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police power of the State could not be alienated even by express grant.1 And this opinion is supported by those cases where it has been held that licenses to make use of property in certain modes may be revoked by the State, notwithstanding they may be connected with grants and based upon a consideration.2 But this subject we shall recur to hereafter.

It would seem, therefore, to be the prevailing opinion, and based upon sound reason, that the State could not barter away, or in any manner abridge or weaken, any of those essential powers which are inherent in all governments, and the existence of which in full vigor is important to the well-being of organized society; and that any contracts to that end cannot be enforced under the provision of the national Constitution now under consideration. If the tax cases are to be regarded as an exception to this statement, the exception is perhaps to be considered a nominal rather than a real one, since taxation is for the purpose of providing the State a revenue, and the State laws which have been enforced as contracts in these cases have been supposed to be based upon con

"We think the power of the legislature to control existing railways in this respect may be found in the general control over the police of the country, which resides in the law-making power in all free states, and which is, by the fifth article of the Bill of Rights in this State, expressly declared to reside perpetually and inalienably in the legislature, which is, perhaps, no more than the enunciation of a general principle applicable to all free states, and which cannot therefore be violated so as to deprive the legislature of the power, even by express grant, to any mere public or private corporation. And when the regulation of the police of a city or town, by general ordinances, is given to such cities or towns, and the regulation of their own internal police is given to railroads, to be carried into effect by their by-laws and other regulations, it is, of course, always, in all such cases, subject to the superior control of the legislature. That is a responsibility which legislatures cannot divest themselves of, if they would." Thorpe v. R. & B. R. R. Co., 27 Vt. 149, per Redfield, Ch. J. See also Indianapolis, &c. R. R. Co. v. Kercheval, 16 Ind. 84; Ohio, &c. R. R. Co. v. M'Clelland, 25 Ill. 140. See State v. Noyes, 47 Me. 189, on the same subject.

See, upon this subject, Brick Presbyterian Church v. Mayor, &c. of New York, 5 Cow. 538; Vanderbilt v. Adams, 7 Cow. 349; Hirn v. State, 1 Ohio, N. S. 15; Calder v. Kurby, 5 Gray, 597. Whether a State, after granting licenses to sell liquors for which a fee is received, can revoke them by a general law forbidding sales, quære. See Freleigh v. State, 8 Mo. 606; State v. Sterling, Ibid. 697; State v. Hawthorn, 9 Mo. 389; State v. Phalen, 3 Harr. 441; Calder v. Kurby, 5 Gray, 597; Adams v. Hacket, 7 Fost. 294. If it has the power, it would seem an act of bad faith to exercise it, without refunding the money received for the license. Hirn v. State, 1 Ohio, N. S. 21.

sideration, by which the State receives the benefit which would have accrued from an exercise of the relinquished power in the ordinary mode.

We have said in another place that citizens have no vested right in the existing general laws of the State which can preclude their amendment or repeal, and there is no implied promise on the part of the State to protect its citizens against incidental injury occasioned by changes in the law. Nevertheless there may be laws which amount to propositions on the part of the State, which, if accepted by individuals, will become binding contracts. Of this class are perhaps to be considered bounty laws, by which the State promises the payment of a gratuity to any one who will do any particular act supposed to be for the State interest. Unquestionably the State may repeal such an act at any time; but when the proposition has been accepted by the performance of the act before the law is repealed, the contract would seem to be complete, and the promised gratuity becomes a legal debt.1 So where

State was owner of the stock of a bank, and by the law its bills and notes were to be received in payment of all debts due to the State, it was held that this law constituted a contract with those who should receive the bills before its repeal, and that a repeal of the law could not deprive these holders of the right which it assured. Such a law, with the acceptance of the bills under it, 66 comes within the definition of a contract. It is a contract founded upon a good and valuable consideration,-a consideration beneficial to the State, as its profits are increased by sustaining the credit, and consequently extending the circulation of the paper of the bank."

