offered for adoption the memorial to the legislature. Held, that the evidence sufficiently showed that one of the objects of the issue of the notes was to aid the rebellion, and that consequently they were void. Isaac v. City of Richmond (Va.), 17 S. E. 760. Where, during the civil war, the clerk of a county court went with the Confederates when they abandoned the county, taking the records with him, and the Federal forces took possession of the county, held, that no one could administer the duties of the office in the Federal lines as deputy for the clerk while the latter was within the Confedcrate lines. Herring v. Lee, 22 W. Va. 661. 3. REGULATION OF COMMERCE. § 1145. “Entertaining no doubt that the military right to exclude commerce altogether from the ports of the enemy in our military occupation included the minor right of admitting it under prescribed conditions, it became an important question, at the date of the order, whether there should be a discrimination between vessels and cargoes to belonging to citizens of the United States and vessels and cargoes belonging to neutral nations. "Had the vessels and cargoes belonging to citizens of the United States been admitted without the payment of any duty, while a duty was levied on foreign vessels and cargoes, the object of the order would have been defeated. The whole commerce would have been conducted in American vessels, no contributions could have been collected, and the enemy would have been furnished with goods without the exaction from him of any contribution whatever, and would have been thus benefited by our military occupation, instead of being made to feel the evils of the war. In order to levy these contributions and to make them available for the support of the army, it became, therefore, absolutely necessary that they should be collected upon imports into Mexican ports, whether in vessels belonging to citizens of the United States or to foreigners. "It was deemed proper to extend the privilege to vessels and their cargoes belonging to neutral nations. It has been my policy since the commencement of the war with Mexico to act justly and liberally toward all neutral nations, and to afford to them no just cause of complaint; and we have seen the good consequences of this policy by the general satisfaction which it has given." President Polk, special message, Feb. 10, 1848, Richardson's Messages, 6 "It is doubted, in the last edition of Kent's Commentaries that was published during the author's life, as to the validity of the powers claimed by the President in his official letter of March 31, 1847, to the Secretary of the Navy. He exercised, as being charged by the Constitution with the prosecution of the war, the right of levying military contributions upon the enemy for the purposes of war, and of opening the Mexican ports to neutral trade, the whole execution of these commercial regulations being placed under the control of the military and naval forces. These fiscal and commercial regulations would,' it is said, 'seem to press strongly upon the constitutional powers of Congress to raise and support armies, to lay and collect taxes, and to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and to declare war and make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, and concerning captures on land and water, and to define offenses against the law of nations. Though the Constitution vests the executive power in the President and declares him Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, these powers must necessarily be subordinate to the legislative power in Congress. It would appear to me to be the policy or true construction of this simple and general grant of power to the President, not to suffer it to interfere with those specific powers of Congress which are more safely deposited in the legislative department, and that the powers thus assumed by the President do not belong to him but to Congress.' (1 Kent Com. 292, note b.)" Lawrence's Wheaton (ed. 1863), 1014. "Upon the occupation of the country [Porto Rico] by the military forces of the United States, the authority of the Spanish Government was superseded, but the necessity for a revenue did not cease. The government must be carried on, and there was no one left to administer its functions but the military forces of the United States. Money is requisite for that purpose, and money could only be raised by order of the military commander. The most natural method was by the continuation of existing duties. In adopting this method, General Miles was fully justified by the laws of war.” Dooley . United States (1901), 182 U. S. 222, 230, citing Halleck, Int. While the power of the military commander occupying a conquered country is "necessarily despotic, this must be understood rather in an administrative than in a legislative sense. While in legislating for a conquered country he may disregard the laws of that country, he is not wholly above the laws of his own. For instance, it is clear that while a military commander during the civil war was in the occupation of a Southern port, he could impose duties upon. merchandise arriving from abroad, it would hardly be contended that he could also impose duties upon merchandise arriving from ports of his own country. His power to administer would be absolute, but his power to legislate would not be without certain restrictions-in other words, they would not extend beyond the necessities of the case. Thus in the case of the Admittance, Jecker v. Montgomery, 13 How. 498, it was held that neither the President, nor the military commander, could establish a court of prize, competent to take jurisdiction of a case of capture, whose judgments would be conclusive in other admiralty courts. It was said that the courts established in Mexico during the war' were nothing more than agents of the military power, to assist it in preserving order in the conquered territory, and to protect the inhabitants in their persons and property, while it was occupied by the American arms. They were subject to the military power, and their decisions under its control, whenever the commanding officer thought proper to interfere. They were not courts of the United States, and had no right to adjudicate upon a question of prize or no prize,' although Congress, in the exercise of its general authority in relation to the national courts, would have power to validate their action. (The