With this adverse decision all chance of recovery upon legal grounds
of before the courts was dissipated. But recourse to Congress still
remained. As appears from a memorandum furnished in support of this
bill, the alleged equities of the case were presented to the
Forty-second, the Forty-third, the Forty-fourth, the Forty-fifth, the
Forty-sixth, the Forty-eighth, and the Forty-ninth Congresses. Two
adverse and more than two favorable committee reports have been made
upon the claim. No bill for the relief of the claimant has, however,
passed Congress until the present session, when a favorable condition
seems to have presented itself.
The bill herewith returned empowers and directs the accounting officers
of the Treasury to settle and pay to the representatives of Maddox the
amount found due him on account of the loss and damage he sustained by
the seizure by our military forces of the tobacco purchased by him under
the agreement referred to, excluding, however, the tobacco destroyed
by fire in the city of Richmond, and provides that said claim shall be
determined upon the evidence taken and now on file in the office of the
clerk of the United States Court of Claims and the War Department and
any other competent evidence.
I fail to appreciate the equities which entitle this claimant to further
hearing.
Every intelligent man should be charged with the knowledge that
as a general rule commercial intercourse with the enemy is entirely
inconsistent with a state of war, and that the law of 1864 had for its
object the encouragement of the insurgents themselves to bring their
products to us, and not the authorization of persons to roam through the
insurrectionary districts and purchase their products on speculation.
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