Supreme Court of the United States

The Irresistible

1822 U.S. LEXIS 276 · 20 U.S. 551 · 5 L. Ed. 520 · 7 Wheat. 551

March 21, 1822

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Headnotes

Generated summaries
  1. Headnote 1

    The 1817 neutrality act was limited to two years after March 3, 1817, and the Court held that after that period the statute no longer authorized prosecution.

  2. Headnote 2

    Congress repealed the 1817 act in 1818 and added a proviso that offenders could be prosecuted “as if the same were not repealed,” which the Court interpreted as preserving, not creating, power.

  3. Headnote 3

    The Court explained that the saving clause preserved only existing power, and since the 1817 act’s prosecutorial power had ended, the clause could not revive it.

  4. Headnote 4

    The Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Maryland dismissed the information on the ground that the 1817 act had expired, and the Supreme Court affirmed that dismissal.

Opinion

Mr. Chief Justice Marshall

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an appeal from a sentence of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Maryland, dismissing an information filed in that Court against the brig La Irresistible, as forfeited under the acts of Congress, made for the preservation of the neutrality of the United States. The offence charged in the information, was committed under the act of 1817, and the only question is, .whether the-informaron can be sustained after the time when that act wo.jr- d have expired by its own limitation.

The act was to continue in force two years after the 3d of March, 1817.

On the 20th of April, 1818, Congress passed an act making farther provision ofn the same subject, which repealed all former acts on,that subject, and among these the act of 1817, and annexed to the repealing clause the following proviso, “Provided, nevertheless, that persons having offended against any of the acts aforesaid may be prosecuted, convicted, and punished, as if the same were not repealed, and no forfeiture heretofore incurred by a violation.of any of the acts aforesaid shall be affected by such repeal.”

The obvious construction of this clause is, that the’ power to prosecute, convict, and- punish offenders against either of the repealed acts, remains as if the repealing act had never been passed. It does not create a power to punish, but preserves that which before existed. Now, it is well settled, that an of-fence against a temporary act cannot be punished after the expiration of the act, unless a particular provision be made by law for the purpose.

Sentence affirmed.