Hamilton v. Dillin
Supreme Court of the United States
Error to the Circuit Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Hamilton and others brought assumpsit in the court below against Dillin, surveyor of the port at Nashville, Tennessee, to recover a charge of four cents per pound paid by them to the said defendant, from August, 1863, to July, 1864, for permits to purchase and ship to the loyal States large quantities of cotton, amounting to over seven millions of pounds.
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Error to the Circuit Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Hamilton and others brought assumpsit in the court below against Dillin, surveyor of the port at Nashville, Tennessee, to recover a charge of four cents per pound paid by them to the said defendant, from August, 1863, to July, 1864, for permits to purchase and ship to the loyal States large quantities of cotton, amounting to over seven millions of pounds. This payment was one of the fees or charges required by the regulations of the Treasury Department to be made as a condition of carrying on the said trade between those…
1Opinion of the CourtJustice Bradley
There can be no question that the condition requiring the payment of four cents per pound for a permit to purchase cotton in, and transport it from, the insurrectionary States during the late civil war, was competent to the war power of the United States government to impose. The war was a public one. The government in prosecuting it had at least all the rights which any belligerent power has when prosecuting a public war. That war was itself a suspension of commercial intercourse between the opposing sections of-the country. No cotton or other merchandise could be lawfully purchased in the…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- M'culloch v. State of MarylandSupreme Court of the United States · 1819
3Cited by50 opinions
- Hirabayashi v. United StatesSupreme Court of the United States · 1943
- Downes v. BidwellSupreme Court of the United States · 1901
- Swayne & Hoyt, Ltd. v. United StatesSupreme Court of the United States · 1937
- United States v. Heinszen & Co.Supreme Court of the United States · 1907
- United States v. Yoshida International, Inc.Court of Customs and Patent Appeals · 1975
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