Opinion of the Court.

The joint resolution declares that the provisions of the third clause of the 5th section of the act shall be so construed as not to apply to any act or acts done prior to its passage, “nor shall any punishment or proceedings under said act be so construed as to work a forfeiture of the real estate of the offender beyond his natural life." No decree condemning real property of persons seized under the act, could therefore extend the forfeiture adjudged beyond the life of the offending owner. During his life only could the control, possession, and enjoyment of the real property seized and condemned be appropriated. To that extent the property vested in the United States upon its condemnation and passed to the purchaser to whom the government might afterwards sell it.

What then was the situation of the remainder of the estate of the offending party after the condemnation and sale? The proceedings did not purport to touch any interest in the property or control of it beyond his life. When that ceased, his heirs took the property from him. They could not take anything from the government, for it had nothing; the interest it acquired by the condemnation passed by the sale to the purchaser. The reversionary interest or remainder of the estate must have rested somewhere. It could not have been floating in space without relationship to any one. The logical conclusion would seem to be that it continued in the offending owner. This, we think, follows, not only from the language of the act, but from decisions of this court construing its provisions, though some of the latter contain declarations that its possession is unaccompanied with any power of disposition over the future estate during his life.

In Bigelow v. Forrest, 9 Wall. 339, which came before this court at December term, 1869, it was held that the act of July 17, 1862, and the explanatory resolution of the same date, were to be construed together, and that thus construed all that could be sold by virtue of a decree of condemnation and order of sale under the act was a right to the property seized terminating with the life of the offending person, and that the fact that he owned the estate in fee simple, that the libel was against all his right, title, interest and estate, and

Opinion of the Court.

that the sale and marshal's deed professed to convey as much. did not change the result. The District Court, said this court, under the act of Congress, had no power to order a sale which would confer upon the purchaser rights outlasting the life of the party, and had it done so it would have transcended its jurisdiction. This was the unanimous decision of the court.

In Day v. Micou, 18 Wall. 156, before this court at October term, 1873, it was held also by the court unanimously that, under the confiscation act and joint resolution explanatory of it, only the life estate of the person for whose offence the land had been seized was subject to condemnation and sale, and that the fact that the decree may have condemned the fee did not alter the case.

In Wallach v. Van Riswick, 92 U. S. 202, 207, which was before this court at October term, 1875, it was held that after an adjudicated forfeiture and sale of an enemy's land under the confiscation act, and the joint resolution accompanying it, there was not left in him any interest which he could convey by deed. This ruling was not made upon any express provision of the statute. There is no personal disability imposed by its provisions upon the offending party beyond the forfeiture of his estate during his life. It was made by the court, apparently upon what it considered the policy of the confiscation act. The purpose of the act, it said, and its justification, was to strengthen the government, and to enfeeble the public enemy by taking from his adherents the power to use their property in aid of the hostile cause. "With such a purpose," it added, "it is incredible that Congress, while providing for confiscation of enemy's land, intended to leave in that enemy a vested interest therein, which he might sell and with the proceeds of which he might aid in carrying on the war against the government." In this ruling, the court, in addition to the statutory effect of the decree as a conveyance to the United States of the title to the land for the life of the offending party, made the decree impose upon him a disability or disqualification to hold or transfer an estate which the United States did not acquire or condemn.

Though the ruling in Wallach v. Van Riswick was followed

Opinion of the Court.

in several cases-in Pike v. Wassell, in 1876, 94 U. S. 711, and in French v. Wade, in 1880, 102 U. S. 132- this court subsequently held, in 1884, in Avegno v. Schmidt, 113 U. S. 293, that the heirs at law of a person, whose life interest in real estate was confiscated under the confiscation act of July 17, 1862, took at his death by descent from him and not from the United States under the act, and, in 1887, in Shields v. Schiff, 124 U. S. 351, 355, that the confiscation act of July 17, 1862, construed in connection with the joint resolution of the same date, made no disposition of the confiscated property after the death of the owner, but left it to devolve upon his heirs, and not by donation from the government.

