LETTER OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, COMMUNICATING, In compliance with a resolution of December 9, 1867, information in relation to the action of that department with reference to captured and abandoned property. JANUARY 20, 1868.-Read, referred to the Joint Committee on Retrenchment, and ordered to be printed. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, January 16, 1868. SIR: In reply to a resolution of the Senate, adopted December 9, 1867, requiring certain information in relation to the action of this department with reference to captured and abandoned property, 1 have the honor to report as follows: That on the 2d of March, 1867, in reply to a resolution of the Senate of February 5, 1867, I communicated a list of parties to whom cotton or its proceeds had been released or given up, together with a statement of the value and amounts of the same. A copy of this former communication (Senate Executive Doc No. 37, 39th Congress, 2d session) is annexed and made a part of this communica tion. This statement was made up from the books and records in the Secretary's office, and was believed to be substantially correct. I have now caused to be added, in answer to the further inquiry of the present resolution, the name of the State in which the claimant professed to reside. On revision only one case is ascertained to have been omitted, and that by accident. It is known as the Gibbes cotton case, in which the property was detained for a time and then allowed to be shipped, as stated in the accompanying letter, marked C. It will be observed that the document above referred to reports only releases of cotton. Releases of miscellaneous property, other than cotton, have been small in amount. A list of the cases will be prepared and forwarded, as soon as possible, in a supplementary report, this reply having already been unavoidably delayed too long on account of the resignation of the assistant secretary and of the head of the captured and abandoned property division. Household furniture, family relics, books, &c., generally taken by military order for temporary use, and subsequently transferred to treasury agents, were ordered to be restored to the original owners by my circular letter of September 6, 1865, whenever the conditions named therein were complied with. (See document marked D, annexed.) In one case, that of Lewis Washington, the household furniture having been sold at auction by mistake of the treasury agent, the proceeds of sale, amounting to $1,162 71, were restored in lieu of the furniture. In compliance with the request of a sub-committee of the Joint Committee on Retrenchment, dated April 4, 1867, no releases of property, held as captured or abandoned, have been since made, nor claims in connection there with paid ex cept for expenses in collecting the property. In the interval of a month between the report to the Senate, hereto attached, and the request of the Committee on Retrenchment, claims to the amount of $7,126 82 were allowed. One compromise, however, has been made in the case of a suit pending against the United States in the United States circuit court of New York, known as the "Dennistoun" cotton case. The agent of the United States was under a replevin bond in this suit of $400,000, which amount of money the government deposited as his surety in the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company of New York. As this cotton was not ostensibly the property of the late rebel government, nor captured nor abandoned, but was alleged to have been purchased legally after the close of the rebellion from a foreign firm by Dennistoun, Wood & Co., of New York, it was thought advisable by eminent counsel to pay the sum of $53,000 for a final settlement and release the money on deposit. The resolution requires me to report the evidence upon which such property or its proceeds was released. To copy the affidavits filed during nearly five years in these cases would apparently employ any force I have at my command for such a purpose for over six months; I have therefore thought it more in accordance with the wishes of the Senate to make this present answer to the other points of inquiry, and in regard to the evidence to propose to send for its inspection the documents on file in any particular case that may be demanded, or to make a supplementary report whenever it can be prepared. The evidence in each case is of the nature indicated briefly in my letter of March 2, 1867. Prior to the close of the rebellion claimants were invariably required to furnish competent proof of loyalty. The authority under which action had been taken by the department, and cotton and other property, or its proceeds, returned to its owners, was also concisely but distinctly stated in the aforesaid letter. It was the opinion of my predecessors in office that it was not only the right, but the duty of the Treasury Department to examine the facts in relation to all property coming to the hands of its agents; and if it appeared that the same had been taken in violation of law, to restore it or its proceeds to its owners. The rule as adopted by them was sufficiently broad to authorize them to adjudicate the title to property taken by the army or navy and turned over to agents of the Treasury Department. But after the capture of Savannah, and of the large amounts of cotton therein, the Attorney General gave the department his opinion, that all questions arising with reference to property taken by the military authorities could be adjudicated in the Court of Claims; which opinion has since governed the