it was reasonable and just that the makers of such paper should be precluded from relying upon such invalidity.1 By a statute of Connecticut, where loans of money were made, and a bonus was paid by the borrower over and beyond the interest and bonus permitted by law, the demand was subject to a deduction from the principal of all the interest and bonus paid. A construction appears to have been put upon this statute by business men which was different from that afterwards given by the courts; and a large number of contracts of loan were in consequence subject to the deduction. The legislature then passed a"healing act," which provided that such loans theretofore made should not be held, by reason of the taking of such bonus, to be usurious, illegal, or in any respect void; but that, if otherwise legal, they were thereby confirmed, and declared to be [* 376] valid, as to principal, interest, and *bonus. The case of Goshen v. Stonington 2 was regarded as sufficient authority in support of this act; and the principle to be derived 1 Trustees v. McCaughy, 2 Ohio, N. S. 155; Johnson v. Bentley, 16 Ohio, 97. See also Syracuse Bank v. Davis, 16 Barb. 188. By statute, notes issued by unincorporated banking associations were declared void. This statute was afterwards repealed, and action was brought against bankers on notes previously issued. Objection being taken that the legislature could not validate the void contracts, the judge says: I will consider this case on the broad ground of the contract having been void when made, and of no new contract having arisen since the repealing act. But by rendering the contract void it was not annihilated. The object of the [original] act was not to vest any right in any unlawful banking association, but directly the reverse. The motive was not to create a privilege, or shield them from the payment of their just debts, but to restrain them from violating the law by destroying the credit of their paper, and punishing those who received it. How then can the defendants complain? As unauthorized bankers they were violators of the law, and objects not of protection but of punishment. The repealing act was a statutory pardon of the crime committed by the receivers of this illegal medium. Might not the legislature pardon the crime, without consulting those who committed it? ... How can the defendants say there was no contract, when the plaintiff produces their written engagement for the performance of a duty, binding in conscience if not in law? Although the contract, for reasons of policy, was so far void that an action could not be sustained on it, yet a moral obligation to perform it, whenever those reasons ceased, remained; and it would be going very far to say that the legislature may not add a legal sanction to that obligation, on account of some fancied constitutional restriction." Hess v. Werts, 4 S. & R. 361. See also Bleakney v. Bank of Greencastle, 17 S. & R. 64; Menges v. Wertman, 1 Penn. St. 218; Boyce v. Sinclair, 3 Bush, 264. 24 Conn. 224. See ante, PP. *372-*373. from that case was stated to be "that where a statute is expressly retroactive, and the object and effect of it is to correct an innocent mistake, remedy a mischief, execute the intention of the parties, and promote justice, then, both as a matter of right and of public policy affecting the peace and welfare of the community, the law should be sustained."1 After the courts of the State of Pennsylvania had decided that the relation of landlord and tenant could not exist in that State under a Connecticut title, a statute was passed which provided that the relation of landlord and tenant "shall exist and be held as fully and effectually between Connecticut settlers and Pennsylvania claimants as between other citizens of this Commonwealth, on the trial of any case now pending or hereafter to be brought within this Commonwealth, any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding." In a suit which was pending and had been once tried before the statute was passed, the statute was sustained by the Supreme Court of that State, and afterwards by the Supreme Court of the United States, into which last-mentioned court it had been removed on the allegation that it violated the obligation of contracts. As its purpose and effect was to remove from contracts which the parties had made a legal impediment to their enforcement, there would seem to be no doubt, in the light of the other authorities we have referred to, that the conclusion reached was the only just and proper one.2 In the State of Ohio, certain deeds made by married women were ineffectual for the purposes of record and evidence, by reason of the omission on the part of the officer taking the acknowledgment to state in his certificate that, before and at the time of the 1 Savings Bank v. Allen, 28 Conn. 97. See also Savings Bank v. Bates, 8 Conn. 505; Andrews v. Russell, 7 Blackf. 