David Davis

“ The real ground of complaint is that he was not an absent or absconding debtor, or a person whose residence was unknown, and was not, therefore, subject to the proceedings which were instituted against him. Whether this be so or not it is easy enough to see in the anomalous condition of affairs existing at the time in Missouri, that creditors might honestly suppose that an individual leaving his State to destroy the government under which his rights of property were acquired, did not intend to return to it, and proceed to collect their debts under that supposition. ”

“ The complainant is not, in our opinion, in a position to invoke the aid of a court of equity to decide that question. The bill presents the case of a man who chose to neglect his private interests for the purpose of devoting his time to the destruction of the government, complaining that his creditors enforced the collection of their debts on a wrong theory of his status, in consequence of entering the service of the enemy. ”

“ Such a general allegation will not suffice to provoke the interposition of a court of equity. It will not do to remain wilfully ignorant of a thing readily ascertainable. There has been free and uninterrupted communication between Tennessee and Missouri since the war closed, and the courts everywhere accessible for the prosecution of any cause of action. Besides, in the very nature of things, the complainant must have known soon after it occurred that an improved farm, once occupied by him, was in the possession of adverse claimants. ”