is obvious: "Qui facit per alium, facit per se." In short, if a state wishes to evade the Constitution and emit bills of credit, it has merely to incorporate its public officers, or other agents, as a bank, and thus render a prohibition intended to prevent a recurrence of those evils, which had been found from experience to attend the practice, a dead letter.* 3d. Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social contract, and to every principle of sound legislation. The two former are expressly prohibited to Congress by the Federal Constitution, and to some of the state legislatures, by declarations of rights prefixed to their constitutions. The framers of the Federal compact were, nevertheless, admonished by their own experience of the necessity of additional bulwarks in favour of personal security and private rights; and the experience of their successors has shown that, in imposing these restrictions, the Convention maintained its character for strict integrity, high moral sense, and sound practical wisdom. Bills of attainder are such special acts of the Legislature as inflict capital punishment upon persons whom they declare to be guilty of high offences, without trial or conviction in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. They have generally been confined to cases of treason, and have never been resorted to but in times of internal commotion and arbitrary misgovernment. If the bill inflict a milder punishment than death, it is called a bill of pains and penalties; but, in the sense of the Constitution, bills of * The decision in this case was made after the death of Chiefjustice Marshall, and the opinion of the court delivered by Mr. Justice M'Lean; Mr. Justice Thompson concurring, and Mr. Jus tice Story dissenting. attainder include bills of pains and penalties, as the former may affect the life of an individual, or may confiscate his property, or both. Ex post facto laws are often supposed to signify all laws having a retroactive operation; but their technical meaning is confined to such as render criminal an act done before the law was passed, which was then innocent; or to such as aggravate the of fence, or render it more criminal than it was when committed; or such as inflict a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when perpetrated; or such as alter the rules of evidence, and admit different, or less testimony than was required at the time the offence was committed to convict the offender. With more comprehensive brevity, these laws have been defined by Chief-justice Marshall as "those which render an act punishable in a manner in which it was not punishable when committed;" and this definition includes both laws inflicting personal or pecuniary penalties for acts before innocent, and laws passed after the commission of an unlawful act, which enhance its guilt or aggravate its punishment. 4th. A similar restriction with regard to bills of attainder and ex post facto laws is imposed by the Constitution on Congress, as well as upon the state legislatures; but not with regard to laws impairing the obligation of contracts, which are also retrospective in their operation, and equally inconsistent with sound legislation, and the fundamental principles of the social compact. The reason of this difference is obvious. By contracts, in the sense of the Constitution, we are to understand every executed agreement, whether between individuals, or between individuals and a state, by which a right is vested; and also every executory agreement which confers a right of action, or creates a oinding obligation in relation to subjects of a valuable nature, which may be asserted in a court of justice; but it does not comprehend the political relations between a government and its citizens. The power possessed by a State Legislature to which everything not expressly reserved is granted, and the temptations to abuse that power, render express restrictions, if not absolutely necessary, at least prudent and useful; but the National Legislature has no power to interfere with contracts, except where it is expressly given to it. By the obligation of contracts, in the meaning and intendment of the Constitution, is understood not merely the moral, but the legal obligation; and in this sense a system of bankruptcy impairs the obligation of contracts, when it releases the party from the necessity of performing them; but Congress is expressly invested with this power in regard to bankruptcies, as an enumerated, and not as an implied power, and in no other form can it impair the obligation of a contract. This prohibition in regard to the states extensively and deeply affects their legislative authority; and there is no part of the Federal Constitution that has given rise to more various and able discussions, or to more obstinate and protracted litigation. A compact between two states, or a grant from a state (which amounts to a contract) to individuals, is as much protected by it as a grant from one individual to another, and the state is as effectually inhibited from impairing its own contracts, or those to which it is a party, as it is from impairing the obligation of a contract between two individuals. The clause under consideration was first brought into direct judicial discussion by an act of the Legislature of Georgia, passed in the year 1795. This act authorized the sale of a large tract of wild land, in what was called the Yazoo country, and a grant was made in pursuance of the law, to a number of individuals, under the name of the "Georgia Company." But by an act passed the next year, the Legislature declared its previous grant to be null and void, on the ground of fraud and corruption in obtaining it. One of the questions presented to the Supreme Court of the United States for decision arose upon a sale to a third person, by a grantee of the state under the first act, and it was this: Whether the Legislature of Georgia had the constitutional power to repeal the former law, and avoid the sale made under its authority. The court declared that, when a law in its nature imports a contract, and absolute rights have vested under it, its repeal could neither divest those rights, nor annihilate or impair the title thus acquired.* A party cannot pronounce his own deed invalid, whatever cause may be assigned to impeach it, although that party be the Legislature of a state. It was accordingly declared that an estate held under the act of 1795, having passed into the hands of a bona fide purchaser for a valuable consideration, the State of Georgia was disabled by the Constitution from passing any law by which that estate could be legally impaired and rendered void. The next case in which this prohibition was brought in review was from the State of New-Jersey; on which occasion it was held that, where a State Legislature declared by law that certain lands to be purchased for the use of some Indians should not be subject to taxation, such act amounted to a contract, which could not be rescinded by a subsequent Legislature. In this case the Colonial LegisJature, in 1758, authorized a purchase of lands for * 6 Cranch, 87. +7 Cranch, 164. the Delaware Indians, and made the stipulation mentioned. The Indians occupied the land in pursuance of the law until the year 1803, when it was sold under the authority of the Legislature. In 1804, the Legislature repealed the act exempting the land from taxation; but the act of 1758 was held to be a contract, and that of 1804 a breach of it, and it was accordingly declared void, under the Constitution of the United States: thereby at once confirming the former decision, and recognising the principle alluded to in a former lecture, that a change of government does not affect the previously-vested rights of property. In a subsequent case from the State of Virginia, the same points again arose, and the court went more largely into the consideration of this delicate and interesting constitutional doctrine, not only establishing the last-mentioned principle, in regard to the effect of a resolution on prior contracts, but at the same time declaring that a legislative grant, competently made, vested an indefeasible and irrevocable title.* There is, indeed, no authority which can support on principle the contrary position. Nor can the Legislature of a state repeal statutes creating private corporations, or confirming to them property acquired under the faith of previous laws, and by such repeal vest it in others, without the consent or default of the corporators. Such a provision would be equally repugnant to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, and to the principles of natural justice. But the provision we are considering has never been understood to embrace any other contracts than those relating to property, or some object of value, capable of being asserted in a court of justice. * 9 Cranch, 43. |