Navy Pension-Fund. to 4125, inclusive.) I am accordingly brought to the conclusion that were the convicts mentioned in your communication to be transported to the United States for imprisonment they could not legally be held. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State. GEO. H. WILLIAMS. NAVY PENSION FUND. Where a district court, by its decree, ordered certain money to be distributed as proceeds of prize, one-half to the captors and the other half to the "Navy pension-fund;" and at a subsequent term of the court, the distribution of the money having in the mean time been made as thus ordered, altered its decree by ordering all the money to be paid to the captors as military salvage: Held that, as to the money in question, viz, the amount distributed to the "Navy pension-fund," the modified decree was of no effect and void; the funds having then already passed out of the jurisdiction and control of the court. (Cf. opinions of AttorneyGeneral Akerman of August 1 and December 6, 1870, in 13 Opin., 299, 348.) DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of January 14, 1875, in which you request my opinion upon the case therein stated. The facts are briefly these: A prize-court by its decree ordered prize-money to be distributed, one-half to the captors, the other half to the "Navy pension-fund." The distribution was so made and the decree fully executed. Subsequently the court altered its decree, and ordered all the money as military salvage to be paid to the captors. The question is: What effect has the amended decree upon the moneys distributed to the Navy pension-fund, and what is the duty in the premises of the Secretary of the Navy as the trustee of that fund? I assume that by the word "subsequently" in your letter you intend at a subsequent term, and that the fact is that the decree was altered at a term of the court subsequent to that in which it was first rendered. Navy Pension Fund. The law applicable to the case was early laid down, in substance, thus: During the term wherein any judicial act is done it remains in the remembrance of the court, and it may be altered or vacated, as in the opinion of the court justice requires. But when that term is passed the control of the court over the record ceases, and its judgments, decrees, or other judicial acts admit of no alteration, averment, or proof to the contrary. In more modern times the rule has been modified, and it is now held that courts have the power at subsequent terms to set right matters of mere form in their judgments, to correct misprisions of their clerks and what may be regarded as clerical mistakes, so as to conform the record to the truth, and any amendments permissible under the statutes of jeofails may be made. Judgments obtained by fraud may be vacated at a subsequent term. (3 Black. Com., 407. Bank of the United States vs. Moss, 6 How., 31.) But no court can alter, reverse, or annul its own final judgments or decrees rendered on the merits, for error of fact or law, after the term in which they have been entered of record. Even want of jurisdiction was held to be not a sufficient ground for setting aside, on motion only, a final judgment entered at a former term. (Steamboat New England, 3 Sumner, 495; Ex parte Sibbald vs. The United States, 12 Pet., 492; Cameron vs. McRoberts, 3 Wheat., 591; Charman vs. Charman, 13 Vesey, 115; Assignees of Medford vs. Dorsey, 2 Wash., C. C. Rep., 433; Bank of the United States vs. Moss, 6 How., 31; Cook vs. Wood, 24 Ills. Reps., 295; Hill vs. Saint Louis, 20 Missouri Rep., 584.) In this case, as it is presented, the court's order distributing the money as prize-money was a decision disposing of the whole cause upon its merits. The decree was final as to all parties. No fraud or irregularity in obtaining it is alleged or suggested. At a subsequent term by the same court there is an attempt for supposed error in law to reverse the decree, or that portion of it which gave part of the money to the Navy pension-fund, and this after the money had been paid over in accordance with the decree. It was too late. The cause and the subject-matter of it were then out of the jurisdiction of the court and beyond its control. By the original decree this money had become part and parcel of the Navy pension Claim of George M. Giddings. fund. It belongs to that fund; and it is the duty of the Secretary of the Navy as trustee to hold and protect it. He can do nothing toward carrying out the order of the amended decree, which, as to him, and as to the money in question, is without effect and void. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. Geo. M. ROBESON, Secretary of the Navy. CLAIM OF GEORGE M. GIDDINGS. The question proposed in this case-which has special reference to the provision in section 3480 of the Revised Statutes, prohibiting the payment of certain claims which existed prior to April 13, 1861, and is in substance whether the claimant's demand “accrued or existed” prior to that date-being regarded as purely a question of fact, to be made out from the evidence presented, and not in any aspect a question of law, the Attorney-General declines giving an opinion thereon. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, February 16, 1875. