William Strong

“ So, too, the absence of any averment that the causes of forfeiture were contrary to the form of the statute or statutes of the United States in such case provided, is no sufficient reason for reversing the judgment of the District Court. Such an averment is required by the twenty-second admiralty rule, but even in admiralty a failure to make it cannot be taken advantage of in a court of errors. ”

“ Proceedings hostile to any of the parties engaged in the late civil war would be in violation of the spirit and letter of the proclamations. The war has ceased. Further action 'to insure the speedy termination of the (then) present rebellion,' is not required. The army is no longer arrayed upon a war footing, and the proceeds of property of the offenders is no longer needed for such a use.
The cases of Yeaton v. The United States, [9] and United States v. Preston, [10] determine that the repeal of the law pending an appeal leaves nothing to operate upon, and that the decree must be reversed. ”

“ It is contended that the proclamations of amnesty in 1868 amounted in effect to a repeal of the Confiscation Act. To this we cannot assent. No power was ever vested in the President to repeal an act of Congress. Moreover, the property condemned in this case became vested in the United States in 1865, by the judgment of forfeiture, and the sale under the venditioni exponas merely converted into money that which was the property of the government before. ”

“ It was said that in 'admiralty proceedings a libel in the nature of an information does not require all the formality and technical precision of an indictment at common law. If the allegations are such as plainly and distinctly to mark the offence, it is all that is necessary. ”

“ On the 17th of March, 1870, the case was removed to the Circuit Court by writ of error, where the judgment of the District Court was reversed and the libel of information was ordered to be dismissed. The sales, however, were confirmed.
'The information is a remarkable specimen of loose pleading and uncertain statement. From the allegation in the fifth article no man can tell what John Slidell did. The next article is of the same ambiguous and unconsequential nature. The extreme ambiguity of the charges in it is something more than a matter of form; it amounts to a substantial defect. ”

“ In either alternative the property was made subject to confiscation. It may be the information might have been more artifically drawn, and that if the owner had appeared in answer to the citation he might have interposed successfully a special demurrer. But after default was made and entered, and after a final judgment of condemnation, faults in the mode of pleading, mere formal faults, can be of no importance. They cannot have injured any one. ”

“ What matters it then that the information was called a libel of information, or that the warrant and citation is called a monition? The substance and all the requisites of a common-law proceeding are found in the record. Technical niceties are not required either in admiralty or revenue cases. [20]
It is next objected there was no sufficient service of the process; but we think the return of the marshal shows exact compliance with the order of the court directing service, and the manner in which it should be made. ”

“ There is, in truth, no charge at all. There is no charge that Slidell acted as a foreign minister of the confederacy. The allegation is that he either did that or something else; but we are not informed what. ”