United States Statutes at Large/Volume 5/27th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 7

United States Statutes at Large, Volume 5
United States Congress
3921783United States Statutes at Large, Volume 5 — Public Acts of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, First Session, Chapter 7United States Congress


Aug. 13, 1841.
Chap. VII.—An Act to repeal the act entitled “An act to provide for the collection, safe-keeping, transfer, and disbursement of the public revenue,” and to provide for the punishment of embezzlers of public money, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,Act of 4th July 1840, ch. 41, repealed. That the act entitled “An act to provide for the collection, safe-keeping, transfer, and disbursement of the public revenue,” approved on the fourth day of July A. D. one thousand eight hundred and forty, be, and the same is hereby, repealed:Proviso. Provided, always, That, for any offences which may have been commenced against the provisions of the seventeenth section of the said act, the offenders may be prosecuted and punished according to those provisions;Bonds, &c. not affected by the repeal. and that all bonds executed under the provisions of said act, and all civil rights and liabilities which have arisen or accrued under said act, and the remedies therefor, shall remain and continue as if said act has not been repealed; any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

Felony, for officers charged with safe-keeping, transfer, or disbursement of public moneys, &c. to use public moneys.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That if any officer charged with the safe-keeping, transfer, or disbursement of public moneys, or connected with the Post Office Department, shall convert to his own use, in any way whatever, or shall by way of investment in any kind of property or merchandise, or shall loan, with or without interest, any portion of the public moneys entrusted to him for safe-keeping, transfer, disbursement, or for any other purpose, every such act shall be deemed and adjudged to be an embezzlement of so much of the said moneys as shall be thus taken, converted, invested, used, or loaned, which is hereby declared to be a felony;Neglect or refusal to pay over, transfer, or disburse such moneys, prima facie evidence of such use. and the neglect or refusal to pay over on demand any public moneys in his hands, upon the presentation of a draft, order, or warrant drawn upon him, and signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, or to transfer or disburse any such moneys promptly according to law, on the legal requirement of a superior officer, shall be prima facie evidence of such conversion to his own use of so much of the public moneys as may be in his hands. Any officer or agent of the Punishment for said offence, &c.United States, and all persons advising, or knowingly and willingly participating in such embezzlement, upon being convicted thereof before any court of the United States of competent jurisdiction, shall, for every such offence, forfeit and pay to the United States a fine equal to the amount of the money embezzled, and shall suffer imprisonment for a term not less than six months nor more than five years.

Act of June 23, 1836, ch. 115, excepting 13th and 14th secs., repealed.Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the act entitled “An act to regulate the deposits of the public money,” approved on the twenty-third day of June, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, excepting the thirteenth and fourteenth sections thereof, be and the same hereby is repealed.

So much of act of 14th April, 1836, ch. 52, as prohibits the payment by the U. S. of bank notes under certain denominations, repealed.Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That so much of an act, passed the fourteenth of April, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, entitled “An act making appropriations for the payment of the Revolutionary and other pensioners of the United States, for the year eighteen hundred and thirty-six,” as provides that no bank note of less denomination than ten dollars, and after the third day of March, eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, no bank note of less denomination than twenty dollars, shall be offered in payment in any case whatsoever, in which money is to be paid by the United States, or the Post Office Department, be, and the same hereby is, repealed.

Approved, August 13, 1841.