Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

The general doctrines by which Congress was governed were these:

1. No rightful claim accrued to anybody for the destruction or injury to property by military movements, or operations, in a country which was the theatre of war.

2. A fair price was to be paid for supplies for the use of the Army in the field (1) to loyal persons, (2) to disloyal persons, if it were shown by a certificate of the officer who took them, or otherwise, that they were taken with the purpose of paying for them. Inhabitants of States in rebellion were presumed to be disloyal, unless their loyalty were shown affirmatively.

3. A like rule was followed in determining the questions of payment for the use of buildings, occupied as soldiers' quarters, or for other official purposes, by the Army, or injury to them caused by such occupation.

4. Property taken by the Army was paid for at its actual value to the Government, and not necessarily at its value to owner.

5. No claim accrued by reason of the destruction of property whether of loyal or disloyal persons, to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy.

6. An exception to the principle above stated, founded not on any strict principle or established law or conduct of Governments, but on sound public policy, was adopted in the case of institutions of charity, education and religion.

I first affirmed that doctrine in the House of Representatives, in the case of the College of William and Mary of Virginia, against the almost unanimous opinion of my political associates. I thought that such a principle would be a great protection to such institutions in all future wars, that it would tend to heal the bitter recollections of the Civil War and the estrangements then existing between the sections of the country. I have lived to see the doctrine thoroughly established, the College of William and Mary rebuilt by the Government, and every church and school and hospital which suffered by the military operations of the Civil War reimbursed, if it has presented its claim.

If I have been able to render any public service, I look upon that I have rendered upon the Committee on Claims, although it has attracted but little attention, and is not of a nature to make great public impression, as perhaps more valuable than any other.

The duties of that Committee, when I was upon it, were very laborious. I find that in the first session of the first Congress, I made reports in seventeen cases, each of them involving a study of the evidence, a finding of the facts, and an investigation, statement and consideration of important principles of law, in most cases to be applied to a novel state of facts. I think that winter's work upon the Committee on Claims alone required more individual labor than that required to perform the duties of his office by any Judge of a State Court, of which I have any knowledge; and that the amount of money, and importance of the principles involved very far exceeded that involved in the aggregate of the cases in the Supreme Court of any State for a like period.