The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Series 3, Volume 5. Page: 6
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CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.
to classes of individuals are solely in the hands of the President. It
is, therefore, needless to discuss the question whether the act of Con-
gress was necessary in order to enable the President lawfully to issue
a proclamation of pardon and amnesty.
The power of exercising and extending mercy resides in some depart-
ment of every well-ordered government. When order and peace reign
its exercise is frequent and its influence valuable. Its influence is of
value inestimable at the termination of an insurrection so widespread
as the one which in our country is just being suppressed. Its appro-
priate office is to soothe and heal, not to keep alive or to initiate the
rebellious and malignant passions that induced, precipitated, and
sustained the insurrection. This power to soothe and heal is appro-
priately vested in the Executive Department of the Government,
whose duty it is to recognize and declare the existence of an insur-
rection, to suppress it by force, and to proclaim its suppression. In
order, then, that this benign power of the Government should accom-
plish the objects for which it was given, the extent and limits of the
power should be clearly understood. Therefore, before proceeding
to answer the questions propounded in your letter, it would seem to
be eminently proper to state some of the obvious principles upon
which the power to grant pardons and amnesty rests, and deduce from
those principles the limitation of that power.
The words amnesty and pardon have a usual and well-understood
meaning. Neither is defined in any act of Congress; the latter is not
used in the Constitution.
A pardon is a remission of guilt; an amnesty is an act of oblivion
or forgetfulness.
They are acts of sovereign mercy and grace, flowing from the appro-
priate organ of the Government.
There can be no pardon where there is no actual or imputed guilt.
The acceptance of a pardon is a confession of guilt or of the existence
of a state of facts from which a judgment of guilt would follow.
A pardon may be absolute and complete or it may be conditional
or partial. The whole penalty denounced by the law against an
offender may be forgiven, or so much of it only as may seem expe-
dient. The power to pardon is not exhausted by its partial use. A
part of the penalty may be forgiven now, and at a future time another
part, and so on till the whole is forgiven. This power may be so used
as to place the offender upon trial and probation as to his good faith
and purposes.
A pardon may be upon conditions, and those conditions may be
precedent or subsequent.
The conditions, however, appended to a pardon cannot be immoral,
illegal, or inconsistent with the pardon.
If a condition precedent annexed to a pardon be immoral, so that
the person in whose favor it is issued should never speak the truth;
or illegal, so that he should commit murder; or inconsistent with the
pardon, so that he should never eat or sleep, the pardon would never
attach or be of avail. On the other hand, if those conditions were
subsequent--that is, if it were declared that the pardon should be
void if the party ever spoke the truth, or if he did not commit mur-
der, or if he should eat or sleep-the pardon would attach and be
valid, and the condition void and of no effect. If a condition subse-
quent is broken, the offender could be tried and punished for the
original offense. The breach of the condition would make the pardon
void. Any conditions, precedent or subsequent, may, therefore, be6
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The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Additions and Corrections to Series 3, Volume 5. (Pamphlet)
Errata sheets for the Records of the War of the Rebellion include additions and corrections to the text and the index for Series 3, Volume 5.
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United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Series 3, Volume 5., book, 1900; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth139267/m1/15/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.