More questionable was Josephs policy in closing and confiscating the property of 213 of the richer monasteries of the land.
There, on the 16th of December, he issued a decree (omitted from the official Correspondence) declaring le nomsne Stein an enemy of France and confiscating his property in the lands allied to France.
An Act of Attainder (repealed in 1819) was passed, confiscating his property; and his wife - against whom the government probably possessed sufficient evidence to secure a conviction for treason - was compelled to leave the country before her husband had actually expirbd.
The civil power, further, stepped in to aid the ecclesiastical, and denounced him as a rebel, imprisoning his person and confiscating his goods.
Congress in August 1861 passed an act (approved August 6th) confiscating rights of slave-owners to slaves employed in hostile service against the Union.
