counsel (Laws of 1876, chap, 444; Laws of 1883, chap. 205) create any liability on his part. Therefore, no error was committed by the Board of Claims, and its decision should be affirmed. All concur.

Decision affirmed.

THE FLOYD ACCEPTANCES.

Supreme Court of the United States. December, 1868.
7 Wall. 666.

Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.

The cases before us are demands against the United States, founded upon instruments claimed to be bills of exchange, drawn by Russell, Majors & Waddell, on John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, and accepted by him in that capacity; purchased by plaintiffs before maturity, for a valuable consideration, and, as they allege, without notice of any defense to them.

Mr. Pierce, in his petition, relies on the facts that the signature of John B. Floyd, to these acceptances, is genuine, and that he was at the time of the acceptance Secretary of War, as sufficient to establish his claim. He avers that Floyd, as Secretary of War, had authority to accept the drafts, and that by his acceptance the United States became bound. It is evident that he means by this merely to assert, as a principle of law, that, by virtue of his office, the Secretary had such authority, and not that there existed, in this case, special facts which gave such authority; for he mentions no such facts in his petition, and when the solicitors for the defendant undertook to show under what circumstances the bills were issued and accepted, he objected to the evidence. Its admission is one of the alleged errors on which he brings the case to this court.

It will be convenient, therefore, to consider, first, the proposition on which he rests his case, which, if found to be sound, disposes of all the cases in favor of plaintiffs.

One of the main elements of that proposition, much and eloquently urged upon our attention, seems to be too well established by the decisions of this court to admit now of serious controversy.

It must be taken as settled, that when the United States becomes a party to what is called commercial paper-by which is meant that class of paper which is transferable by indorsement or delivery, and between private parties is exempt in the hands of innocent holders from inquiry into the circumstances under which it was put in circulation-they are bound in any court, to whose jurisdiction they submit, by the same principles that govern individuals in their relations to such paper.

Conceding, then, for the sake of argument, that the instruments under consideration are, in form, bills of that character, and that the signature of Floyd is genuine, and that he was at the time Secretary of War, there remains but one question to be considered essential to plaintiffs' right to recover, and that concerns the authority of the Secretary to accept the bills on behalf of the government.

The answer, which at once suggests itself to one familiar with the structure of our government, in which all power is delegated, and is defined by law, constitutional or statutory, is, that to one or both of these sources we must resort in every instance. We have no officers in this government, from the President down to the most subordinate agent, who does not hold office under the law, with prescribed duties and limited authority. And while some of these, as the President, the Legislature, and the Judiciary, exercise powers in some sense left to the more general definitions necessarily incident to fundamental law found in the Constitution, the larger portion of them are the creation of statutory law, with duties and powers prescribed and limited by that law. It would seem reasonable, then, that on the question of authority of the Secretary of War to accept bills of exchange, we must look mainly to the acts of Congress.

Recurring, then, to the written law as the exclusive source of such authority, we may confidently assert that there is no express authority to any officer of the government to draw or accept bills of exchange.

The authority to issue bills of exchange not being one expressly given by statute, can only arise as an incident to the exercise of some other power. When it becomes the duty of an officer to pay money at a distant point, he may do so by a bill of exchange, because that is the usual and appropriate mode of

doing it. So, when an officer or agent of the government at a distance, is entitled to money here, the person holding the fund may pay his drafts. And whenever, in conducting any of the fiscal affairs of the government, the drawing of a bill of exchange is the appropriate means of doing that which the department, or officer having the matter in charge, has a right to do, then he can draw and bind the government in so doing. But the obligation resting on him to perform that duty, and his right and authority to effect such an object, is always open to inquiry, and if they be found wanting, or if they be forbidden by express statute, then the draft or acceptance is not binding on the government.

It cannot be maintained that, because an officer can lawfully issue bills of exchange for some purposes, that no inquiry can be made in any case into the purpose for which a bill was issued. The government cannot be held to a more rigid rule, in this respect, than a private individual.

In accordance with these views, we are of opinion that, as there can be no lawful occasion for any department of the government, or for any of its officers, or agents, to accept drafts drawn on them, under any statute or other law now known to us, such acceptances cannot bind the government.

An examination of the facts found by the Court of Claims confirms the views already stated.

