I am greatly apprehensive that the allowance of this claim could and
would be construed into the recognition of a principle binding the
United States to pay for all property which their military forces
destroyed in the late war for the Union. No liability by the Government
to pay for property destroyed by the Union forces in conducting a battle
or siege has yet been claimed, but the precedent proposed by this bill
leads directly and strongly in that direction, for it is difficult upon
any ground of reason or justice to distinguish between a case of that
kind and the one under consideration. Had General Craft and his command
destroyed the salt works by shelling out the enemy found in their actual
occupancy, the case would not have been different in principle from the
one presented in this bill. What possible difference can it make in
the rights of owners or the obligations of the Government whether the
destruction was in driving the enemy out or in keeping them out of the
possession of the salt works?
This bill does not present a case where private property is taken for
public use in any sense of the Constitution. It was not taken from the
owners, but from the enemy; and it was not then used by the Government,
but destroyed.
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