for the common safety are therefore, generally construed liberally, or so as to effect the proposed object.

The theory upon which that rule depends was fully considered in this Court in the cases of The United States vs. The Steamboat Hannibal, Same vs. Champion, &c., decided at the November term, 1861.

The statute of July 13th 1861, being a revenue statute, is to be construed according to the rules governing such Acts, and not as a mere penal enactment. In the case of Taylor vs. The United States, 3 How. 210, the Supreme Court of the United States held: "In one sense every law imposing a penalty or forfeiture may be deemed a penal law; in another sense such laws are often deemed, and truly deserve to be called, remedial. The Judge was, therefore, strictly accurate when he stated (in the Court below) that it must not be understood that every law which imposes a penalty is therefore, legally speaking, a penal law-that is, a law which is to be construed with great strictness in favor of the defendant. Laws enacted for the prevention of fraud, for the suppression of a public wrong, or to effect a public good, are not in the strict sense penal acts, although they may inflict a penalty for violating them.' And he added, ‘it is in this light I view the revenue laws, and I would construe them so as most effectually to accomplish the intention of the Legislature in passing them.' The same distinction will be found recognised in the elementary writers: as, for example, in Blackstone's Commentaries (1 Bl. Com. 88), and Bacon's Abridg ment, Statutes 1, 7, 8, and Comyn's Digest, Parliament R. 13, 19, 20, and it is also abundantly supported by authorities."

Similar decisions may be found in 1 Gall. 124; 2 Peters 358, 627; 16 Peters 342. The justice of that rule was, in the cases referred to as decided November term 1861, fully discussed by this Court in the light of right reason, of the nature, objects, and necessity of social and governmental organization, and also of the essential. elements of individual safety and happiness.

Surely such statutes, adopted for the existence of government against armed efforts for its overthrow, upon the faithful observance of which the peace of society depends, should receive such a con

struction as will according to their scope and object effect the public

end designed.

Hence, in the interpretation of the Act of July 13th 1861, Courts are bound to give to it no such narrow and technical construction as may defeat its salutary purposes.

Allegiance is a primary tie, and treason the greatest of crimes; for inasmuch as allegiance is the bond by which society exists, so the breach of that allegiance by direct overt acts, is an attempt to dissolve social and governmental organization, reducing society to chaos-a condition in which moral, as well as political, obligations give way to physical force and blind passion.

The right of each and all, or "common right," is not assailed when constitutional and remedial measures are adopted for the common good.

The history of the existing rebellion fully illustrates the doctrine. The untold calamities it has devolved upon all citizens of the Republic, are too keenly felt to need exposition.

But whatever rule of interpretation is adopted in this case, the same result will follow. The claimant admits that he undertook a fraud upon the law. If the Act of July 13th 1861, was either an ordinary revenue act, or a simple penal act, he would still fall within its provisions. He chose for fraudulent purposes to mix up with unprohibited goods, those directly prohibited. He knew that the vast interests at stake, civil and military, would admit of no relaxation of the interdict against intercourse under the Act of Congress and the President's proclamation, so far at least as the shipping of whiskey to the insurrectionary States, and to our camps there, was concerned; yet for his individual gain he was willing, not only to jeopard those public interests, but to do so by a resort to falsehood and fraud. There can be no pretence that he was actuated by any higher motive than a sordid lust of gain, which ignored all considerations of law or justice. He knew that he was violating the law; and he attempted to defraud the Government, not in the matter of dollars and cents alone. Still he appears before the Court with the strange request, to have it unravel for him the tangled skein of fraud which he has deliberately woven, and then

restore to his possession such parts as would have been untainted if he had not wound them into one promiscuous mass. No principle known to law or equity tolerates such a procedure. He has mixed up the good with the bad, and the mass must be treated as he has voluntarily made it. Neither at common law, nor in equity, would a Court aid in such unclean work. In international law, as illustrated in prize cases, the owner of a contraband cargo never receives restitution of any portion of it, when thus tainted with fraud against the belligerent. It is a universal maxim, in every department of jurisprudence, "ex turpi causa, aut ex dolo malo, aut ex maleficio, non oritur actio;" and in admiralty every claimant is an actor. If he cannot establish his claim, except through fraud, he is left in the position he assumed. 8 Wh. 147; 8 Cranch 276, 382, 398; 6 Wh. 169; 1 Pet. 547; 12 Wh. 1, 486; 2 Cranch 72; 3 Phil. § 276; 1 Duer 625, 594; 6 Rob. 125; 1 Rob. 238, 329; 16 East 13; 3 Rob. 178, 221, 295; 2 Rob. 6; 4 Rob. 68. The intermixture of fraudulent goods with those not prohibited may, or may not, in some cases be designed to conceal the fraudulent from detection; but the law pronounces the whole mass tainted. The purpose, however, in this case, is transparent. The design was fraudulent, and the act fraudulent. The whole shipment was one transaction. If the goods had not been included in one " permit,' yet, if they were shipped by the same owner, on the same voyage, and in the same vessel, they would have shared the same fate.

