Amnesty

<A sovereign act of pardon and oblivion for past acts, granted by a government to all persons (or to certain persons) —

— SEESE who. been guilty of crime or delict, genevally political offenses,—treason, sedition, rebellion,—and often conditioned upon their return to obedience and duty within a prescribed time. A declaration of the person or persons who have newly acquired or recovered the sovereign power in a state, by which they pardon all persons who composed, supported, or obeyed the government which has been overthrown. ee The word “amnesty” properly belongs to international law, and is applied to treaties of peace following a state of war, and signifies there the burial in oblivion of the puar- Ye ticular cause of strife, so that that shall not be again a cause for war between the parties; and this signification of “amnesty” is fully and poetically expressed in the Indian custom, of burying the hatchet. And so amnesty is applied to rebellions which by their inagnitude are brought within the rules of international law, and in which multitudes of men are the subjects of the clemency of the government. ut in these cases, and in all cases, it means only “oblivion,” and never a expresses orimpliesa grant. 10 Ct. of CL. 407. “Amnesty” and “pardon” are very different. gotten a crime or misdemeanor; the latter la an act of the same authority, which exempts the {ndividual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for the crime he has committed. Bouvier.