Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/630

 616 FEDBEAL EBPORTER. �States. Afterwards, the president, by a pardon, remitted to the de- fendant the payment of two-thirds of the fine. One-third of tiie fine, with interest, was paid into court. The informer claimed, and was allowed, ,by the court therefrom the whole of the sum adjudged to him, on the ground that the president had no right to remit any of the part of the fine so adjudged to the informer, and that he was en- titled to the whole of such part as if there had been no remission. The conviction was under a statute — act of June 30, 1864, § 41, (13 St. at Large, 239) — which provided that all suits for fines under it should be in the name of the United States. The court remarkei that wbere the prosecution was wholly in the name of the United States it saw nothing in any of the authorities which denied to the president the power, by pardon, to remit the interest of an informer before judgment. �The view urged by the libellant is that the power of the president to pardon is exclusive; that no part of it can be exercised by any one else without infringing on the power of the president; that if the secretary of the treasury can pardon without the president's concur- rence, he may grant pardons which the president would refuse ; that if eongress can authorize the secretary to grant pardons, it can itself grant them, and prescribe the terms and conditions under which they shall be granted ; and that if it can authorize the secretary to remit penalties incurred under the statute in question it can authorize him, or any one else, to remit the panishment of any offence, and can so legislate that after the president bas refused to grant a pardon it can still be granted under authority conferred by eongress. In support of this view, the case of Ex parte Garland, i Wall. 333, is cited, aa holding that the power of the president to pardon is unlimited, ex- tending to every offence known to the law, and not subject to legisla- tive control, and that eongress can neither remit the effect of such pardon nor exclude from its exercise any class of ofienders. The case of U. S. V. Klein, 13 Wall. 128, is also referred to, as holding that eongress cannot impair the effect of a pardon, because that would be to infringe the constitutional power of the president. �There is not, in this case, any question raised as to the effect of a pardon which has been granted by the president, as there was in Ex parte Garland and in U. S. \. Klein. The question is not as to any restriction of the pardoning power of the president. It is not claimed that the secretary alone eould remit this forfaiture, and that the president could not. The praetice of the government, as is seen from the citations, has been to regard the power of the secretary ��� �