Opinion of the Court. statute of 1861. The moneys realized from this tax were paid into the state treasury during the year 1862. The State had no other means of raising the money required for the purpose of immediately defraying the expenses of enlisting, enrolling, arming, equipping, and mustering in such troops, except by borrowing money in anticipation of the collection of its taxes; and between June 3, 1861, and July 2, 1861, in order to provide for the public defence, it issued bonds in anticipation of such taxes to the amount of $1,250,000, payable on July 1, 1862, except that $100,000 was made payable June 1, 1862, at the rate of seven per cent per annum, which at that time was the legal rate of interest under the laws of the State. The issuing of these bonds was necessary for the purpose of providing the money required, and upon their sale the full amount of their face value was received and was used and applied by the State, together with other moneys, in raising troops. The entire sum so expended between the 23d day of April, 1861, and the 1st day of January, 1862, was $2,873,501.19 exclusive of interest upon the bonds or loans made by the State for that purpose. In addition to the above sums, the State during the years 1861 and 1862 paid, on account of interest that accrued on its bonds issued in anticipation of the tax for the public defence, the sum of $91,320.84. By a statute of New York of April 12, 1862, the legislature specifically appropriated the sum of $1,250,000 for the redemption of comptroller's bonds issued for loans in anticipation of the tax imposed by the act of April 15, 1861, c. 192, and the additional sum of $91,320.84 for the payment of the accruing interest on those bonds. Laws of N. Y. 1862, 85th Session, 364. Of the remainder of the above sum of $2,873,501.19 necessarily expended by the State of New York for the purpose stated, between April 23, 1861, and January 1, 1862, after deducting the amount of $1,250,000 raised by issuing bonds, $1,623,501.19 was taken from the Canal Fund of the State. That Fund, under the constitution of the State, was a Sinking Opinion of the Court. Fund for the ultimate payment of what is known as the canal debt. Const. N. Y. 1846, Art. VII, Sec. 1. Under the tax rate of 1860 there had been levied and collected and paid into the treasury of the State the sum of $2,039,663.06 for the benefit of and to the credit of the Canal Fund. That sum reached the state treasury in April and May, 1861, subject to be invested by the state officers pursuant to the requirements of law and the constitution of the State, in securities for the benefit of the Canal Fund. On May 21, 1861, the lieutenant governor, comptroller, treasurer, and the attorney general, constituting the commissioners of the Canal Fund, authorized the comptroller to use $2,000,000 of the Canal Fund moneys for military purposes until the 1st of October next, and $1,000,000 until the 1st day of January, 1862, at five per cent; and of this amount the sum of $1,623,501.19 was used by the comptroller for the purpose of defraying the expenses of raising and equipping such troops. The following was the order: "State of New York, Canal Department, Albany, May 21, 1861. The comptroller is to be permitted to use two millions of dollars of the Canal Fund moneys for military purposes until the first day of October next, when the commissioners of the Canal Fund will invest one million of dollars of the Canal Sinking Fund under section 1, article VII, in the tax levied for military purposes until the 1st of July, 1862, at five per cent, and the comptroller may use one million of dollars of the tax levied to pay interest on the $12,000,000 debt until the 1st of January, 1862, when the commissioners will, if they have the means, replace that or as large an amount as they may have the means to do it with from the toll of the next fiscal year, so as that the whole advance from the Canal Fund on account of the tax be two millions of dollars. It is understood the comptroller will retain the taxes now in process of collection for canal purposes until the above investments are made, paying the funds five per cent interest therefor." This order was signed by the commissioners of the Canal Fund. On December 28, 29, and 31, 1861, the United States repaid to the State, on account of moneys so expended by the latter, Opinion of the Court. the sum of $1,113,000 which sum with interest was placed in the Canal Fund on April 4, 1862. This left $510,501.19 unpaid of the moneys used from the Canal Fund. The amount of interest at 5 per cent. per annum on the moneys of the Canal Fund during the time it was used by the State in raising troops was $48,187.13. But during the same time the State had received interest on portions of those moneys, while it was lying in bank unused, to the amount of $8319.95, and the net deficiency of the State on account of interest on such moneys during the period when they were so used was $39,867.18, which sum was paid into the Canal Fund from the state treasury. The total amount paid by the State for interest upon its bonds issued in anticipation of the tax for the public defence, and upon the moneys of the Canal Fund used for the purpose of defraying the expenses of raising and equipping troops, was $131,188.02. No part of that sum has been paid by the United States. The moneys above specified as actually expended by the State of New York were necessarily