m. No bill for the relief of the claimant has, however,
passed Congress until the present session, when a favorable condition
seems to have presented itself.

The bill herewith returned empowers and directs the accounting officers
of the Treasury to settle and pay to the representatives of Maddox the
amount found due him on account of the loss and damage he sustained by
the seizure by our military forces of the tobacco purchased by him under
the agreement referred to, excluding, however, the tobacco destroyed
by fire in the city of Richmond, and provides that said claim shall be
determined upon the evidence taken and now on file in the office of the
clerk of the United States Court of Claims and the War Department and
any other competent evidence.

I fail to appreciate the equities which entitle this claimant to further
hearing.

Every intelligent man should be charged with the knowledge that
as a general rule commercial intercourse with the enemy is entirely
inconsistent with a state of war, and that the law of 1864 had for its
object the encouragement of the insurgents themselves to bring their
products to us, and not the authorization of persons to roam through the
insurrectionary districts and purchase their products on speculation.

Even if the claimant did not understand these conditions, he certainly
knew that his contract was based upon a statute; that the agent with
whom he was contracting was a creature of statute, and that such statute
and certain regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury made thereunder
regulated the right and limited the action of all the parties to said
contract. These things sufficiently appear from the very terms of the
contract and the permit signed by the President. The privileges and
liberties contained in this permit are expressly granted "with strict
compliance with regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury."

If before or after entering into this contract the claimant had
examined these regulations, he would have found that they provided that
"commercial intercourse with localities beyond the lines of actual
military occupation by the United States forces is absolutely
prohibited."

He would have also found that such regulations expressly provided that
the power of the agent of the Government to make contracts should be
founded upon the statement that the contractor then owned or controlled
the products for which he contracted. And yet the permit of the
President, whic