474; Grimes v. Doe, 8 Blackf. 371; Thompson v. Morgan, 6 Minn. 292; Parmelee v. Lawrence, 48 Ill. 331. In Curtis v. Leavitt, 17 Barb. 309, and 15 N. Y. 9, and in Woodruff v. Scruggs, 27 Ark. 26, 8. c. 11 Am. Rep. 777, a statute forbidding the interposition of the defence of usury was treated as a statute repealing a penalty. See further, Lewis v. Foster, 1 N. H. 61; Wilson v. Hardesty, 1 Md. Ch. 66; v. Welch v. Wadsworth, 30 Conn. 149; Wood v. Kennedy, 19 Ind. 68; Washburn Franklin, 35 Barb. 599; Parmelee v. Lawrence, 48 Ill. 331; Danville v. Pace, 25 Grat. 1. The case of Gilliland v. Phillips, 1 S. C. N. s. 152, is contra; but it discusses the point but little, and makes no reference to these cases. 2 Satterlee v. Mathewson, 16 S. & R. 169, and 2 Pet. 380. And see Watson v. Mercer, 8 Pet. 88; Lessee of Dulany v. Tilghman, 6 G. & J. 461; Payne v. Treadwell, 16 Cal. 220; Maxey v. Wise, 25 Ind. 1. grantor making the acknowledgment, he made the contents known to her by reading or otherwise. An act was afterwards passed which provided that "any deed heretofore executed pur[* 377] suant to* law, by husband and wife, shall be received in evidence in any of the courts of this State, as conveying the estate of the wife, although the magistrate taking the acknowledgment of such deed shall not have certified that he read or made known the contents of such deed before or at the time she acknowledged the execution thereof." This statute, though with some hesitation at first, was held to be unobjectionable. The deeds with the defective acknowledgments were regarded by the legislature and by the court as being sufficient for the purpose of conveying at least the grantor's equitable estate; and if sufficient for this purpose, no vested rights would be disturbed, or wrong be done, by making them receivable in evidence as conveyances.1 Other cases go much farther than this, and hold that, although the deed was originally ineffectual for the purpose of conveying the title, the healing statute may accomplish the intent of the parties by giving it effect.2 At first sight these cases might seem 1 Chestnut v. Shane's Lessee, 16 Ohio, 599, overruling Connell v. Connell, 6 Ohio, 358; Good v. Zercher, 12 Ohio, 364; Meddock v. Williams, 12 Ohio, 377; and Silliman v. Cummins, 13 Ohio, 116. Of the dissenting opinion in the last case, which the court approve in 16 Ohio, 609-610, they say: "That opinion stands upon the ground that the act operates only upon that class of deeds where enough had been done to show that a court of chancery ought, in each case, to render a decree for a conveyance, assuming that the certificate was not such as the law required. And where the title in equity was such that a court of chancery ought to interfere and decree a good legal title, it was within the power of the legislature to confirm the deed, without subjecting an indefinite number to the useless expense of unnecessary litigation." See also Lessee of Dulany v. Tilghman, 6 G. & J. 461; Journeay v. Gibson, 56 Penn. St. 57; Grove v. Todd, 41 Md. 633. But the legislature, it has been declared, has no power to legalize and make valid the deed of an insane person. Routsong v. Wolf, 35 Mo. 174. In Illinois it has been decided that a deed of release of dower executed by a married woman, but not so acknowledged as to be effectual, cannot be validated by retrospective statute, because to do so would be to take from the woman a vested right. Russell v. Rumsey, 35 Ill. 362. 2 Lessee of Walton v. Bailey, 1 Binn. 477; Underwood v. Lilly, 10 S. & R. 101; Barnet v. Barnet, 15 S. & R. 72; Tate v. Stooltzfoos, 16 S. & R. 35; Watson v. Mercer, 8 Pet. 88; Carpenter v. Pennsylvania, 17 How. 456; Davis v. State Bank, 7 Ind. 316; Dentzel v. Waldie, 30 Cal. 138; Estate of Sticknoth, 7 Nev. 227; Goshorn v. Purcell, 11 Ohio, N. s. 641. In the last case the court say: "The act of the married woman may, under the law, have been void and inopera 3 to go beyond the mere confirmation of a contract, and to be at least technically objectionable, as depriving a party of property without an opportunity for trial, inasmuch as [* 378] they proceeded upon the assumption that the title still remained in the grantor, and that the healing act was required for the purpose of divesting him of it, and passing it over to the grantee. Apparently, therefore, there would seem to be some force to the objection that such a statute deprives a party of vested rights. But the objection is more specious than sound. If all that is wanting to a valid contract or conveyance is the observance of some legal formality, the party may have a legal right to avoid it: but this right is coupled with no equity, even though the case be such that no remedy could be afforded the other party in the courts. The right which the healing act takes away in such a case