than according to that act, and that no warrant, power of attorney, or other paper executed or purporting to be executed by any pensioner to any attorney, claim-agent, broker, or other person, shall be recognized by any agent for the payment of pensions, nor shall any pension be paid thereon, subject to two provisos: 1. That payment to persons laboring under legal disabilities may be made to the guardian of such persons in the manner the act provides. 2. That pensions payable in foreign countries may be made according to the provisions of existing laws.

Provision is also made by the seventh section of the act that the fee of agents and attorneys for the preparation and prosecution of a claim for pension or bounty land, under any act of Congress granting the same, shall not exceed in any case the sum of twenty-five dollars, and the eighth section makes it a misdemeanor to demand, receive, or retain any greater compensation for such services in any particular case.

16 id. 195.

Enough appears in these references to the legislation of the Congress under the Constitution to show that throughout the entire period since its adoption it has been the unchallenged practice of the legislative department of the government, with the sanction of every President, including the Father of the Country, to pass laws to prevent the diversion of pensionmoney from inuring solely to the use and benefit of those to whom the pensions are granted. With that view, sales, pledges, mortgages, assignments, and every other kind of conveyance have been prohibited. Agents employed to collect the money have been required to make oath that they have no interest in such money by any such pledge, mortgage, transfer, agreement, or arrangement, and that they know of none, and provision has several times been made for their punishment if they swear falsely.

Most of these regulations have been enacted to prevent agents, attorneys, and guardians from withholding the fund or converting the same to their own use before it passes into the hands of the beneficiary; but Congress has gone further, and passed laws exempting the money from attachment, execution, and seizure by any legal process in law or equity. No question of such exemption is involved in the present case; but if Congress

may legislate to protect the fund from the grasp of creditors before it reaches the beneficiary, none, it is presumed, will deny the power of Congress to legislate to the end to prevent the agent, attorney, or guardian from converting the same to his use.

Any other argument is hardly necessary to show that the act of Congress in question is a valid and constitutional law; but if môre be needed, it will be found in the decisions of the courts, which are numerous and decisive in support of the same proposition.

State courts in more than one instance have decided that money received as pension from the United States is not liable to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatever. Congress has the power, says Justice Peters, to attach such condition to the grant of the bounty beyond all doubt; and the court held that the language of sect. 2, in the act of June 6, 1866, was comprehensive enough to exempt such money from any such attachment, levy, or seizure under State laws. Eckert & Co. v. McKee, &c., 9 Bush (Ky.), 355.

It is undoubtedly competent for the United States, said Judge Hoar, to attach such conditions as they may see fit to the grant of a pension, and to fix by law the time and manner in which the property shall finally pass to the pensioner. Kellogg v. Waite and Trustee, 12 Allen (Mass.), 530. But the court in that case held that the rule did not apply to the money after the same had passed into the hands of the pensioner, which is a question that does not arise in this case.

Sects. 12 and 13 of the Pension Act of July 4, 1864, prescribed the fees of agents employed to collect pensions, and imposed a penalty for receiving a greater fee than that prescribed. Marks was indicted for a violation of that provision, and by the report of the case it appears that he had demanded and received an excess of fees beyond what the act allowed, and he contended that the act was unconstitutional. Hearing was had; and Judge Ballard overruled the defence, holding that the power of Congress for the protection of both persons and things was coextensive with their powers of legislation; that if they grant pensions to meritorious officers, soldiers, and sea

men, or to their widows, they may by all suitable laws guard and protect the fund thus devoted from being diverted from its object by either the craft or the extortion of unscrupulous agents. United States v. Marks, 2 Abb. (U. S.) 534; s. c. 10 Int. Rev. Rec. 42; United States v. Bennet, 12 Blatchf. 352.

Armies may be raised and supported by Congress, and under this grant of power, says Judge Withey, Congress may enact laws making it an offence punishable in the national courts to detain from a military pensioner any portion of a sum collected in his behalf as his pension. United States v. Fairchilds, 1 Abb. (U. S.) 74; s. c. 16 Am. Law Reg. 306.

Pensioners were forbidden by the act of July 29, 1848, to pledge the certificate by anticipation to an agent employed to secure the pension; and Slosson, J., held that such a pledge, no matter for what purpose or to whom made, was wholly void, and that an action would lie against such agent, if he refused to deliver it up, for the recovery of the value or the damages resulting from its detention. Payne v. Woodhull, 6 Duer

(N. Y.), 169.

