Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar

“ The opinion of the court was delivered by Mr. Justice STORY. In the course of his remarks he said: 'It is not universally, though it may ordinarily be, one test of right, that it may be enforced in a court of justice. Claims and debts due from a sovereign are not ordinarily capable of being so enforced. Neither the king of Grant Britain nor the government of the United States is suable in the ordinary courts of justice for debts due by either; yet who will doubt that such debts are rights? ”

“ It must be conceded that the language of the Revised Statutes relating to bankruptcy to which we have referred is broad and comprehensive enough to embrace the whole property of the bankrupt. Was the claim in this case property, in any sense of the term? We think it was. Who can doubt but that the right to prosecute this claim before the court of commissioners of Alabama claims would have survived to their legal representatives had the original claimants been dead at the passage of the act of 1882? It so, the money recovered would have been distributable as assets of the estate. ”

“ There was undoubtedly a moral obligation on the United States to bestow the fund received upon the individuals who had suffered losses at the hands of the Confederate cruisers, and in this sense all the claims of whatsoever nature were possessed of greater or less pecuniary value. ”