Opinion of the Court.

take the stand in their own behalf, they may be subjected to cross-examination upon their statements. State v. Wentworth, 65 Maine, 234; State v. Witham, 72 Maine, 531; State v. Ober, 52 N. H. 492; Commonwealth v. Bonner, 97 Mass. 587; Commonwealth v. Morgan, 107 Mass. 199; Commonwealth v. Mullen, 97 Mass. 545; Connors v. People, 50 N. Y. 240; People v. Casey, 72 N. Y. 393.

2. For the same reason if a prosecution for a crime, concerning which the witness is interrogated, is barred by the statute of limitations, he is compellable to answer. Parkhurst v. Lowten, 1 Merivale, 391, 400; Calhoun v. Thompson, 56 Alabama, 166; Mahanke v. Cleland, 76 Iowa, 401; Weldon v. Burch, 12 Illinois, 374; United States v. Smith, 4 Day, 121; Close v. Olney, 1 Denio, 319; People v. Mather, 4 Wend. 229, 252–255; Williams v. Farrington, 11 Cox Ch. R. 202; Davis v. Reid, 5 Sim. 443; Floyd v. State, 7 Tex. 215; Maloney v. Dows, 2 Hilt. 247; Wolfe v. Goulard, 15 Abb. Pr. 336.

3. If the answer of the witness may have a tendency to disgrace him or bring him into disrepute, and the proposed evidence be material to the issue on trial, the great weight of authority is that he may be compelled to answer, although, if the answer can have no effect upon the case, except so far as to impair the credibility of the witness, he may fall back upon his privilege. 1 Greenl. on Ev. §§ 454 and 455; People v. Mather, 4 Wend. 229; Lohman v. People, 1 N. Y. 379; Commonwealth v. Roberts, Brightly, 109; Weldon v. Burch, 12 Illinois, 374; Cundell v. Pratt, Moody & Malkin, 108; Ex parte Rowe, 7 California, 184. But even in the latter case, if the answer of the witness will not directly show his infamy, but only tend to disgrace him, he is bound to answer. 1 Greenl. on Ev. § 456. The cases of Respublica v. Gibbs, 3 Yeates, 429, and Lessee of Galbreath v. Eichelberger, 3 Yeates, 515, to the contrary, are opposed to the weight of authority.

The extent to which the witness is compelled to answer such questions as do not fix upon him a criminal culpability is within the control of the legislature. State v. Nowell, 58 N. H. 314, 316.

Opinion of the Court.

4. It is almost a necessary corollary of the above propositions that, if the witness has already received a pardon, he ́ cannot longer set up his privilege, since he stands with respect to such offence as if it had never been committed. Roberts v. Allatt, Moody & Malkin, 192, overruling Rex v. Reading, 7 How. St. Tr. 259, 296, and Rex v. Earl of Shaftsbury, 8 How. St. Tr. 817; Queen v. Boyes, 1 B. & S. 311, 321. In the latter case it was suggested, in answer to the production by the Solicitor General of a pardon of the witness under the Great Seal, that by statute, no such pardon under the Great Seal was pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in Parliament, and it was insisted that this was a sufficient reason for holding that the privilege of the witness still existed, upon the ground that, though protected by the pardon against every other form of prosecution, the witness might possibly be subjected to parliamentary impeachment. It was also contended in that case, as it is in the one under consideration, "that a bare possibility of legal peril was sufficient to entitle a witness to protection. Nay, further, that the witness was the sole judge as to whether his evidence would bring him into the danger of the law; and that the statement of his belief to that effect, if not manifestly made mala fide, would be received as conclusive." It was held, however, by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn that "to entitle a party called as a witness to the privilege of silence, the court must see, from the circumstances of the case and the nature of the evidence which the witness is called to give, that there is reasonable ground to apprehend danger to the witness from his being compelled to answer," although "if the fact of the witness being in danger be once made to appear, great latitude should be allowed to him in judging for himself of the effect of any particular question."

"Further than this," said the Chief Justice, "we are of opinion that the danger to be apprehended must be real and appreciable, with reference to the ordinary operation of law in the ordinary course of things, not a danger of an imaginary and unsubstantial character, having reference to some extraordinary and barely possible contingency, so improbable that no reasonable man would suffer it to influence his con

Opinion of the Court.

duct. We think that a merely remote, and naked possibility, out of the ordinary course of the law and such as no reasonable man would be affected by, should not be suffered to obstruct the administration of justice. The object of the law is to afford to a party, called upon to give evidence in a proceeding inter alios, protection against being brought by means of his own evidence within the penalties of the law. But it would be to convert a salutary protection into a means of abuse if it were to be held that a mere imaginary possibility of danger, however remote and improbable, was sufficient to justify the withholding of evidence essential to the ends of justice."

