CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. The Confederate States were a de facto gov ernment in the sense that its citizens were bound to render the government obedience in civil matters, and did not become responsi ble, as wrong-doers, for such acts of obedi ence ; Thorington v. Smith, 8 Wall. (U. S.) 9, 19 L. Ed. 361; but it was not strictly a de facto government; ibid.; see Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U. S. 176, 24 L. Ed. 716. During the war the inhabitants of the Confederate States were treated as belligerents ; Thor ington v. Smith, 8 Wall. (U. S.) 10, 19 L. Ed. 361; U. S. v.-Alexander, 2 Wall. (U. S.) 404, 17 L. Ed. 915. Land sold to the Confederate government, and captured by the Federal government, became the property of the United States ; U. S. v. Huckabee, 16 Wall. (TJ. S.) 414, 21 L. Ed. 457.
The Confederate States was an illegal or ganization, within the provision of the con stitution of the United States prohibiting any treaty, alliance, or confederation of one state with another; whatever efficacy, therefore, enactments possessed in any state enter ing into that organization, must be attribut ed to the sanction given to them by that state ; Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U. S. 176, 24 L. Ed. 716. The laws of the several states were valid except so far as they tended to impair the national authority or the rights of citizens under the constitution ; ibid.
Unless suspended or superseded by the commanders of the United States forces which occupied the insurrectionary states, the laws of those states, so far as they af fected the inhabitants, remained in force during the war, and over them their tribu nals continued to exercise their ordinary jurisdiction ; Coleman v. Tennessee, 97 U. S. 509, 24 L. Ed. 1118.
"Beyond all doubt, the late rebellion against the government of the United States was a sectional civil war ; and all persona interested in or affected by its operations are entitled to have their rights determined by the laws applicable to such a condition of affairs." Waite, C. J., in Young v. U. S., 97
U. S. 39, 24 L. Ed. 992.
Transactions between persons actually dwelling within the territory dominated by the government of the Confederate States were not invalid for the reason only that they occurred under the sanction of the laws of that government or of any local govern ment recognizing its authority ; that within such territory, the preservation of order, the maintenance of police regulations, the prose cution of crimes, the protection of property, the enforcement of contracts, the celebration of marriages, the settlement of estates, etc., were, during the war, under the control of the local governments constituting the so called Confederate States. What was don0 in respect of such matters under the author ity of the laws of these local de facto gov ernments should not be disregarded or held invalid merely because those governments were organized in hostility to the Union. Judicial and legislative acts in the respective states should be respected by the courts if they were not hostile in their purpose or mode' of enforcement to the authority of the national government, and did not impair the rights of citizens under the federal consti tution. Harlan, J., in Baldy v. Hunter, 171 U. S. 388, 18 Sup. Ct. 890, 43 L. Ed. 208.
"The government of the Confederate States, although in no sense a government de jure, and never recognized by the United States as in all respects a government de facto, yet was an organized and actual gov ernment, maintained by military power, throughout the limits of the states that ad hered to it, except in those portions of them protected from its control by the presence of the armed forces of the United States ; and the United States had conceded to that government_some of the rights and obliga tions of a belligerent." Oakes v. U. S., 174 U. S. 794, 19 Sup. Ct. 864, 43 L. Ed. 1169.
See 2 So. L. Rev. 313 ; 3 id. 47 ; SECESSION.