Nathan Clifford

“ Whenever a State or part of a State was so proclaimed to be in a state of insurrection, the provision was, that thereupon all commercial intercourse by and between the same and the citizens thereof, and the rest of the United States, should cease and be unlawful, so long as such condition of hostility should continue. ”

“ If the act of 1862 did pro tanto repeal the act of 1861, and if the Secretary of the Interior had authority to direct a purchase of $3000 worth of cotton-seed from rebels, he yet had no authority to license the transportation of merchandise to districts declared to be in insurrection; obtaining, finally, from them with the proceeds-supposing which is a benignant supposition, that the merchandise was simply to be exchanged-a cargo of cotton-seed. That is a vastly different authority from the other. Every consideration of policy forbids such a broad construction of the act. ”

“ A license to trade with an enemy is, of course, to be construed most strictly. The party may trade only to the extent of the license. [4] Under the license it was lawful, if the party had the money, to purchase. It was not lawful, if he had not money, to do unlawful things to get it. The authority, as the other side construes it, would have given Hodge a power to trade almost indefinitely with the enemy, or to have done any other prohibited act, till he had raised money necessary to buy the cargo of seed. ”