Statement of the case. also we are inclined to hold that the objection of the appellants must be overruled. Having come to that conclusion, it is unnecessary to examine the third answer presented by the United States to this objection. III. Remaining objection of the appellants to the jurisdiction is, that the wrongful acts, if any, were committed out of the district where the libel was filed. But there is no merit in the objection, as the rule is well settled, that libels in rem may be prosecuted in any district where the property is found. Such was the rule laid down by this court in the case of The Propeller Commerce ;* and it is clear, beyond controversy, that the present case is governed by the rule there laid down. The decree of the Circuit Court is therefore AFFIRMED. ALBANY BRIDGE CASE. COLEMAN filed a bill in equity in the Circuit Court for the Northern District of New York, to enjoin the IIudson River Bridge Company from building a bridge over the Hudson River at Albany, under an authority which had been granted by the Legislature of the State of New York. The Circuit Court dismissed the bill. On appeal here the whole matteras well the general question of the constitutional right of a State to pass a law authorizing the erection of bridges over navigable rivers of the United States, as the more special question, whether the navigation of the Hudson would be practically obstructed by this bridge, as it was proposed to erect the same-was fully and most ably argued by Mr. Secretary of State Seward, and the Honorable Mr. J. V. L. Pruyn, M. C., in favor of the right to build, and by Messrs. Curlisle and Senator Reverdy Johnson, contra. But the court being equally divided, no opinion on any point was given, and the decree so stood a * 1 Black, 581. DECREE AFFIRMED OF NECESSITY.† For the nature and effect of a decree of this sort, see Krebbs v. Carlisle Bank, 2 Wallace, Jr. 49, note. Statement of the case. MRS. ALEXANDER'S COTTON. 1. The principle, that personal dispositions of the individual inhabitants of enemy territory as distinguished from those of the enemy people generally, cannot, in questions of capture, be inquired into, applies in civil wars as in international. Hence, all the people of any district that was in insurrection against the United States in the Southern rebellion, are to be regarded as enemies, except in so far as by action of the Government itself that relation may have been changed. 2. Our Government, by its act of Congress of March 12th, 1863 (12 Stat. at Large, 591), to provide for the collection of abandoned property, &c., does make distinction between those whom the rule of international law would class as enemies; and, through forms which it prescribes, protects the rights of property of all persons in rebel regions who, during the rebellion, have, in fact, maintained a loyal adhesion to the Government; the general policy of our legislation during the rebellion having been to preserve, for loyal owners obliged by circumstances to remain in rebel States, all property or its proceeds which has come to the possession of the Government or its officers. 3. Cotton in the Southern rebel districts-constituting as it did the chief reliance of the rebels for means to purchase munitions of war, an element of strength to the rebellion-was a proper subject of capture by the Government during the rebellion on general principles of public law relating to war, though private property; and the legislation of Congress during the rebellion authorized such captures. 4. Property captured on land by the officers and crews of a naval force of the United States, is not "maritime prize;" even though, like cotton, it may have been a proper subject of capture generally, as an element of strength to the enemy. Under the act of Congress of March 12th, 1863, such property captured during the rebellion should be turned over to the Treasury Department, by it to be sold, and the proceeds deposited in the National Treasury, so that any person asserting ownership of it may prefer his claim in the Court of Claims under the said act; and on making proof to the satisfaction of that tribunal that he has never given aid or comfort to the rebellion, have a return of the net proceeds decreed to him. In the spring of 1864, a conjoint expedition of forces of the United States, consisting of the Ouachita and other gunboats, with their officers and crews, under Rear Admiral Porter, and a body of troops under Major-General Banks, proceeded up the Red River, a tributary of the Mississippi, and which empties into that river three hundred and thirty Statement of the case. four miles above its mouth, as far as Shreveport, in the northwestern corner of Louisiana. The Southern insurgents were, at this time, in complete occupation of the district. About the 15th of March these Government forces captured Fort De Russy, a strong fort, which the insurgents had built, about half way between Alexandria and the mouth of Red River. The insurgents now evacuated the district in such a way that most of that part of it on the river fell under the control of the Union arms. This control, however, did not become permanent. The insurgents rallied; and returning, reinstated themselves. The Union troops fell back, leaving the district occupied as it had been before they came. The actual presence and control of the Government forces lasted from the middle of March to near the end of April,-something