duly seized and fastened by foreign authorities, will be, in the discretion of the United States officer to whom they may come, delivered to the consul, commanding naval officer, or legation of the foreign government, to be opened, upon the understanding that whatever is contraband or important as evidence concerning the character of a captured vessel will be remitted to the prize court, or to the Secretary of State at Washington, or such sealed bag or parcels may be at once forwarded to this Department, to the end that the proper authorities of the foreign government may receive the same without delay.

You are specially informed that the fact that a suspicious vessel has been indicated to you as cruising in any limit which has been prescribed by this Department does not in any way authorize you to depart from the practice of the rules of visitation, search, and capture prescribed by the law of nations.

Very respectfully,

134

GIDEON WELLES

The Secretary of State (Seward) to Diplomatic and Consular

Circular No. 50

Representatives 1

WASHINGTON, April 26, 1864. To the Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the United States: Referring to the Circular Dispatch of this Department, No. 12, dated May 12, 1862, transmitting the Proclamation of the President relaxing the blockade of certain ports of the United States, together with the Regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury in regard to trade with the ports thus opened by proclamation, and prescribing your duties in the premises; and also to Circular No. 13, dated May 30, of the same year, transmitting additional regulations upon the same subject, together with a list of certain articles contraband of war, of which the importation was prohibited into ports the blockade of which had been relaxed by the President, I have now to instruct you that, in the opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury, considerations of a public character require that the importation of Coin or Bullion from foreign countries into the ports to which reference has been made above should be entirely prohibited. You will accordingly add "Coin " and " Bullion" to the prohibited articles enumerated in Circular No. 13; and you will, as far as you may be able, prevent such importations, by giving publicity to this instruction. The following are the names of the ports of which there has been a relaxation of the blockade:

1MS., Circulars, vol. 1, p. 267.

Alexandria, Va.; Beaufort, N. C.; Beaufort, S. C.; Key West, Fla.; New Orleans, La.; Brownsville, Texas; and such other ports as may, from time to time, be relieved from the effects of the blockade by proclamation of the President.

Your attention is specially directed to section 103 of the act of Congress regulating the duties on imports and tonnage, approved March 2, 1799, United States Statutes at Large, vol. I, p. 627; and also to section 7 of the act of March 2, 1827, vol. IV, p. 235; and to section 5 of the Act of March 2, 1861, copies of which are hereto annexed, amendatory of the act first mentioned. You will take care that the capacity of the vessels or casks, and the size of the packages, containing spirituous liquors for importation into the United States, shall conform, in the invoices, to the provisions of the sections and acts to which reference is herein made.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD

135

Proclamation Removing Restrictions on Trade East of the Mississippi River, etc., June 13, 18651

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS, by my proclamation of the twenty ninth of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five,2 all restrictions upon internal, domestic, and commercial intercourse, with certain exceptions therein specified and set forth, were removed" in such parts of the States of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and so much of Louisiana as lies east of the Mississippi river as shall be embraced within the lines of national military occupation;"

AND WHEREAS by my proclamation of the twenty-second of May, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, for reasons therein given it was declared that certain ports of the United States, which had been previously closed against foreign commerce, should, with certain specified exceptions, be reöpened to such commerce on and after the first day of July next, subject to the laws of the United States, and in pursuance of such regulations as might be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury;

AND WHEREAS, I am satisfactorily informed that dangerous combinations against the laws of the United States no longer exist with

2

MS., Proclamations, 1865–1868, p. 136.

The document referred to, not printed, was issued as an Executive order.

in the State of Tennessee; that the insurrection, heretofore existing within said State, has been suppressed; that within the boundaries thereof the authority of the United States is undisputed, and that such officers of the United States as have been duly commissioned are in the undisturbed exercise of their official functions:

Now, THEREFORE, BE IT KNOWN THAT I, ANDREW JOHNSON, President of the United States, do hereby declare that all restrictions upon internal, domestic and coast wise intercourse and trade and upon the removal of products of States heretofore declared in insurrection, reserving and excepting only those relating to contraband of war, as hereinafter recited, and also those which relate to the reservation of the rights of the United States to property purchased in the territory of an enemy, heretofore imposed in the territory of the United States east of the Mississippi river are annulled, and I do hereby direct that they be forthwith removed; and that, on and after the first day of July, next, all restrictions upon foreign commerce with said ports, with the exception and reservation aforesaid, be likewise removed; and that the commerce of said States shall be conducted under the supervision of the regularly appointed officers of the Customs provided by law; and such officers of the Customs shall receive any captured and abandoned property that may be turned over to them under the law, by the military or naval forces of the United States, and dispose of such property as shall be directed by the Secretary of the Treasury. The following articles, contraband of war, are excepted from the effect of this proclamation-arms, ammunition, all articles from which ammunition is made, and gray uniforms and cloth.

