Note 478 — Chapter VI · JOHN WILKES, VICTOR BERGER, AND THE FIVE MEMBERS

Art. III, § 3: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” The omission of any mention of adherence in the Fourteenth Amendment is immaterial. Judge Leavitt said in 1861 (1 Bond 611): “The words in the definition, adhering to their enemies, seem to have no special significance, as the substance is found in the words which follow—giving them aid and comfort.” Judge Learned Hand said in U. S. v. Robinson, 259 Fed. 685, 690 (1919): “The words ‘adhering’ must be taken as defined by the phrase ‘giving aid and comfort.’” The U. S. Supreme Court has reached the same result in construing the Captured and Abandoned Property Act of March 12, 1863 (12 Stat. L. 820), which allowed the owner of any captured property to reclaim its value from the United States, on proof that he had “never given aid or comfort to the present rebellion.” In Young v. U. S., 97 U. S. 39, 62 (1877), the Court held, through Chief Justice Waite, that although a British claimant could not commit treason since he owed no allegiance, “the acts of aid and comfort which will defeat a suit must be of the same general character with those necessary to convict of treason.... It is sufficient if he has done that which would have made him a traitor if he had owed allegiance to the United States.”