less than eight weeks. During it, an election of delegates to a Union Convention, appeared to have been held in or about Alexandria, under the orders and protection of General Banks, though the evidence of what was done in the matter was not clear. "The community," one witness testified, "was almost unanimous against secession when it commenced, and have so continued." But of this they gave no overt proofs; none at least that reached this court. During the advance of the Federal forces, and about the 26th of March, a party from the Ouachita-acting under orders from the naval commander-landed on the plantation of Mrs. Elizabeth Alexander, in the Parish of Avoyelles, a part of the region thus temporarily occupied, and upon the river. They here took possession of seventy-two bales of cotton which had been raised by Mrs. Alexander on the plantation, and which, having escaped a conflagration which the rebels, on the advance of the Government forces, had made of the crop of the preceding year, were stored in a cotton-gin house, about a mile from the river. The cotton was hauled by teams to the river bank, and shipped to Cairo, in Illinois. Being libelled there, as prize of war, in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois, and sold pendente lite, Mrs. Alexander put in a claim for the proceeds, and the court made a decree giving them Statement of the case. to her. This decree being confirmed in the Circuit Court, the United States appealed here. The question raised before this court was, whether this cotton was or was not properly to be considered as maritime prize, subject to the prize jurisdiction of the courts of the United States. As respected the nature of the Red River and the character of the vessels used in the conjoint expedition, it appeared that seagoing vessels do not navigate it, the same not affording sufficient water for them; that no other vessels than steamboats of light draft, engaged in the transportation of passengers and freight, usually navigate it; that the gunboats so called, used on this expedition, were of light draft, similar, in many particulars, to steamboats, many of them having been steamboats altered to carry guns and munitions of war generally, though not previously used, nor well capable of being used at sea for any purpose; that guns were mounted on them in order that such guns might be used in connection with and in subordination to the army in its active operations against the enemy in the small streams of the West and Southwest, away from the seaboard. As regarded Mrs. Alexander's personal loyalty the evidence was not very full. She had assisted somewhat to build Fort De Russy, which was within a few miles of her own plantation, but, according to the testimony, did this only on compulsion. She was equally kind, it was testified, to loyal persons and to rebels, when either were sick or wounded. She had particular friends among persons of known loyalty; but there were one or two Confederate officers who came to her house,-the testimony being, however, that they were perhaps attracted thither neither by Mrs. Alexander's politics nor by her cotton, but by the beauty of some "young ladies" who resided with her, and . whom they went to "visit." Three weeks after the cotton had been seized, Mrs. Alexander took the oath required by the President's proclamation of amnesty, of December 8, 1863; a proclamation which gives to persons who took the oath "full pardon," "with Statement of the case. restoration of all rights," except as to slaves and "property, cases where rights of third persons shall have intervened." But it was upon the condition that persons should thenceforward "keep their oath inviolate."* Mrs. Alexander never left the territory on which her plantation was situated, nor it. The estate was her own, and she had resided on it since 1835. She was about sixty-five years old at the time of these events. Such were the facts. In order, however, perfectly to comprehend the case as it stood before the court, it is necessary to make mention of certain acts of Congress bearing on it. Congress, by act of August 6th, 1861,† to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes, declared, that if any person should use or employ any property in aiding, abetting or promoting the insurrection, or consent to such use or employment, such property should "be lawful subject of prize and capture wherever found." And by act of July 17th, 1862, to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, &c., it declared (§ 6), that "all the estate and property" of persons in rebellion, and who, after sixty days public warning [which warning the President gave by proclamation], did not return to their allegiance, liable to seizure; and made it the duty of the President to "seize" it; prescribing the mode in which it should be condemned. And by a third act, that of March 12th, 1863,§ "to provide for the collection of abandoned property, and for the prevention of frauds in insurrectionary districts," &c., made * The oath now made by Mrs. Alexander, April 19, 1864, was, that she would "henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Union of the States thereunder;" and would, "in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Su'preme Court;" and would, "in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion, having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court." Id. 591. † 12 Stat. at Large, 319. ? Id. 821. |