What does this mean Admiralty, maritime, and prize cases?

[colten]

What does this mean Admiralty, maritime, and prize cases
I have somewhat of an idea but i need to be explain in simple words so i can remeber it for a test.

[golding]

Admiralty means the area of law that applies to maritime cases. Maritime cases are legal cases involving ships at sea or in navigable waters, although this has expanded in some places to include aviation, since aviation did not historically fit land cases and seemed to be sort of maritime in the air.

Prize cases were cases in admiralty law that involved the seizure of maritime vessels, --they involved "prizes" of war which explains the use of the word "prize." The particular "Prize Cases" you are probably studying are those decided by the Supreme Court which upheld Lincoln's closing of Southern ports and seizure of their ships.

A lot, and in most areas, all, of admiralty law has been absorbed into the normal legal system. In the US there is no longer any separate admiralty jurisdiction and all that remains is the word and particular legal rules that are applied in admiralty contexts (maritime and sometimes aviation).

EDIT: It looks like you are really interested only in the Prize Cases, so here goes: The issue was whether the president could seize ships and blockade ports absent a declaration of war. If he couldn't he was a pirate! The court held he didn't need a declaration of war to avoid piracy, all he needed was an actual war to justify the seizures and blockades, especially because Congress had ratified his actions. The interesting fact, to me, is the reason there was no declaration of war: lincoln felt that if Congress declared war, it would mean the Confederacy was a country (against which war would be declared) and he didn't want to give them that credit, insisting that it was a civil war among one nation and not a war against another country. Kind of a subtle point, but an interesting one.