And I, hereby, also proclaim and declare that the insurrection, so far as it relates to and within the State of Tennessee and the inhabitants of the said State of Tennessee as reorganized and constituted under their recently adopted constitution and reorganization and accepted by them, is suppressed, and therefore also that all the disabilities and disqualifications attaching to said State and the inhabitants thereof, consequent upon any Proclamations issued by virtue of the fifth section of the act, entitled "An Act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports and for other purposes," approved the thirteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, are removed.

But nothing herein contained shall be considered or construed as in any wise changing or impairing any of the penalties and forfeitures for treason, heretofore incurred, under the laws of the United States, or any of the provisions, restrictions or disabilities set forth in my proclamation bearing date the twenty-ninth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, or as impairing existing

regulations for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus and the exercise of military law in cases where it shall be necessary for the general public safety and welfare during the existing insurrection, nor shall this Proclamation affect or in any way impair any laws heretofore passed by Congress, and duly approved by the President, or any proclamations or orders issued by him during the aforesaid insurrection abolishing slavery or in any way affecting the relations of slavery, whether of persons or property, but on the contrary all such laws and proclamations heretofore made or issued are expressly saved and declared to be in full force and virtue.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this thirteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred [L.S.] and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-ninth.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State.

136

ANDREW JOHNSON

Opinion of the United States Supreme Court in the Case of "The Bermuda", December 18651

The CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court.

We will next consider the questions relating both to vessel and cargo, which join arising from employment in the trade and under the direction and control shown by the record, assuming for the moment that Haigh was owner.

How, then, was the Bermuda employed? In what trade, and under what control and direction?

The theory of the counsel for Haigh is that she was a neutral ship, carrying a neutral cargo, in good faith, from one neutral port to another neutral port; and they insist that the description of cargo, if neutral, and in a neutral ship, and on a neutral voyage, cannot be inquired into in the courts of a belligerent.

We agree to this. Neutral trade is entitled to protection in all courts. Neutrals, in their own country, may sell to belligerents

13 Wall. 542-558.

whatever belligerents choose to buy. The principal exceptions to this rule are, that neutrals must not sell to one belligerent what they refuse to sell to the other, and must not furnish soldiers or sailors to either; nor prepare, nor suffer to be prepared within their territory, armed ships or military or naval expeditions against either. So, too, except goods contraband of war, or conveyed with intent to violate a blockade, neutrals may transport to belligerents whatever belligerents may agree to take. And so, again, neutrals may convey in neutral ships, from one neutral port to another, any goods, whether contraband of war or not, if intended for actual delivery at the port of destination, and to become part of the common stock of the country or of the port.

It is asserted by counsel that a British merchant, as a neutral, had, during the late civil war, a perfect right to trade, even in military stores, between their own ports, and to sell at one of them goods of all sorts, even to an enemy of the United States, with knowledge of his intent to employ them in rebel war against the American government.

If by trade between neutral ports is meant real trade, in the course of which goods conveyed from one port to another become incorporated into the mass of goods for sale in the port of destination; and if by sale to the enemies of the United States is meant sale to either belligerent, without partiality to either, we accept the proposition of counsel as correct.

But if it is intended to affirm that a neutral ship may take on a contraband cargo ostensibly for a neutral port, but destined in reality for a belligerent port, either by the same ship or by another, without becoming liable, from the commencement to the end of the voyage, to seizure, in order to the confiscation of the cargo, we do not agree to it.

Very eminent writers on international maritime law have denied the right of neutrals to sell to belligerents, even within neutral territory, articles made for use in war, or to transport such articles to belligerent ports without liability to seizure and confiscation of goods and ship. And this is not an illogical inference from the general maxim that neutrals must not mix in the war. International law, however, in its practical administration, leans to the side of commercial freedom, and allows both free sale and free conveyance by neu-. trals to belligerents, if no blockade be violated, of all sorts of goods except contraband; and the conveyance, even of contraband goods, will not, in general, subject the ship, but only the goods, to forfeiture. We are to inquire, then, whether the Bermuda is entitled to the protection of this rule, or falls within some exception to it.