class in which one party having delivered property, paid money, rendered service, or suffered loss at the request of or for the use of another, the law completes the contract by implying an obligation on the part of the latter to make compensation. This obligation can no more be impaired by a law of the State than that arising on a promissory note.

The case of Fisk was of this character. His appointment as district attorney was lawful and was a request made to him by the proper authority to render these services demanded of that office. He did render these services for the parish, and the obligation of the Police Jury to pay for them was complete. Not only were the services requested and rendered, and the obligation to pay for them perfect, but the measure of compensation was also fixed by the previous order of the Police Jury. There was here wanting no element of a contract. The judgment in the court for the recovery of this compensation concluded all these questions. Hall v. Wisconsin, 103 U. S. 5, 10; Newton v. Commissioners, 100 U. S. 548, 559.

The provision of the Constitution restricting the limit of taxation, so far as it was in conflict with the act of 1871, and as applied to the contract of plaintiff, impaired its obligation by destroying the remedy pro tanto.

It is apparent that, if the officers whose duty it is to assess the taxes of this parish, were to perform that duty as it is governed by the law of 1871, the plaintiff would get his money. If not by a first year's levy, then by the next. But the constitutional provision has repealed that law, and stands in the way of enforcing the obligation of plaintiff's contract as that obligation stood at the time the contract was made.

It is well settled that a provision in a state constitution may be a law impairing the obligation of a contract as well as one found in an ordinary statute. We are of opinion, therefore, that, as it regards plaintiff's case, this restrictive provision of the Constitution of 1880 does impair the obligation of a contract. Von Hoffman v. Quincy, 4 Wall. 535; Nelson v. St. Martin's Parish, 111 U. S. 716.

The judgments of the Supreme Court of Louisiana are reversed, and the cases are remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

§ 3. Is a judgment a contract within the constitutional prohibition?

O'BRIEN v. YOUNG.

95 NEW YORK, 428.-1884.

[Reported herein at p. 76.]1

§ 4. Contracts with the State.

FLETCHER v. PECK.

6 CRANCH (U. S.), 87.-1810.

Action on covenants in a deed from Peck to Fletcher. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff brings error.

The State of Georgia, in 1795, granted, by an act of the legislature, a certain tract of land in that State to "The Georgia Company," for which a patent regularly issued. Peck was a grantee by mesne conveyances of a portion of the tract. In 1803 he conveyed fifteen thousand acres of his holding to Fletcher, covenanting that the title given by the State of Georgia had been legally conveyed to him, and that this title had been "in no way Constitutionally or legally impaired by virtue of any subsequent act of any subsequent legislature of the said State of Georgia.” There had in fact been an act passed by the legislature of Georgia. in 1796 annulling the grant to "The Georgia Company," on the ground, as alleged, that the grant had been obtained by corrupt means. The question raised by the pleadings was whether this repealing act constituted a breach of the above covenant.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. . . . The Constitution of the United States declares that "no State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts."

Does the case now under consideration come within this prohibitory section of the Constitution?

In considering this very interesting question we immediately ask ourselves, what is a contract? Is a grant a contract?

1 Accord: Morley v. Lake Shore Railway Co., 146 U. S. 162 (1892).

A contract is a compact between two or more parties, and is either executory or executed. An executory contract is one in which a party binds himself to do, or not to do, a particular thing; such was the law under which the conveyance was made by the governor. A contract executed is one in which the object of contract is performed; and this, says Blackstone, differs in nothing from a grant. The contract between Georgia and the purchasers was executed by the grant. A contract executed, as well as one which is executory, contains obligations binding on the parties. A grant, in its own nature, amounts to an extinguishment of the right of the grantor, and implies a contract not to reassert that right. A party is, therefore, always estopped by his own grant. Since, then, in fact, a grant is a contract executed, and the obligation of which still continues, and since the Constitution uses the general term "contract," without distinguishing between those which are executory and those which are executed, it must be construed to comprehend the latter as well as the former. A law annulling conveyances between individuals, and declaring that the grantors should stand seized of their former estates, notwithstanding those grants, would be as repugnant to the Constitution as a law discharging the vendors of property from the obligation of executing their contracts by conveyance. It would be strange if a contract to convey was secured by the Constitution, while an absolute conveyance remained unprotected.