action of the department as to cases considered as fairly within the purview of the same. In relation, however, to cotton or other property taken possession of by treasury agents without military assistance or intervention, I have followed the practice of my predecessors, and have investigated the circumstances of the seizure; and if it has appeared in any case that the property was not rightfully subject to seizure, I have restored the same or its proceeds to its lawful owners. In view of the action taken by my predecessors, who established the settled practice of the department, and in the absence of any legislation for the purpose of altering that practice, it seems to me that it would not only have been inexpedient, but unlawful, for me to have refused to take similar action to revise and correct the errors, mistakes, and frauds of my own subordinate officers and agents. It would hardly have been tolerated, if the department at the close of the rebellion had sent throughout the south agents to collect captured and confederate property, and had refused to exercise the authority to revise and control their proceedings. If an agent seized the private property of an individual through mistake or error, or for fraudulent purposes, and the owner presented himself at the department with full and undi-puted proof of the facts, could the department justify itself in refusing to correct the wrong done to a citizen, and refer him to the Court of Claims for his only remedy? If such had been the rule, acts of robbery and oppression without number would have attended the efforts which were made to secure the property which rightfully belonged to the government. In the view taken by the department, the late Attorney General, Hon. James Speed, concurred, as will be seen by his opinion in the case of Joseph P. Billups, a copy of which is herewith transmitted, marked E. After the rebellion was practically terminated by the surrender of the confederate armies in the spring of 1865, all restrictions upon trade were removed ; and it was decided to confine the action of the department to the seizure and conversion to the uses of the government of property which had been transferred by its owner to the uses of the so-called confederacy, and had become in form the property of such confederacy, or such as had been captured by the military forces, or which had been used directly or indirectly, or intended to be used, in aid of the rebellion. While thus engaged in making collections of the aforesaid property, agents of the department frequently seized the property of private individuals, who complained to the department for redress, which, upon clear proof, was duly afforded. In some cases of this character, it is possible that property seized or detained was restored to its owners without requiring proof that they had not aided the rebellion. To have required such proof would have been practically allowing the agents of the department to seize, after the war closed, the private property of any southern citizen, when their instructions were to collect only property which answers to the above description. In no case, however, it is believed, was property or its proceeds restored to any unpardoned rebel. In some important cases in which the numerous and imperfect affidavits seemed to require a more rigid analysis than usual, I have not trusted to the clerks in charge for a report, nor to my own judgment exclusively, and have procured the opinion of eminent counsel before action. Not involving a distinct point of law for decision, these cases could not be submitted to the Attorney General, whose duties do not embrace the investigation of facts. In such cases the fee of the special counsel has been made a charge upon the proceeds of the property in question, whether the petition for release was allowed or rejected. In no other way have claimants been required by any action of the department "to pay any fee or compensation of any kind to any attorney or other person." In further reply to the resolution of the Senate I have the honor herewith to transmit copies of the correspondence between this department and the various officers of the Court of Claims in relation to judgments rendered by said court in cotton cases. Judgments to the amount of $131,450 58 having been rendered by the court in favor of claimants of cotton taken by the military forces during the rebellion, I deemed it my duty, on account of the importance of the questions which had arisen, and of the large amounts involved in similar cases to follow, to endeavor to secure appeals therein to the Supreme Court of the United States. Motions being duly made for that purpose and fully argued, the Court of Claims decided that no right of appeal to the Supreme Court existed by statute in this class of cases, and refused to allow the appeals. Being called upon, therefore, in pursuance of law, to pay the judgments, I submitted the question to the First Comptroller of the Treasury, who advised that the decisions were not conclusive as to the net proceeds remaining in the treasury of any specific property, and that it was my duty to ascertain the exact amount thereof before paying the judgments. Knowing that the calculations made by the court were based the deposition of an agent whose accounts had not been officially examined and passed, I revised them to make them conform to the official statements, and in all cases paid what was ascertained to be, as nearly as possible, the correct amount. With great respect, your obedient servant, The PRESIDENT of the United States Senate. upon HUGH MCCULLOCH, |