Moneys due to a debtor from the public authorities, says Daly, J., cannot be reached by a creditor of a pensioner until actually paid over to the debtor. Nagle v. Slagg, 15 Abb. Pr. N. S. (N. Y.) 348.

Proof of a grant of a pension certificate to the plaintiff, that it is in the possession of the defendants, and that upon a demand made upon the defendants to deliver it to the plaintiff they refused to do so, not only entitles the plaintiff to recover, but makes a case which renders it impossible, in the nature of things, for the defendants to prove any facts which can operate as a bar to the action, or modify in any respect the plaintiff's right to the whole relief sought. Moffatt v. Van Doren, 1 Bosw. 610.

An agreement between the widow of a soldier of the Revolution entitled to a pension, and an agent, that the latter was to receive a part of the pension-money for his services in obtaining it, says Nash, C. J., is void, and the money received under such an agreement can be recovered back by the pensioner in an action of assumpsit. Powell v. Jennings, 3 Jones (N. C.), 547.

A widow entitled to arrears of pension dying and leaving children, says Woods, J., cannot dispose of such arrears by will, nor can her executor, having received the same, retain it for purposes of administration, but each child is entitled to an equal share, and may recover it of the executor in an action for money had and received. Fogg v. Perkins, 19 N. H. 101; Walton et al. v. Cotton et al., 19 How. 357.

It is competent for Congress to enforce by suitable penalties all legislation necessary or proper to the execution of power with which it is intrusted, and any act committed with a view of evading such legislation or fraudulently securing its benefits may be made an offence against the United States. States v. Fox, 95 U. S. 670.

United

Acts of Congress granting such donations to officers, soldiers, and seamen, or to their widows or children, in some cases direct that the payment may be made to the attorney or agent of the beneficiary, and in other acts the direction is that the payment may be made to the guardian of the party, and in still another class of such acts the requirement is that the money shall be paid directly to the beneficiary. 4 Stat. 350; 3 id. 569.

For the defendant, it is insisted that when the payment is made to the guardian the money paid ceases to be within the constitutional control of the United States, and that the act of Congress, which enacts that the guardian who embezzles the money or fraudulently converts the same to his own use is guilty of a misdemeanor, is unconstitutional and void. But the court is unhesitatingly of a different opinion, for several reasons: 1. Because the United States, as the donors of the pensions, may, through the legislative department of the government, annex such conditions to the donation as they see fit, to insure its transmission unimpaired to the beneficiary. 2. Because the guardian no more than the agent or attorney of the pensioner is obliged by the laws of Congress to receive the fund; but if he does, he must accept it subject to the annexed conditions. 3. Because the word "guardian," as used in the acts of Congress, is merely the designation of the person to whom the money granted may be paid for the use and benefit of the pensioners. 4. Because the fund proceeds from the

United States, and inasmuch as the donation is a voluntary gift, the Congress may pass laws for its protection, certainly until it passes into the hands of the beneficiary, which is all that is necessary to decide in this case. 5. Because the elements of the offence defined by the act of Congress in question consist of the wrongful acts of the individual named in the indictment, wholly irrespective of the duties devolved upon him by the State law. 6. Because the theory of the defendant that the act of Congress augments, lessens, or makes any change in respect to the duties of a guardian under the State law is entirely erroneous, as the act of Congress merely provides that the pension may be paid to the person designated as guardian, for the use and benefit of the pensioner, and that the person who receives the pension, if he embezzles it or fraudulently converts it to his own use, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished as therein provided.

Viewed in the light of these suggestions, it is clear that Congress possessed the power: 1. To define the offence set forth in the indictment, and that the Circuit Court is vested with the jurisdiction to try the offender and sentence him to the punishment which the act of Congress imposed. 2. That the defendant, under the circumstances disclosed in the record, was liable to indictment in the Circuit Court of the United States. 3. That the act of Congress defining the offence set forth in the indictment is a valid and constitutional law enacted in pursuance of the Constitution.

Answers will be certified in conformity with this opinion; that is, the answer to the first question must be in the affirmative, and the answers to the second and third questions in the negative; and it is

So ordered.