KIRK V. LEWIS.
645
law to render such judgments questionable as fraudulent preferences. In both cases here the warrants were executed and delivered more than two months before the petition in bankruptcy was filed, and hence it was beyond the power of the court to avoid the judgments on the ground of constructive fraud. The court below, therefore, properly recognized the validity of the judgments of the appellees, and made the orders prayed for. . Appeals dismissed at costs of appellant.
KIRK
v.
LEWIS
and others.-
(Oircuit Uourt, E. D. Louisiana. December, 1881.) 1. CONFISCATION ACT OF AucmsT
6, 1861. A sale under the confiscation act of congress, approved Augnst 6, (12 St. 319,) conveys to the purchaser the fee of the property, and not the lifeestate only of the owner thereof.
2.
PARDON.
It seems, that a pardon does not remit forfeitures where the rights of third persons have intervened. Armstrong's Foundry, 6 Wall. 766, distinguished.
Plaintiff, on behalf of herself and her minor children, alleged that her late husband, R. W. Pasteur, and his brother, C. N. Pasteur, were, during- their the owners of certain real estate in New Orleans, known as the Virginia Press; that under proceedings takEm in virtue of the act of congress, approved August 6, 1861, entitled."An act to confiscate the property used for tional'Y purposes," on November 17, 1863, said property was seiZed by the Uriited States marshal, and sHbsequently condemned and sold. The bill too1\avers that by such procedure the estate of said R. W. and C. N. Pasteur was forfeited for and during.the term of their natural lives. Complainant then sets forth the death of her husband and his brothel'; her appointment as tutrix of their minor children; the possession of defendants of the property in question; and prays that the undivided half thereof formerly belonging to her husband be delivered up to her, and that there be an accounting for the fruits and revenues that have accumulated since the death of her husband. The defendants demurred on two grounds: (1) That proper parties had not been made; and (2) that the marshal's saie of the property, alleged in the libel, was a full and complete divestiture of title from R. W. Pasteur and his heirs, and not merely of his life-estate, as claimed by complainants.
W. B. Mills and R. Stuart Dennee, for complainants. John A. Oampbell and Tkos. L. Bayne, for defendants. BILLINGS, D. J. There have been seveml grounds urged in support of the demurrer. I shall consider but one: Did the respondents *Reported by Joseph P. Hornor, Esq., of the New Orleans bar.
646
FEDERAL REPORTER.
purchase the fee of the property or only a life-estate? The bill and record of this confiscation proceeding, which are made part thereof, show a sale by the United States marshal, and a purchase by the defendants, of the property here demanded, under the act of August, 1861. That act provided for the seizure and confiscation of property used, or intended to be used, to aid in a rebellion, then a war. It made no discrimination between the property of citizens and that of aliens. It excited no scruples as to its constitutionality in the mind of the president. It was qualified and restricted by no joint resolution; in fact, it added nothing to the uudoubted right of war which the government before that possessed to seize and dispose of all property used in aid of its enemies. The sole effect was to declare the purpose of congress to enforce a belligerent right. The supreme court says this emphatically in Miller v. U. S. 11 Wall. 308, and they reaffirm the same doctrine in v. U. S. 91 U. S. 477. All the cases in which the supreme court have limited the estate which passed at a confiscation sale to a life-estate have been prosecuted under the act of July 17, 1862. In all these cases the restriction has been put on the estate in consequence of the joint resolution. See Bigelow v. Forrest, 9 Wall. 341, and Day v. Micou, 18 Wall. 156. But the joint resolution was in its terms confined to the act of 1862. The effect of this confiscation, which in its terms included the fee, is to be determined by the character of the act of 1861. rrhis the supreme court say was an exercise of the war power, and not of municipal sovereignty. This is consistent with the rulings of the supreme court in the Armstrong's Foundry, 6 Wall. 769. That case holds that a pardon, properly pleaded, ended proceedings under the act of 1861. That case does not decide the question presented here. The power given by the constitution to the president to pardon is without qualification, and a complete pardon remits all forfeitures except where the rights of third persons have intervened. This is equally true where the forfeiture arises under a merely municipal law or the law of nations, and does not conflict with the doctrine, as above established, that a forfeiture arising jure belli is to be measured by the grant of power to congress to declare war and make peace; or with the other doctrine, that the act of congress under which this forfeiture was made was the exercise of a belligerent right on the part of the government of the United States. Let the demurrer be sustained.
DA.VIS V. BRO NN.
647
DAVIS
and others v. BROWN and others.. May 25,1881.)
(O(rcuit Court, 8. D. New York.
Davis, for improvement in grain drills, held valid and injrin.qfxL Complainant's invention being a grain drill; constructed to shift or change the seeding vice versa, and to admit their being shoes from a straight, to a zigzag raised separately or all .together, a,nd consisting in connectip.g. the shoes by means of drag-bars and a crank-shaft mounted on the forepart of the main frame, and by means of levers, one for each shoe, in such a mariner to a rear shaft, a.ctuated by a lever within reach of the operator, as to permit of all the shoes being raised simultaneously, such shoe levers having also independent levers or handles, so that each may move irrespect,ive of any other, the lower end of the operator's lever having connected to it a rack-bar, taking into a pinion fastened on the end of the crank-shaft, and, when actuated, shifting the shoes into a-BtraigW; .or zigzag line, held infringed by defendant's deshoe is connected to an immovable part of the vice, in which frame, and every other' alternate shoo is conneoted to a swinging cross-bar; actuated by a lev!Jr at the rearot' the machine, to shift the shoes attached to such movable frame or cross-bar, and in which springs are arranged to hold the movable'shoes normally in a straight line, and urge them into a straight line, when the power exerted 'upon the operator's lever in shifting is released.
W. F. OopsweU and S. D. Bentley, for plaintiffs. B. F. Thurston and Wood 0; Boyd, for defendants. C. J. This suit is brought on re-issued letters patent No. 8,589, granted to Charles F. Davis and William Allen, l!'ebruary 18, 1879, for an' "improvement in grain drills," the original patent having been granted to said Davis, .as inventor, February 18, 1868. The following is the specification of the re-issue, reading what is inside of brackets and what is outside of brackets, omitting what is in italics: .. Figure 1 ,3. top plan [or top view] of the drill with the seed-box removed, but its position shown by red [dotted] lines to show the parts under" neath it. Figure 2 represents the crank-rod or shaft to which the front ends of the drag-bars attached, when detached from the machine. l'igure 3 represents an end view of the drill with the wheels removed, to show the parts behind it, and representing, by black, [full and] dotted, and 1'ed lines, the several operative parts, and their positions under the changes of the machine or of its parts, Similar letters of reference, wht re thC'IJ occur in the separatefigu1'e8, denote like [corresponding] parts in all oj the draWings, The object and purpose of my invention are [is] to shift or change the seediIi,g-shoils ot hoes from a straight to a zigzag line, and vice versa,. and, fnrther, so hangotl''l shoes or hoes as, in addition to this [the J shifting process, to admit of being raised separately, or the whole series together, as may be found necessary;
to