THE PROTECTOR
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The Supreme Court held that the statute of limitations on certain claims must be calculated based on the dates of presidential proclamations establishing the beginning and end of the Civil War in each state, rather than on specific acts of hostility that varied widely in time and location. The Court determined that the war began in Alabama on April 19, 1861, and ended on April 2, 1866, and applied these dates to dismiss a motion in the case before it.
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The CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court. "• The question, in the present case is, when did the rebellion begin and end ? In other words, what space of time must be considered as excepted from the operation of the statute of limitations by the war of the rebellion ? Acts of hostility by the insurgents occurred at periods so various, and of such different degrees of importance, and in parts of the country so remote from each other, both at the commencement and the close of the late civil war, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to say on what precise day it began or terminated. It is necessary, therefore, to refer to some public act of the political departments of the government to fix the dates; and, for obvious reasons, those of the executive department, which may be, and, in fact, was, at the commencement of hostilities, obliged to act during the recess of Congress, must be taken. The proclamation of intended blockade by the President may therefore be assumed as marking the first of these dates, and the proclamation that the war had closed, as marking the second. But the war did not begin or close at the same time in all the States. There were two proclamations of intended blockade: the first of the 19th of April, 1861,* embracing the States of South Carolina, Georgia, ' Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas; the second, of the 27tb of April, 1861,† embracing the States of Virginia and North Carolina; and there were two proclamations declaring that the war had closed; one issued on the 2d of April, 1866,‡ embracing the States of Virginia, North Oaroliua, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Teunessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and the other issued on the 20th of August, 1866,§ embracing the State of Texas. In the absence of more certain criteria, of equally general application, we must take the dates of these proclamations as ascertaining .the commencement and the close of the war in the States méntioned in them. Applying this rule to the case before us, we find that the war began in Alabama on the 19th of April, 1861, and ended on the 2d of April, 1866. More than five years, therefore, had elapsed from the close of the war till the 17th of May, 1871, when this appeal was brought. The motion to dismiss, therefore, must be Granted. * 12 Stat. at Large, 1258. ‡
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Cited By (18 total)
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Dubuisson v. Simmons, 157 Fla. 473 (Fla. 1946)…ivate rights were affected by it, of the time when it terminated, and we are of the opinion that Congress did not intend that the limitation in this Act should begin to run until this was done.” See also Freeborn et al. v. The Ship Protector, etc., 20 L. Ed. 463, 12 Wallace 700; Kahn v. Anderson, 65 L. Ed. 469, 41 S. Ct. 224, 255 U.S. 1. It is a matter of common knowledge of which all courts may take judicial cognizance that at the time Chapter 22432, supra, was enacted a state of war existed between this…
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Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (U.S. 1962)…It would hardly embarrass the conduct of war were this Court to determine, in connection with private transactions between litigants, the date upon which war is to be deemed terminated. But the Court has refused to do so. See, e. g., The Protector, 12 Wall. 700; Brown v. Hiatts, 15 Wall. 177; Adger v. Alston, 15 Wall. 555; Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U. S. 176, 192-193. It does not suffice to explain such cases as Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S. 160 — deferring to political determination the question of the durat…1 / 2
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Hamilton v. Ky. Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U.S. 146 (U.S. 1919)…mplied power to enact such a prohibition must depend not upon the existence of a technical state of war, terminable only with the ratification of a treaty of peace or a proclamation of peace (United States v. Anderson, 9 Wall. 56, 70; The Protector, 12 Wall. 700, 702; Hijo v. United States, 194 U. S. 315, 323,) but upon some actual emergency or necessity arising out of the war or incident to it, still, as was said in Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall. 493, 507, “The power is not limited to victories in the field and…1 / 2
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