By the law of prize the concealment or spoliation of papers, or defective papers, call for explanation from the claimant. An assertion of a false claim, in whole or part, is a substantive cause of condemnation. A vehement presumption of bad faith, or gross prevarication or fraud, or gross misconduct, or illegality, will cause forfeiture. A party must act in entire good faith, or restitution is not awarded. The rule extends so far, that if a shipowner lends his name to cover a fraud with respect to cargo, that circumstance alone will subject the vessel to condemnation. The fraud taints all it touches. The Pizarro, 2 Wheaton 241; The Fortuna, 3 Wh. 236; The Venus, 5 Wh. 127; The London Packet, 5 Wh. 132; The Amiable Isabella, 6 Wh. 1; The Pizarro, 2 Wh. 241; The Dos Hermanos, 2 Wh. 76.

But as the vessel had not left port, or started on the voyage, it is contended that there has been no violation of the statute; the language of which is "all goods and chattels, wares and merchandise, &c., procceding to such state or section, by land or water * * * shall be forfeited." Were the goods in question "proceeding to" the interdicted section, within the meaning of the act? It is a well-established rule, that sailing with an intention to evade a blockade is a beginning to execute that intention, and an overt act constituting the offence. From that moment the blockade is fraudulently invaded. The Columbia, 1 Rob. 156; The Frederick Molke, 1 Rob. 86; The Hoffnung, 6 Rob. 112, 117; The Vrow Johanna, 2 Rob. 109; The Abby, 5 Rob. 256; Fitzsimmons vs. Newport Insurance Company, 4 Cranch 199; Yeaton vs. Fry, 5 Cranch 343; The Nereide, 9 Cranch 440, 446; The Rugen, 1 Wh. 62.

A concealed illegal destination is proof of a real intention to break a blockade: The James Cooke, 1 Edw. 261. So a sale in a neutral country of contraband articles to a belligerent, is a violation of neutrality: 3 Phillimore 321. These rules spring from the inflexible duty of neutrals to observe strict impartiality. There must be no fraudulent act against belligerent rights-no attempt to depart from rigid neutrality. An intermixture or combination of neutral and hostile operations by the same person, taints the whole transaction: 3 Wh. 236, 2 Wh. 241. The loading of a contraband cargo in a neutral port, or the preparation of a vessel to run a blockade, though violative of international law, will not enable a belligerent to enter, lawfully, into such a port and capture the contraband cargo or vessel; for such an act would be a violation of neutral territory: 7 Wh. 283. Besides, a breach of blockade requires some movement towards the blockaded port. It may be far away from the neutral country; yet the sailing of the vessel with intent to enter that far-off port, is always considered an overt act. The belligerent cannot trespass upon neutral sovereignty, by entering the neutral port itself, or making a capture within the marine league; for belligerent jurisdiction does not attach until the vessel is on the high seas, or within the municipal control of the belligerent captor. When, however, a government

in the exercise of its municipal sovereignty passes a law of nonintercourse, there can be no question of neutral rights raised within its territorial jurisdiction; that is, its municipal laws are supreme within its own territory. Congress has passed penal laws against fitting out vessels in American ports for the slave trade, and it has, also, for the preservation of peace, and as an act of good faith towards other nations, forbidden the fitting out of hostile expeditions, and the enlistment of soldiers, to act against other powers with which the United States are in amity. Any act done within this country in violation of those statutes, by foreign subjects or our own citizens, is a direct breach of our municipal laws, subjecting the offender to the prescribed penalties. The Act of July 13th 1861, is a municipal and revenue statute.

Waiving all discussion of the constitutional question (which is purely municipal or intra-territorial), and looking only to the international laws of blockade, neutrals cannot sail on a voyage, with the intent to enter a blockaded port, without becoming lawful prize under the law of nations. A citizen of the United States, subject to the municipal law, may be forbidden by that law to do what a neutral would have a right to do on the high seas. A neutral, for instance, may lawfully enter any unblockaded port of the adverse belligerent, with a cargo not contraband, and depart therefrom; but if an American citizen (the United States being the other belligerent), should attempt to do so, the United States might subject him to severe penalties personally and confiscate his vessel and cargo, if thus found adherent to the enemy," as was done by the Act of July 6th 1812. He is subject both to the law of nations and to the municipal law of his own domicil. It is competent for the United States, as has been judicially determined, to adopt embargo or non-intercourse acts with reference to foreign nations, and the existence of a similar power with respect to any part of this country in rebellion, has also been judicially maintained by several United States Courts, since the present civil war commenced.

If, then, a sale of contraband property, in a neutral country, to a belligerent, is a violation of neutrality under the law of nations (which law attempts to reconcile the rights of neutrals with