That laws permitting the dissolution of the contract of marriage are not within the intention of the clause of the Constitution under discussion seems to be the prevailing opinion. It has been intimated, however, that, so far as property rights are concerned, the contract must stand on the same footing as any other, and that a law passed after the marriage, vesting the property in the wife for her sole use, would be void, as impairing the obligation of con

1 People v. Auditor-General, 9 Mich. 327. See Montgomery v. Kasson, 16 Cal. 189.

2 Woodruff v. Trapnall, 10 How. 190. See Winter v. Jones, 10 Geo. 190. Per Marshall, Ch. J., Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 629; Maguire v. Maguire, 7 Dana, 183; Clark v. Clark, 10 N. H. 385.

tracts.1 But certainly there is no such contract embraced in the marriage as would prevent the legislature changing the law, and vesting in the wife solely all property which she should acquire thereafter; and if the property had already become vested in the husband, it would be protected in him, against legislative transfer to the wife, on other grounds than that here indicated.

"The obligation of a contract," it is said, " consists in its binding force on the party who makes it. This depends upon the laws in existence when it is made; these are necessarily referred to in all contracts, and forming a part of them as the measure of the obligation to perform them by the one party, and the right acquired by the other. There can be no other standard by which to ascertain the extent of either, than that which the terms of the contract indicate, according to their settled legal meaning; when it becomes consummated, the law defines the duty and the right, compels one party to perform the thing contracted for, and gives the other a right to enforce the performance by the remedies then in force. If any subsequent law affect to diminish the duty, or to impair the right, it necessarily bears on the obligation of the contract, in favor of one party, to the injury of the other; hence any law which, in its operations, amounts to a denial or obstruction of the rights accruing by a contract, though professing to act only on the remedy, is directly obnoxious to the prohibition of the Constitution." "It is the civil obligation of contracts which [the Constitution] is designed to reach; that is, the obligation which is recog

2

1 Holmes v. Holmes, 4 Barb. 295.
2 McCracken v. Hayward, 2 How. 612.

....

"The obligation of a contract. . . is the law which binds the parties to perform their agreement. The law, then, which has this binding obligation, must govern and control the contract, in every shape in which it is intended to bear upon it, whether it affects its validity, construction, or discharge. It is, then, the municipal law of the State, whether that be written or unwritten, which is emphatically the law of the contract made within the State, and must govern it throughout, whenever its performance is sought to be enforced." Washington, J., in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 259. "As I understand it, the law of the contract forms its obligation." Thompson, J., Ibid. 302. "The obligation of the contract consists in the power and efficacy of the law which applies to, and enforces performance of, the contract, or the payment of an equivalent for non-performance. The obligation does not inhere and subsist in the contract itself, proprio vigore, but in the law applicable to the contract. This is the sense, I think, in which the Constitution uses the term 'obligation.'" Trimble, J., Ibid. 318. And see Van Baumbach v. Bade, 9 Wis. 577; Johnson v. Higgins, 3 Met. (Ky.) 566.

nized by, and results from, the law of the State in which it is made. If, therefore, a contract when made is by the law of the place declared to be illegal, or deemed to be a nullity, or a nude pact, it has no civil obligation, because the law, in such cases, forbids its having any binding efficacy or force. It confers no legal right on the one party and no correspondent legal duty on the other. There is no means allowed or recognized to enforce it; for the maxim is ex nudo pacto non oritur actio. But when it does not fall within the predicament of being either illegal or void, its obligatory force is coextensive with its stipulations." 1

Such being the obligation of a contract, it is obvious that the rights of the parties in respect to it are liable to be affected in many ways by changes in the laws, which it could not have been the intention of the constitutional provision to preclude. "There are few laws which concern the general police of a State, or the government of its citizens, in their intercourse with each other or with strangers, which may not in some way or other affect the contracts which they have entered into or may thereafter form. For what are laws of evidence, or which concern remedies, frauds, and perjuries, laws of registration, and those which affect landlord and tenant, sales at auction, acts of limitation, and those which limit the fees of professional men, and the charges of tavern-keepers, and a multitude of others which crowd the codes of every State, but laws which affect the validity, construction, or duration, or discharge of contracts."2 But the changes in these laws are not regarded as necessarily affecting the obligation of contracts." Whatever belongs merely to the remedy may be altered according to the will of the State, provided the alteration does not impair the obligation of the contract; and it does not impair it, provided it leaves the parties a substantial remedy, according to the course of justice as it existed at the time the contract was made.4