expended for the purpose of enlisting, enrolling, subsisting, clothing, supplying, arming, equipping, paying, and transporting such troops and causing them to be mustered into the military service of the United States, and were so paid and expended at the request of the civil and military authorities of the United States. Prior to January 3, 1889, the State had presented, from time to time, various claims and accounts to the Treasury Department of the United States for charges and expenses incurred by it in enlisting, enrolling, arming, equipping, and mustering troops into the military service of the United States. Those claims amounted in the aggregate to $2,950,479.46, and included charges for all the moneys paid and placed as herein before specified. The department, from time to time, allowed thereon various sums aggregating $2,775,915.24, leaving a balance of $174,564.22 not allowed, and the claims for which were pending in the Department unadjusted when this case was transmitted to the Court of Claims on the 3d day of January, 1889. Of that sum of $174,564.22 the sums Opinion of the Court. herein before specified, amounting to $131,188.02, constituted a part. The claim of the State for expenditures in furnishing troops. with clothing and munitions of war was filed in the Treasury Department in May, 1862, and included the above items of interest. The claim for interest has from that time been suspended in the Department, and was so suspended at the time it was transmitted to the Court of Claims. The court, after finding the facts substantially as above stated, gave judgment in favor of the State for $91,320.84, on account of interest paid upon its bonds issued in anticipation of taxes imposed for the public defence. From that judgment the United States appealed. The State also appealed, and claims that it was entitled to judgment for the additional sum of $39,867.13 paid into what is called the Canal Fund as interest upon the moneys it had borrowed from that fund to be repaid with interest. The Government moved to dismiss the State's appeal, its contention being that the judgment brought here by the State for review is not obligatory in character and appealable, but only ancillary and advisory. This motion assumes that the court below was without jurisdiction under existing legislative enactments to render a final judgment, reviewable by this court, upon any claim, whatever its amount, made against an Executive Department and transmitted to the Court of Claims to be there proceeded in according to law. We recognize the importance of the question thus presented, and have bestowed upon it the most careful consideration. Its solution can be satisfactorily reached only by an examination of the various statutes regulating the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims, including those known as the Bowman act of March 3, 1883, c. 116, 22 Stat. 485, and the Tucker act of March 3, 1887, c. 359, 24 Stat. 505. By the act of Congress of July 27, 1861, c. 21, the Secretary of the Treasury was directed, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and upon vouchers to be passed upon by the accounting officers of that Department, to pay the Opinion of the Court. costs, charges, and expenses properly incurred by any State in enrolling, subsisting, clothing, supplying, arming, equipping, paying, and transporting its troops to be employed in suppressing the rebellion of 1861. 12 Stat. 276. The claim of New York was founded on the above act of Congress of July 27, 1861, if not on contract with the United States. It was transmitted by the Secretary of the Treasury to the Court of Claims under section 1063 of the Revised Statutes as one involving controverted questions of law. By the act of June 25, 1868, c. 71, § 7, the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims was enlarged so as to embrace several classes of claims that might be transmitted to it by the head of an Executive Department for adjudication. 15 Stat. 75, 76. The provisions of that act were preserved in section 1063 of the Revised Statutes which is as follows: "Sec. 1063. Whenever any claim is made against any Executive Department, involving disputed facts or controverted questions of law, where the amount in controversy exceeds three thousand dollars, or where the decision will affect a class of cases, or furnish a precedent for the future action of any Executive Department in the adjustment of a class of cases, without regard to the amount involved in the particular case, or where any authority, right, privilege, or exemption is claimed or denied under the Constitution of the United States, the head of such Department may cause such claim, with all the vouchers, papers, proofs, and documents pertaining thereto, to be transmitted to the Court of Claims, and the same shall be there proceeded in as if originally commenced by the voluntary action of the claimant; and the Secretary of the Treasury may, upon the certificate of any Auditor or Comptroller of the Treasury, direct any account, matter, or claim, of the character, amount, or class described in this section, to be transmitted, with all the vouchers, papers, documents, and proofs pertaining thereto, to the said court, for trial and adjudication: Provided, That no case shall be referred by any head of a Department unless it belongs to one of the several classes of cases which, by reason of the subject-matter and character, |