is the right in the party to avoid his contract, a naked legal right which it is usually unjust to insist upon, and which no constitutional provision was ever designed to protect.2 As the point is put by Chief Justice Parker of Massachusetts, a party cannot have a vested right to do wrong; or, as stated by the Supreme Court of New Jersey, "Laws curing defects which would otherwise operate to frustrate what must be presumed to be the desire of the party affected, cannot be considered as taking tive; but in justice and equity it did not leave her right to the property untouched. She had capacity to do the act in a form prescribed by law for her protection. She intended to do the act in the prescribed form. She attempted to do it, and her attempt was received and acted on in good faith. A mistake subsequently discovered invalidates the act; justice and equity require that she should not take advantage of the mistake; and she has therefore no just right to the property. She has no right to complain if the law which prescribed forms for her protection shall interfere to prevent her reliance upon them to resist the demands of justice." Similar language is employed in the Pennsylvania cases. See further, Dentzel v. Waldie, 30 Cal. 138. 1 This view has been taken in some similar cases. See Russell v. Rumsey, 35 Ill. 362; Alabama, &c. 2 In Gibson v. Hibbard, 13 Mich. 215, a check, void at the time it was given, for want of a revenue stamp, was held valid after being stamped as permitted by a subsequent act of Congress. A similar ruling was made in Harris v. Rutledge, 19 Iowa, 389. The case of State v. Norwood, 12 Md. 195, is still stronger. The curative statute was passed after judgment had been rendered against the right claimed under the defective instrument, and it was held that it must be applied by the appellate court. See post, p. 381. 8 Foster v. Essex Bank, 16 Mass. 245. See also Lycoming v. Union, 15 Penn. 166, 170. away vested rights. Courts do not regard rights as vested contrary to the justice and equity of the case."1 The operation of these cases, however, must be carefully restricted to the parties to the original contract, and to such other persons as may have succeeded to their rights with no greater equities. A subsequent bona fide purchaser cannot be deprived of the property which he has acquired, by an act which retrospectively deprives his grantor of the title which he had when the purchase was made. Conceding that the invalid deed may be made good as between the parties, yet if, while it remained invalid, and the grantor still retained the legal title to the land, a third person has purchased and received a conveyance, [* 379] with no notice of any fact which should * preclude his acquiring an equitable as well as a legal title thereby, it would not be in the power of the legislature to so confirm the original deed as to divest him of the title he has acquired. The position of the case is altogether changed by this purchase. The legal title is no longer separated from equities, but in the hands of the second purchaser is united with an equity as strong as that which exists in favor of him who purchased first. Under such circumstances even the courts of equity must recognize the right of the second purchaser as best, and as entitled to the usual protection which the law accords to vested interests.2 1 State v. Newark, 25 N. J. 197. Compare Blount v. Janesville, 31 Wis. 648; Brown v. New York, 63 N. Y. 239. In New York, &c. R. R. Co. v. Van Horn, 57 N. Y. 473, the right of the legislature to validate a void contract was denied on the ground that to validate it would be to take the property of the contracting party without due process of law. The cases which are contra are not examined in the opinion, or even referred to. 2 Brinton v. Seevers, 12 Iowa, 389; Southard v. Central R. R. Co., 26 N. J. 22; Thompson v. Morgan, 6 Minn. 292; Meighen v. Strong, 6 Minn. 177; Norman v. Heist, 5 W. & S. 171; Greenough v. Greenough, 11 Penn. St. 494; Le Bois v. Bramel, 4 How. 449; McCarthy v. Hoffman, 23 Penn. St. 508; Sherwood v. Flem ing, 25 Tex. 408; Wright v. Hawkins, 28 Tex. 452. The legislature cannot validate an invalid trust in a will, by act passed after the death of the testator, and after title vested in the heirs. Hilliard v. Miller, 10 Penn. St. 338. See Snyder v. Bull, 17 Penn. St. 58; McCarthy v. Hoffman, 23 Penn. St. 507; Bolton v. Johns, 5 Penn. St. 145; State v. Warren, 28 Md. 338. The cases here cited must not be understood as establishing any different principle from that laid down in Goshen v. Stonington, 4 Conn. 209, where it was held competent to validate a marriage, notwithstanding the rights of third parties would be incidentally affected. Rights of third par ties are liable to be incidentally affected more or less in any case in which a defective contract is made good; but |