William Johnson

“ Hence, according to our system, all the suits to be instituted under the laws over which the Secretary's power extends, are commenced in the name of the United States. No other party is permitted to sue; they are all made national prosecutions; all the legal actors are those who are bound in obedience to the government that prosecutes. Nothing is more untenable than the idea, that at any one stage of the prosecution, the government assumes the character of a trustee; an idea so abhorrent to the principles of the common law, that to make the king a trustee, was to make him absolute proprietor. ”

“ He who supposes his case not to come within the construction of a law, or that the law is repealed, expired, or unconstitutional, cannot be visited with moral offence, either in the act charged or the defence of it. Yet, how is the question of right ever to be decided, unless he is permitted to try the question before a Court of law? In such a case, pertinacious adherence to his offence cannot be imputed to him, since resisting the suit on the one hand, while he sues for remission on the other, amount to no more than this, that he denies having violated the law ”

“ The words are, 'whenever any person, who shall have incurred any fine, penalty, forfeiture, or disability, or shall have been interested in any vessel, goods, wares, or merchandise, which shall have been subject to any seizure, forfeiture, or disability, by force of any present or future law of the United States, for laying or collecting any duties or taxes, or by force of any present or future act concerning the registering and recording of ships or vessels, &c. ”