1 Story on Const. § 1380.

2 Washington, J., in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 259.

3 Bronson v. Kinzie, 1 How. 316, per Taney, Ch. J.

4 Stocking v. Hunt, 3 Denio, 274; Van Baumbach v. Bade, 9 Wis. 578; Bronson v. Kinzie, 1 How. 316; McCracken v. Hayward, 2 How. 608; Butler v. Palmer, 1 Hill, 324; Van Renselaer v. Snyder, 9 Barb. 302, and 13 N. Y. 299; Conkey v. Hart, 14 N. Y. 22; Guild v. Rogers, 8 Barb. 502; Story v. Furman, 25 N. Y. 214; Coriell v. Ham, 4 Greene (Iowa), 455; Heyward v. Judd, 4 Minn. 483; Swift . Fletcher, 6 Minn. 550; Maynes v. Moor, 16 Ind. 116; Smith v.

It has accordingly been held that laws changing remedies for the enforcement of legal contracts will be valid, notwithstanding the new remedy is less convenient than the old, or less prompt and speedy.1

"Without impairing the obligation of the contract, the remedy may certainly be modified as the wisdom of the nation shall direct."2 And although the law at the time the contract is made permits the creditor to take the body of his debtor in execution,. there can be no doubt of the right to abolish all laws for this purpose. "Confinement of the debtor may be a punishment for not performing his contract, or may be allowed as a means of inducing him to perform it. But the State may refuse to inflict this punishment, or may withhold this means, and leave the contract in full force. Imprisonment is no part of the contract, and simply to release the prisoner does not impair the obligation." Nor is there any constitutional objection to those laws which except certain portions of a debtor's property from execution being so modified as to increase the exemptions, and the modifications made applicable to contracts previously entered into. The State "may, if it thinks proper, direct that the necessary implements of agriculture, or the tools of the mechanic, or articles of necessity in household furniture, shall, like wearing apparel, not be liable to execution on judgments. Regulations of this description have always been considered, in every civilized community, as properly belonging to the remedy, to be exercised or not, by every sovereignty, according to its own views of policy and humanity. It Packard, 12 Wis. 371; Grosvenor v. Chesley, 48 Me. 369; Van Renselaer v. Ball, 19 N. Y. 100; Van Renselaer v. Hays, Ibid. 68; Litchfield v. McComber, 42 Barb. 288; Paschal v. Perez, 7 Texas, 365; Auld v. Butcher, 2 Kansas, 155; Kenyon v. Stewart, 44 Penn. St. 179; Clark v. Martin, 49 Penn. St. 299; Rison v. Farr, 24 Ark. 161; Sanders v. Hillsborough Insurance Co., 44 N. H. 238; Huntzinger v. Brock, 3 Grant's Cases, 243; Mechanics', &c. Bank Appeal, 31 Conn. 63. Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 270; Beers v. Haughton, 9 Pet. 359; Bumgardner v. Circuit Court, 4 Mo. 50; Tarpley v. Hamer, 17 Miss. 310; Quackenbush v. Danks, 1 Denio, 128, 3 Denio, 594, and 1 N. Y. 129; Bronson v. Newberry, 2 Doug. Mich. 38; Rockwell v. Hubbell's Adm's, Ibid. 197; Evans v. Montgomery, 4 W. & S. 218; Holloway v. Sherman, 12 Iowa, 282; Sprecker v. Wakeley, 11 Wis. 432; Smith v. Packard, 12 Wis. 371; Morse v. Goold, 11 N. Y. 281.

1

2 Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, per Marshall, Ch. J.

Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, per Marshall, Ch. J.; Mason v. Haile, 12 Wheat. 370; Bronson v. Newberry, 2 Doug. (Mich.) 38.

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