Counsel for the plaintiffs seem to have been of the opinion from the start, that there was nothing in the nature of the transaction which would support the paper on which they sued, for they steadfastly resisted all efforts on the part of the government to give the facts in evidence; and in the arguments made in this court, the right to recover is rested almost exclusively on the proposition that, because in some cases the secretary might lawfully accept, it must be presumed in their favor that these drafts were lawfully accepted.

It seems to us that such a transaction can be defended on no principle of law, and that, in thus lending to Russell & Co. the name and credit of the United States, the Secretary was acting wholly beyond the scope of his authority. The paper was, in fact, accommodation paper, as it was found to be by the Court of Claims, by which the Secretary undertook to make the United States acceptor for the sole benefit of the drawers.

If these acceptances can be considered as payments, they were

payments in advance of the service rendered and supplies furnished-payments made before anything was due. They are in that view not only without authority of law, but are expressly forbidden by the act of January 31st, 1823. The first section of that statute, which has never been repealed, enacts "that, from and after the passing of this act, no advance of public money shall be made in any case whatever; but in all cases of contracts for the performance of any service, or the delivery of articles of any description for the use of the United States, payment shall not exceed the value of the services rendered, or the articles delivered previous to such payment."

The transaction by which these drafts were accepted was in direct violation of this law, and of the limitations which it imposes upon all officers of the government. Every citizen of the United States is supposed to know the law, and when a purchaser of one of these drafts began to make inquiries necessary to ascertain the authority for their acceptance, he must have learned at once that, if received by Russell, Majors & Waddell, as payment, they were in violation of law, and if received as accommodation paper, they were evasions of this law, and without any shadow of authority.

These cases have long been before the departments, before Congress, and the Court of Claims, and have been the subject of much laborious consideration everywhere. The amount involved is large, the principles on which the claims are asserted are, to some extent, new, and we have given them a careful and earnest mvestigation. We are of opinion that the judgments rendered by the Court of Claims against the plaintiffs, must be

Affirmed. Mr. Justice NELSON (with whom concurred GRIER and CLIFFORD, JJ.) dissenting.

See also for the powers an officer possesses to bind the government, Mulnix v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 23 Col. 71. infra. Other instances of the liability of the government in contract are, Parsons v. United States, 167 U. S. 324; Shurtleff v. United States, 189 U. S. 311; Hall v. Wisconsin, 103 U. S. 5; Campbell v. United States, 107 U. S. 407; United States v. Langston, 118 U. S. 389; Kehn v. State, 93 N. Y. 291; Dunlap v. United States, 173 U. S. 65; United States v. Symonds, 120 U. S. 46; Romero v. United States, 24 Ct. of U. 431, and United States v. Saunders, 120 U. S. 126. When a contract has been legally made with the government, its liability is the same as that of an ordinary party unless limited by statute. People v. Stephens, 71 N. Y. 549

III. AS A RESULT OF SUITS AGAINST OFFICERS.

UNITED STATES V. LEE.

Supreme Court of the United States. October, 1882.
106 U. S. 196.

Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.

These are two writs of error to the same judgment; one prosecuted by the United States, eo nomine; and the other by the Attorney-General of the United States, in the names of Frederick Kaufman and Richard P. Strong, the defendants against whom judgment was rendered in the Circuit Court.

The action was originally commenced in the Circuit for the county of Alexandrie, in the state of Virginia, by George W. P. C. Lee, against Kaufman and Strong and a great number of others, to recover possession of a parcel of land of about eleven hundred acres, known as the Arlington estate. It was in the form prescribed by the statutes of Virginia, under which the pleadings are in the names of the real parties, plaintiff and defendant.

As soon as the declaration was filed the case was, by writ of certiorari, removed to the Circuit Court of the United States, where all the subsequent proceedings took place.

We have then two questions presented to the court and jury below, and the same questions arise in this court on the record: 1. Could any action be maintained against the defendants for the possession of the land in controversy under the circumstances of the relation of that possession to the United States, however clear the legal right to that possession might be in the plaintiff?

The counsel for plaintiffs in error and in behalf of the United States assert the proposition, that though it has been ascertained by the verdict of the jury, in which no error is found, that the plaintiff has the title to the land in controversy, and that what is set up in behalf of the United States is no title at all, the court can render no judgment in favor of the plaintiff against the defendants in the action, because the latter hold the property as