Grapeshot, 9 Wall. 129, 133.) "So, too, in Mitchell. Harmony, 13 How. 115, it was held that, where the plaintiff entered Mexico during the war with that country, under a permission of the commander to trade with the enemy and under the sanction of the executive power of the United States, his property was not liable to seizure by law for such trading, and that the officer directing the seizure was liable to an action for the value. of the property taken. To the same effect is Mostyn v. Fabrigas, 1 Cowp. 161. "In Raymond v. Thomas, 91 U. S. 712, a special order, by the officer in command of the forces in the State of South Carolina, annulling a decree rendered by a court of chancery in that State, was held to be void. In delivering the opinion, Mr. Justice Swayne observed: Whether Congress could have conferred the power to do such an act is not the question we are called upon to consider. It is an unbending rule of law, that the exercise of military power, where the rights of the citizens are concerned, shall never be pushed beyond what the exigency requires.' "Without questioning at all the original validity of the order imposing duties upon goods imported into Porto Rico from foreign countries, we think the proper construction of that order is, that it ceased to apply to goods imported from the United States from the moment the United States ceased to be a foreign country with respect to Porto Rico, and that until Congress otherwise constitutionally directed, such merchandise was entitled to free entry. "An unlimited power on the part of the Commander-in Chief to exact duties upon imports from the States might have placed Porto Rico in a most embarrassing situation. The ratification of the treaty and the cession of the island to us severed her connection with Spain, of which the island was no longer a colony, and with respect to which she had become a foreign country. The wall of the Spanish tariff was raised against her exports, the wall of military tariff against her imports, from the mother country. She received no compensation from her new relations with the United States. If her exports, upon arriving there, were still subject to the same duties as merchandise arriving from other foreign countries, while her imports from the United States were subjected to duties prescribed by the Commander-in-Chief, she would be placed in a position of practical isolation, which could not fail to be disastrous to the business and finances of an island. It had no manufactures or markets of its own, and was dependent upon the markets of other countries for the sale of her productions of coffee, sugar and tobacco. In our opinion the authority of the President as Commander-in-Chief to exact duties upon imports from the United States ceased with the ratification of the treaty of peace, and her right to the free entry of goods from the ports of the United States continued until Congress should constitutionally legislate upon the subject. "The judgment of the circuit court is therefore reversed and the case remanded to that court for further proceedings in consonance with this opinion." Mr. Justice Brown, delivering the opinion of the court, Dooley v. United With reference to restrictions placed by the American military authorities on commerce with the Sulu Islands, the Government of the United States took the ground that, as the islands were then subject to military occupation, it was the right of the commander of the occupying forces to regulate or prohibit trade with the territory so occupied. The fact was also pointed out that the military forces of the United States were engaged in suppressing an insurrection in a part of the Philippine Archipelago accessible from the Sulu Islands, and that the military authorities conducting the operations against the insurrection were at one time of opinion that a military necessity existed for prohibiting commercial intercourse between the Sulu Islands and the outside world. To that end Admiral Dewey, in June, 1899, issued an order prohibiting all trade with the Philippines, except with the ports of Manila, Iloilo, Cebu, and Bakalota. Subsequently this order was modified and new orders were substituted, under which such restrictions on trade with the Sulu Islands were enforced as were deemed essential to meet the military necessity occasioned by the insurrection. These restrictions were emergency measures, and were not intended as an evidence of what the permanent policy of the United States would be when peace was restored in the Philippines. Mr. Adee, Act. Sec. of State, to Count Quadt, German chargé, No. 481, The right of the military occupant to regulate, as an incident of military government, trade with the inhabitants of the territory subject to his jurisdiction is well established by the laws and usages of nations. Mr. Magoon, law officer, Division of Insular Affairs, War Department, 4. TREATMENT OF THE INHABITANTS. § 1146. Though " a subject can not divest himself of the obligation of a citizen, and wantonly make a compact with the enemy of his country, stipulating a neutrality of conduct," yet, where his country is no longer able to give him protection, he may be warranted in making the best terms he can; e. g., he may be warranted in pledging himself to neutrality of conduct for the purpose of protecting his property in a place surrendered by his government to the enemy. Case of The Resolution, Federal Court of Appeals, 1781, 2 Dall. 1, 10. . June 4, 1846, Marcy sent to General Taylor a proclamation in Spanish to be signed by Taylor and circulated in Mexico. Taylor was instructed to use his "utmost endeavors to have pledges and promises therein contained carried out to the fullest extent." In this proclamation the causes of the war are recited, and it is declared: "This war. . will be prosecuted with vigor and energy against your army and rulers; but those of the Mexican people who remain neutral will not be molested. We come to obtain reparation for repeated wrongs and injuries; we come to obtain indemnity for the past and security for the future; we come to overthrow the tyrants who have destroyed your liberties; but we come to make no war upon the people of Mexico, nor upon any form of free government they may choose to select for themselves. Your religion, your altars and churches, the property of your churches and citizens, the emblems of your faith and its ministers, shall be protected and remain |