United States v. Klein

An 1863 statute allowed people whose property was seized during the Civil War to recover it, or compensation, by proving they had not aided the Confederacy; President Lincoln separately offered a pardon to former Confederate supporters who took a loyalty oath, and the Supreme Court had held a pardon was sufficient proof of non-support. V.F. Wilson took the oath and was pardoned; after his death, Klein (defendant), his estate's administrator, sought compensation for seized property. While Klein's case was pending, Congress repealed the 1863 statute and passed a new 1870 law barring courts from treating a pardon as proof of loyalty, deeming acceptance of an unqualified pardon as conclusive proof of Confederate support instead, and stripping the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction over any case where a claimant was found to have supported the Confederacy. The government relied on this new law to challenge the property rights already granted to Klein.