It is not to be overlooked that previous to the decision of the case of Wallach v. Van Riswick a general amnesty and pardon had been proclaimed by the President throughout the land to all who had participated in the rebellion, thus relieving them from the disabilities arising from such participation. Estates and interests in land, present and future, which had not for such participation been previously condemned and sold to others, fell at once under the control and disposition of the original owners, as though the offences alleged against them had never been committed. The pardon and amnesty did not and could not change the actual fact of previous disloyalty, if it existed, but, as said in Carlisle v. United States, 16 Wall. 147, 151, "they forever closed the eyes of the court to the perception of that fact as an element in its judgment, no rights of third parties having intervened." As repeatedly affirmed by this court, pardon and amnesty in legal contemplation not merely release offenders from the punishment prescribed for their offences, but obliterate the offences themselves.

In Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Bosworth, 133 U. S. 92, 100, 102, 104, 105, which was here at October term, 1889, we have the latest expression of this court upon the subject we have been considering, and also on the effect of pardon and amnesty upon the disabilities imposed upon parties whose life estates had been confiscated under the act of July 17, 1862, and the accompanying joint resolution. That was an action brought by the surviving children of A. W. Bosworth, deceased, to recover pos

Opinion of the Court.

session of one undivided sixth part of a tract of land in New Orleans, which formerly belonged to their father. The petition stated that the latter, having taken part in the war of the rebellion, and done acts which made him liable to the penalties of the confiscation act, the said one-sixth part of the land was seized, condemned and sold, under the act, and purchased by one Burbank, in May, 1865; that A. W. Bosworth died in October, 1885; and that the plaintiffs, upon his death, became the owners in fee simple of the said one-sixth part of the property of which the defendant, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, was in possession. The company filed an answer setting up various defences, among others, tracing title to themselves from Bosworth, by virtue of an act of sale executed by him and wife in September, 1871, disposing of all their interest in the premises with full covenants of warranty. They also alleged that Bosworth had, before the act of sale, not only been included in the general amnesty proclamation of the President, issued on the 25th of December, 1868, but had received from him a special pardon on the 2d of October, 1865, and had taken the oath of allegiance and complied with the terms and conditions necessary to be restored to, and reinvested with, the rights, franchises and privileges of citizenship.

The principal question involved in the case was whether, by the effect of the pardon and amnesty granted to A. W. Bosworth, he was restored to the control and power of disposition over the fee simple or naked property in reversion, expectant upon the determination of the confiscated estate in the property in dispute. "The question of the effect of pardon and amnesty," said the court, "on the destination of the remaining estate of the offender, still outstanding after a confiscation of the property during his natural life, has never been settled by this court." In Wallach v. Van Riswick, the court said it "was not called upon to determine where the fee dwells during the continuance of the interest of a purchaser at a confiscation sale, whether in the United States, or in the purchaser subject to be defeated by the death of the offender." It had been also suggested that the fee remained in the person whose estate was confiscated, but without any power in him to dis-.

Opinion of the Court.

pose of or control it. Perhaps," said Mr. Justice Bradley, in speaking for the court, and referring to those different suggestions, "it is not of much consequence which of these theories, if either of them, is the true one; the important point being that the remnant of the estate, whatever its nature, and wherever it went, was never beneficially disposed of, but remained, so to speak, in a state of suspended animation." And again he said, “it is not necessary to be over-curious about the intermediate state in which the disembodied shade of naked ownership may have wandered during the period of its ambiguous existence. It is enough to know that it was neither annihilated, nor confiscated, nor appropriated to any third party. The owner, as a punishment for his offences, was disabled from exercising any acts of ownership over it, and no power to exercise such acts was given to any other person. At his death, if not before, the period of suspension comes to an end, and the estate revives and devolves to his heirs at law." "It would seem to follow," added the learned justice, "as a logical consequence from the decisions in Avegno v. Schmidt and Shields v. Schiff, that after the confiscation of the property the naked fee (or the naked ownership, as denominated in the civil law) subject, for the lifetime of the offender to the interest or usufruct of the purchaser at the confiscation sale, remained in the offender himself; otherwise, how could his heirs take it from him by inheritance? But, by reason of his disability to dispose of, or touch it, or affect it in any manner whatsoever, it remained, as before stated, a mere dead estate, or in a condition of suspended animation. We think that this is, on the whole, the most reasonable view. There is no corruption of blood; the offender can transmit by descent; his heirs take from him by descent; why, then, is it not most rational to conclude that the dormant and suspended fee has continued in him?" And the court held after full consideration that the disabilities which prevented the offend ing party-Bosworth - from exercising power over the' suspended fee, or naked property, was removed by the pardon and amnesty, and that he was restored to all his rights, privileges and immunities, as if he had never offended, except as to