[Download] "United States v. Alexander" by United States Supreme Court # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: United States v. Alexander
- Author : United States Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 01, 1870
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 56 KB
Description
Mr. J. A. Wills, contra, enforced the argument above presented, as made below. Whether or not the Court of Claims has jurisdiction in a case such as the present, is a question which we do not propose now to determine, for we are of opinion that if that court had jurisdiction, it erred in giving judgment for the plaintiff. Passing, then, to the merits of the case, it is clear that if the act of 1853 stood alone no widow could be entitled to a pension under it, commencing auterior to its passage. All statutes are to be construed as operating prospectively, unless a contrary intent appears beyond doubt. But it is said the act is to be construed with reference to the prior act of 1848. The argument in support of this view is not without weight, but we think it insufficient to overbalance the reasons there are for holding that the act of 1853 is intended to grant pensions only from the time of its enactment. It does not profess to be an amendment of any former, act, and there is no necessary reference to the act of 1848, even for the purpose of fixing the rate or duration of the pensions granted by it. Laws prior to the act of 1848 had determined the rate of pensions granted to widows of Revoluntionary soldiers as equal to the pay of the husband, and the pension was of course during widowhood, unless restricted by the statute. Nor was reference to any former act necessary to ascertain when the pension was to commence, for it commenced, of course, with the passage of the act, unless a different intention was either expressed or plainly implied. True, the act of 1853 declared that widows married after January, 1800, shall be entitled to a pension in the same manner as those who were married before that date, but the manner may well refer to the mode in which the pension must be obtained by the adjudication of the Commissioner of Pensions and to the rules, regulations, and prescriptions provided by law long before 1848 for the government of the commissioner and pension agents, and for the payment of pensions. Certainly such a direction is not inconsistent with our holding that the act of 1853 was not intended to have a retroactive effect, or to confer a right to a pension commencing prior to its passage.