United States v. Walker (63 U.S. 299)

by Nathan Clifford

United States Supreme Court

63 U.S. 299

United States  v.  Walker

THESE three cases were brought up by writ of error from the Circuit Court of the United States for the southern district of Alabama.

They were suits brought by the United States upon a collector's bond; that against Walker being a suit against the collector himself, as collector of customs for the port of Mobile, and the other two being suits against his sureties. They were therefore identical in principle, and were argued and decided together.

The facts of the case, together with the instructions given and refused by the court below, are all set forth in the opinion of the court.

It was argued by Mr. J. Mason Campbell, upon a brief submitted by himself and Mr. Black, (Attorney General,) for the United States, and submitted on printed arguments by Mr. Smith for the defendants in error, and by Mr. Stanberry, who intervened as representing the late collector at Cincinnati, whose case was identical with that of the collector at Mobile.

A detailed report of the arguments of counsel upon both sides, relative to the many statutes involved in this question, would not be interesting to the profession generally, and it is therefore omitted. It may be proper, however, to state the general propositions upon each side.

Upon the part of the United States, it was contended that the only question was as to the true construction of the act of 1841 and its effect upon the act of 1822.

1. The purpose of the act of 1841 was plainly not to increase, but to limit, the compensation of collectors. All over two thousand dollars per annum received from the sources specified in the commencement of the 5th section was to be part and parcel of the public money, and paid over as such, and no cllector was to retain for himself, by the latter part of the section, under any pretence, more than $6,000 per annum, including every possible item of charge or claim. Congress might have aggregated into one all the sources from which collectors could derive compensation, and then limited the amount to be enjoyed from the whole, but it has not done so. It has segregated certain items by the act of 1841, and taken from the collector all but $2,000 per annum of this partial aggregate; and when, in the sentence following, it prohibits more than $6,000 being annually enjoyed under any pretence, no other interpretation will hold than that which makes the sources of compensation, outside of the partial aggregate, separately contribute, if they can, the residue of the amount. The construction put on the act of 1841 by the court below would have been correct, if the section had consisted only of the latter part of it, and its fault consists in ignoring and virtually repealing all that precedes.

2. The true construction of the act of 1841 being ascertained, its operation on the act of 1822 appears at once.

By the 9th section of that act, (3 Stat. at Large, 694,) the maximum compensation of collectors at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, is fixed at $4,000 per annum, and by the 10th section of all other collectors at $3,000 per annum, payable, as this court ruled in Hoyt's case, out of the fees and commissions allowed by the act of 1802.

10 Howard, 135.

The mention therefore in the act of 1841 of a maximum of $6,000 from all sources is explained by the fact, that while it limited a maximum of $2,000 as regarded certain particulars, the act of 1822, in regard to the sources of emolument with which it dealt, had already prescribed a maximum of $4,000 for the collectors of the seven ports enumerated in it. But no construction can possibly stand which makes the denial of more than $6,000 per annum to the collectors of ports of the first class, amount to an increase of the compensation of those officers in other ports. The act of 1822 still operates in putting a limit to the collectors' compensation as regards the items which it contemplated, and fixes that limit to $4,000 per annum for the collectors of the seven ports mentioned in it, and to $3,000 per annum for all other collectors, including the collector of Mobile, while the act of 1841 limits all of whatever class to a maximum of $2,000 per annum, from the items specified by it.

The conclusion to which Mr. Smith came, after examining the statutes upon the subject, was the following, viz:

The error of appellant, it is submitted, arises from overlooking the fact, that the several annual acts, made permanent by that of 1840, established a maximum of four thousand dollars for all ports, applicable to then existing sources of income; and hence the error was committed, that the limit of six thousand dollars in the act of 1841 was erroneously supposed to refer to the maximum of four thousand dollars in the act of 1822. The two thousand dollars limited from particular sources, by the act of 1841, added to the limit of four thousand dollars in the act of 1840, makes the six thousand grand limit of the act of 1840. It is impossible to give any operation to the limit of 1840, or of 1841, except upon the construction of the statutes maintained for appellee; for, except upon such construction, the limit of four thousand dollars was as inoperative without, as with, the several annual acts, (made permanent by that of 1840,) and the act of 1841.

The view advanced for appellee is in harmony, too, with the general design of all the statutes on the subject; it meets the growing condition of the country, and establishes a correspondence between labor and responsibility and reward; and pursuing the policy inaugurated in 1822, it adjusts the maximum to the growth of towns and the country, and the spread of commerce; and it finally relieves the question from all the entanglements into which it is drawn by the views of Mr. Attorney General Cushing, in his opinion before referred to, and leaves each and every part and provision of each and every law a field of operation.

If these views are correct, the judgment in the case of the United States v. John J. Walker, and the two following cases against his sureties, must be affirmed, because the record shows: 1. That he did not receive six thousand dollars per annum; and because two thousand dollars of his compensation in no year came from the sources to which this limit applies.

Mr. Justice CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

Notes