. It is plain, in my judgment, or rather I should have said it was plain but for the opinion of the majority, that the removal of spirits forbidden by that section is a removal to some place beyond the reach of the government, or where the government would be in some way embarrassed or obstructed in the collection of its tax. It seems to me a strange application of the prohibition to make it cover a removal of spirits to a warehouse specially provided by the government for their reception, and where they are placed in the possession and custody of the officers of the United States. But I am unable to convince myself that the fourteenth section has any reference whatever to the removal of distilled spirits. The previous sections of the act relate to taxes on a great variety of articles, of several hundred different kinds, and it does not include distilled spirits among them. The removal mentioned in the fourteenth section would seem, therefore, to apply to the removal from the place of their manufacture of the articles thus previously designated, or at least of articles mentioned in the statute, for the removal of which no different penalties are specifically prescribed. The sections of the act, from the twenty-first to the fortyfifth inclusive, relate to the tax on distilled spirits, and contain numerous provisions applicable only to them. The punishment they prescribe for the removal of the spirits from the place of their manufacture, otherwise than to a bonded warehouse, in addition to their forfeiture, is different from the penalty prescribed by the fourteenth section, for the like removal of other goods. This fact would seem to be conclusive, if other reasons were wanting, that the fourteenth section has no reference to the removal of distilled spirits. The special provisions respecting them should ex |
