Prize Cases
| Prize Cases | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Argued February 10, 1863 Decided March 10, 1863 |
|
| Full case name | The Brig Amy Warwick; The Schooner Crenshaw; The Barque Hiawatha; The Schooner Brilliante. |
| Citations | 67 U.S. 635 (more)
17 L. Ed. 459, 2 Black 635, 1862 U.S. LEXIS 282
|
| Holding | |
| The President did have the authority to order a blockade and impound ships, even without a formal declaration of war | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Grier, joined by Wayne, Swayne, Miller, Davis |
| Dissent | Nelson, joined by Clifford, Catron, Taney |
| Laws applied | |
| Article II of the United States Constitution, Admiralty law | |
Prize Cases (1863) – 67 U.S. 635 – was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1862 during the American Civil War. The Supreme Court's decision declared constitutional the blockade of the Southern ports ordered by President Abraham Lincoln. The opinion in the case was written by Supreme Court Justice Robert Cooper Grier.
Facing the secession of several states from the Union and the possibility of open hostilities, Abraham Lincoln did not ask Congress to declare war on the Confederate States of America as he believed this would be tantamount to recognizing the Confederacy as a nation. Instead, Lincoln instituted a naval blockade which had important legal ramifications because nations do not blockade their own ports; rather, they close them. By ordering a blockade, Lincoln essentially declared the Confederacy to be belligerents instead of insurrectionists.
The Confederate States were mostly agrarian, and almost all of their machined and manufactured goods were imported. At the beginning of the war there was only one significant steel mill and manufactory in the South, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia. Moreover, the Southern economy depended on the export of cotton, tobacco and other crops. The blockade of the South resulted in the capture of dozens of American and foreign ships, both those attempting to run the highly efficient blockade and smuggle goods and munitions to the South as well as those attempting to smuggle exports from the South.
The question before the court dealt with the seized ships, but it reached widely into the legality of wars against acts of belligerence, whether or not officially declared. It rose through the lower Federal courts through lawsuits by Northern merchants whose ships were seized by U.S. Navy warships enforcing the blockade. In admiralty, a ship captured during war may be kept as a prize. If there is no formal war, capturing ships and impounding them is piracy. Plaintiffs contended that the blockade was not legal because a war had not been declared, thus making it perfectly legal to run the blockade and sell war materiel in the blockaded Southern ports. On March 10, 1863, the Court ruled that the states of the Southern Confederacy were in insurrection and at war against the United States by acts of belligerency on April 12 and April 17, 1861, to wit: the firing upon Fort Sumter and the Privateering Act proclaimed by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Lincoln's Proclamation of Blockade was made on April 19, 1861, [Navy Official Records, Series 1, Volume 5, page 620] two days after Davis's call for privateers and it was founded upon acting against privateers, not an open policy of warfare as was later recommended by the ranking General of the Army, Winfield Scott.
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