Samuel Freeman Miller

“ In order to institute and perfect proceedings in rem, it is necessary that the thing should be actually and constructively within the reach of the court. It is actually within its possession, when it is submitted to the process of the court; it is constructively so when, by a seizure, it is held to ascertain and enforce a right or forfeiture which can alone be decided by a judicial decree in rem. ”

“ Proceedings in rem have, from time immemorial, been employed in courts of admiralty, as means of enforcing a jus in re, that is a claim or right (such as a privilege, or lien, or an hypothecation) , in the specific thing proceeded against. At a later period it was adopted in England for enforcing the forfeiture of vessels or merchandise for breaches of revenue or navigation laws; but, of course, always confined to property that was directly connected with the alleged violation of law, either as the subject of it or as the means with which it was committed. ”

“ In a suit by the United States, could a court obtain jurisdiction in personam by an executive mandate, without any process from the court directing the defendant to appear?
Again, the object of process, either in personam or in rem, is to give notice of a pending case. Did this seizure, under the act of July 17th, 1862, give such notice? The President may seize for the purpose of using, and if he chooses he may take proceedings to condemn. Under the revenue acts, the person making the seizure is required to proceed at once. Under this act the President may never proceed. ”

“ They are through out punitive and highly penal; they punish with death or with imprisonment almost as bad as death, the crime of treason; they create a new crime, that of rebellion, and punish it with imprisonment or fine, or with both, at the discretion of the court, and, to all these penalties superadd those of confiscation and of civil disability, heretofore unknown to our penal code. No one can doubt, that this is a penal statute designed to punish treason and rebellion. ”

“ The general jurisdiction in admiralty and revenue cases is regulated by the Judiciary Act of September 24th, 1789. Various decisions, in which this act has received a judicial construction, show that the seizure ascertains and determines the forum wherein judicial proceedings were to be instituted, but does not of itself subject the property to the judgment of the court. ”

“ There is a crime, of which he can be convicted, and he is charged with that crime, and the law expressly declares, that the property cannot be condemned, unless that crime shall have been committed by the owner. ”

“ On the other hand, no citizen, however inimical his feelings or his conduct towards his own country may be, can claim the immunities or incur the liabilities of an enemy. The word is therefore synonymous with alien enemy, and this is the sense in which it is used by all legal writers. To call a rebel an enemy, therefore, would be a contradiction in terms. ”