All of the cases above cited proceed upon the idea that the prohibition against his being compelled to testify against himself presupposes a legal detriment to the witness arising from the exposure. As the object of the first eight amendments to the Constitution was to incorporate into the fundamental law of the land certain principles of natural justice which had become permanently fixed in the jurisprudence of the mother country, the construction given to those principles by the English courts is cogent evidence of what they were designed to secure and of the limitations that should be put upon them. This is but another application of the familiar rule that where one State adopts the laws of another, it is also presumed to adopt the known and settled construction of those laws by the courts of the State from which they are taken. Cathcart v. Robinson, 5 Pet. 264, 280; McDonald v. Hovey, 110 U. S. 619.

The danger of extending the principle announced in Coun selman v. Hitchcock is that the privilege may be put forward for a sentimental reason, or for a purely fanciful protection of the witness against an imaginary danger, and for the real purpose of securing immunity to some third person, who is interested in concealing the facts to which he would testify. Every good citizen is bound to aid in the enforcement of the law, and has no right to permit himself, under the pretext of shielding his own good name, to be made the tool of others, who are desirous of seeking shelter behind his privilege.

Opinion of the Court.

The act of Congress in question securing to witnesses immunity from prosecution is virtually an act of general amnesty, and belongs to a class of legislation which is not uncommon either in England, (2 Taylor on Evidence, § 1455, where a large number of similar acts are collated,) or in this country. Although the Constitution vests in the President "power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment," this power has never been held to take from Congress the power to pass acts of general amnesty, and is ordinarily exercised only in cases of individuals after conviction, although, as was said by this court in Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333, 380, "it extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment."

In the case of The Laura, 114 U. S. 411, objection was made that a remission by the Secretary of the Treasury, under Rev. Stat. § 4294, of penalties incurred by a steam vessel for taking on board an unlawful number of passengers, was ineffectual to destroy liability by reason of the fact that it involved an exercise of the pardoning power. It was held that, in view of the practice in reference to remissions by the Secretary of the Treasury and other officers, which had been sanctioned by statute and acquiesced in for nearly a century, the power vested in the President was not exclusive in the sense that no other officer could remit forfeitures or penalties incurred for the violation of the laws of the United Statesciting United States v. Morris, 10 Wheat. 246.

The distinction between amnesty and pardon is of no practical importance. It is said in Knote v. United States, 95 U. S. 149, 152, "the Constitution does not use the word 'amnesty,' and, except that the term is generally applied where pardon is extended to whole classes or communities, instead of individuals, the distinction between them is one rather of philological interest than of legal importance." Amnesty is defined by the lexicographers to be an act of the sovereign power granting oblivion, or a general pardon for a

Opinion of the Court.

past offence, and is rarely, if ever, exercised in favor of single individuals, and is usually exerted in behalf of certain classes of persons, who are subject to trial, but have not yet been convicted.

While the decisions of the English courts construing such acts are of little value here, in view of the omnipotence of Parliament, such decisions as have been made under similar acts in this country are, with one or two exceptions, we believe, unanimous in favor of their constitutionality.

Thus in State v. Nowell, 58 N. H. 314, a statute which provided that a clerk, servant or agent should not be excused from testifying against his principal, and that he should not thereafter be prosecuted for any offence disclosed by him, was held to have deprived him of his privilege of silence. In delivering the opinion, the court observed "that the legislat ure, having undertaken to obtain the testimony of the witness without depriving him of his constitutional privilege of protection, must relieve him from all liabilities on account of the matters which he is compelled to disclose; otherwise, the statute would be ineffectual. He is to be secured against all liability to future prosecution as effectually as if he were wholly innocent. This would not be accomplished if he were left liable to prosecution criminally for any matter in respect to which he may be required to testify. . The conditional exemption becomes absolute when the witness testifies, and, being no longer liable to prosecution, he is not compelled, by testifying, to accuse or furnish evidence against himself. . The constitutional privilege of the witness protects, not another person against whom the witness testifies, but the witness himself. The legal protection of the witness against prosecution for crime disclosed by him is, in law, equivalent to his legal innocence of the crime disclosed. The witness, regarded in law as innocent if prosecuted for a crime which he has been compelled by the statute to disclose, will stand as well as other innocent persons, and it was not the design of the common law maxim, affirmed by the bill of rights, that he should stand any better."

In Kendrick v. The Commonwealth, 78 Virginia, 490, a