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 12th instant, inclosing a communication from the Second Comptroller, together with a statement prepared by him in relation to the claim of George M. Giddings, of San Antonio, Texas, and requesting an opinion from me upon the question suggested by the Comptroller in respect to that claim. It appears by the Comptroller's statement that on the 24th of February, 1861, Lieutenant-Colonel John B. Grayson, commissary of subsistence, United States Army, who was then stationed at Santa Fé, New Mexico, drew a check on the assistant treasurer at New York, payable to the order of Lieutenant O. B. Stivers, United States Army, and delivered it to the latter. Lieutenant Stivers, the payee, afterward transferred it by indorsement to Lieutenant W. B. Lane, United States Army. The issuing of the check to Lieutenant Stivers, and the indorsement thereof by him to Lieutenant Lane, were done solely for the purpose of effecting transfers of public funds to these officers. Subsequently, however, Claim of George M. Giddings. Lieutenant Lane transferred it by an indorsement in blank, to a private person, "in the regular course of business relating to the Commissary Department." Mr. Giddings, the claimant, is the present holder of the check, and avers that he received it in the month of May or June, 1861, in payment for goods at El Paso, Texas, where he was then doing business as a trader. He resided in Texas during the rebellion, and actively participated therein against the Government of the United States; but his legal and political disabilities, imposed by the 14th amendment of the Constitution, have been removed by the act of March 7, 1870, chap. 24. Section 3480 of the Revised Statutes, (which reproduces the provisions of the joint resolution of March 2, 1867, and supersedes the same,) prohibits the payment of "any account, claim, or demand against the United States which accrued or existed prior to the 13th day of April, 1861, in favor of any person who promoted, encouraged, or in any manner sustained the late rebellion, or in favor of any person who during such rebellion was not known to be opposed thereto, and distinctly in favor of its suppression." I find that the only question upon which my opinion is desired, so far as disclosed by the papers before me, is substantially the following: Whether the claim of Mr. Giddings "accrued or existed" prior to the date last mentioned, viz, April 13, 1861. This question is proposed in view of, and has special reference to, the statutory provision quoted above, prohibiting the payment of demands which existed before that date, and it seems to have been prompted by a doubt entertained by the Comptroller as to the period when the aforesaid claim accrued ; in other words, whether such period was or was not prior to that date. But it is very plain that the inquiry, whether the claim accrued prior to the date designated or not, is purely a question of fact, to be made out from the evidence presented, and is not in any aspect a question of law; and questions of the former character do not fall within my province to determine. I therefore beg to be permitted to decline giving any opinion on the question suggested by the Comptroller; Internal-Revenue Stamps. though, with regard to the case to which it relates, I think it proper for me to state that, in my judgment, the period when the claim accrued is not controlled by the date of the check, but by the date of the transaction wherein it was used by Lieutenant Lane for the purpose of payment. The papers which accompanied your letter are returned herewith. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, Hon. WM. W. BELKNAP, Secretary of War. GEO. H. WILLIAMS. INTERNAL-REVENUE STAMPS. In placing the portraits of living persons upon internal-revenue stamps there is really no infraction of the provisions of section 3576 of the Revised Statutes; nor are such ornaments forbidden to be placed on such stamps by any other legislative enactment; yet their exclusion therefrom would seem to be in consonance with the spirit of said section. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, February 15, 1875. SIR In your communication of February 1, 1875, you ask my opinion upon this question: "Whether in placing portraits of living persons upon internal-revenue stamps there has been an infraction of that portion of the law (Revised Statutes, section 3576) which declares that no portrait shall be placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes, fractional or postal currency of the United States, while the original of such portrait is living." Prior to the enactment of the Revised Statutes it was held, and, as I think, rightly held, by the Internal Revenue Bureau to be lawful to ornament with the effigies of living persons the stamps used by the Government in collecting its internal revenue. These stamps are not bonds, notes, or United · States currency of any kind, nor yet are they in the ordinary or in any just sense United States securities. Congress, however, in section 5413 of the Revised Statutes has declared that the form of words "obligation or other security of the United States" shall be held to include all representatives of |