If, under a fair construction of the Constitution, grants are comprehended under the term "contracts," is a grant from the State excluded from the operation of the provision? Is the clause to be considered as inhibiting the State from impairing the obligation of contracts between two individuals, but as excluding from that inhibition contracts made with itself?

The words themselves contain no such distinction. They are general, and are applicable to contracts of every description. If contracts made with the State are to be exempted from their operation, the exception must arise from the character of the contracting party, not from the words which are employed.

Whatever respect might have been felt for the state sovereignties, it is not to be disguised that the framers of the Constitution viewed, with some apprehension, the violent acts which

might grow out of the feelings of the moment; and that the people of the United States, in adopting that instrument, have manifested a determination to shield themselves and their property from the effects of those sudden and strong passions to which men are exposed. The restrictions on the legislative power of the States are obviously founded in this sentiment; and the Constitution of the United States contains what may be deemed a bill of rights for the people of each State.

No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts.

A bill of attainder may affect the life of an individual, or may confiscate his property, or may do both. In this form the power

of the legislature over the lives and fortunes of individuals is expressly restrained. What motive, then, for implying, in words which import a general prohibition to impair the obligation of contracts, an exception in favor of the right to impair the obligation of those contracts into which the State may enter?

The state legislatures can pass no ex post facto law. post facto law is one which renders an act punishable in a manner in which it was not punishable when it was committed. Such a law may inflict penalties on the person, or may inflict pecuniary penalties which swell the public treasury. The legislature is then prohibited from passing a law by which a man's estate, or any part of it, shall be seized for a crime which was not declared, by some previous law, to render him liable to that punishment. Why, then, should violence be done to the natural meaning of words for the purpose of leaving to the legislature the power of seizing, for public uses, the estate of an individual in the form of a law annulling the title by which he holds that estate? The court can perceive no sufficient ground for making this distinction. This rescinding act would have the effect of an ex post fucto law. It forfeits the estate of Fletcher for a crime not committed by himself, but by those from whom he purchased. This cannot be effected in the form of an ex post facto law, or bill of attainder; why, then, is it allowable in the form of a law annulling the original grant?

The argument in favor of presuming an intention to except a case, not excepted by the words of the Constitution, is susceptible

of some illustration from a principle originally ingrafted in that instrument, though no longer a part of it. The Constitution, as passed, gave the courts of the United States jurisdiction in suits brought against individual States. A State, then, which violated its own contract, was suable in the courts of the United States for that violation. Would it have been a defense in such a suit to say that the State had passed a law absolving itself from the contract? It is scarcely to be conceived that such a defense would be set up. And yet, if a State is neither restrained by the general principles of our political institutions, nor by the words of the Constitution, from impairing the obligation of its own contracts, such a defense would be a valid one. This feature is no longer found in the Constitution; but it aids in the construction of those clauses with which it was originally associated.

It is, then, the unanimous opinion of the court, that, in this case, the estate having passed into the hands of a purchaser for a valuable consideration, without notice, the State of Georgia was restrained, either by general principles which are common to our free institutions, or by the particular provisions of the Constitution of the United States, from passing a law whereby the estate of the plaintiff in the premises so purchased could be constitutionally and legally impaired and rendered null and void.

In overruling the demurrer to the third plea, therefore, there is no error.

Judgment affirmed with costs.1

1 The charter granted by a State to a corporation is a contract, the obligation of which cannot be impaired without violating the Constitution of the United States. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518 (1819). But the reservation by the State of a right to alter, amend, or repeal the charter is effective. Miller v. The State, 15 Wall. 478 (1872). See Stimson's Am. St. Law, § 8003.

The grant of an exclusive franchise is a contract, the obligation of which cannot be impaired. The Binghamton Bridge, 3 Wall. 51 (1865); New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U. S. 650 (1885).

The grant of an exemption from taxation, if upon a sufficient consideration, is a contract, the obligation of which cannot be impaired. State of New Jersey v. Wilson, 7 Cranch, 164 (1812); Given v. Wright, 117 U. S. 648 (1886). Cf. Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514 (1830); Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. 206 (1873).