Bushrod Washington

“ But it surely cannot be contended, that to create a contract, and to destroy or impair one, mean the same thing.
If the effect of the statute in question, be not to impair the obligation of either of those contracts, and none other appear upon this record, is there any other part of the constitution of the United States to which it is repugnant? It is said to be retrospective. Be it so; but retrospective laws which do not impair the obligation of contracts, or partake of the character of ex post facto laws, are not condemned or forbidden by any part of that instrument. ”

“ Retrospective laws, violating the rights of property, are contrary to the contract of any society established upon a republican basis. They not only impair, they break it. The great object of our constitution is to preserve individual rights, not to destroy them. ”

“ This would impair the obligation of the contract between the parties. Suppose a law to declare a void lease valid. Precisely the same injustice is done. Will the constitution be satisfied with a distinction between them, when there is no difference? The spirit of the constitution abhors it. Private property cannot be taken, even for public use, without full compensation and process of law. To affect the rights of property in any other way, was deemed to be beyond the power of legislation, and therefore the guard is applied to the taking for public use. ”

“ Biddle, this Court decided laws of Kentucky to be unconstitutional which deprived the owner of a right to recover any part of the profits on a recovery of his land.
The act having brought Satterlee within the operation of the statute of limitations, if he be dispossessed by the affirmance of this judgment, it has totally deprived him of all remedy. By the loss of all remedy all right is gone. For every right it is a maxim that there is a legal remedy for its violation. ”

“ Satterlee v. Matthewson
It was an attempt by the legislature to encroach upon the judicial power; was passed at the next session, in terms precisely the reverse of the decision of the court, and applied to pending suits, when probably no suit but this was pending to which it was applicable.
If the legislature can thus, by a retrospective act, divest a citizen of his estate, there is no safety for our boasted rights and liberties. It is as impossible to make laws to operate upon the past, without the usurpation of despotic power, as it is to recal the past. Law is a rule of action ”

“ It was but a re-enactment of what was understood in that part of the state to have been the law from the year 1785 down to 1813, and certainly ever since the repeal of the acts of restriction. Surely, an undisturbed practice for twenty-eight or thirty years, during which period no tenant in the situation of Satterlee had brought a case of the kind into a court of law, ought alone to settle this question in favour of Matthewson; and to have satisfied the supreme court of Pennsylvania, that the title of the landlord, obtained prior to the intrusion act, could not be contested by his tenant. ”

“ Now it is manifest from this record, not only that the constitutionality of the statute of the 8th of April 1826, was drawn into question, and was applicable to the case, but that it was so applied by the judge, and formed the basis of his opinion to the jury, that they should find in favour of the plaintiff, if in other respects she was entitled to a verdict. It is equally manifest that the right of the plaintiff to recover in that action depended on that statute; the effect of which was to change the law, as the supreme court had decided it to be in this very case in the year 1825. ”

“ There can be no doubt of the right of a legislature to pass a declaratory act.
A reference to the opinion of the court will show that this was their decision.
The act of 1826 is said to be unconstitutional, because it impaired a contract: but what is the contract which the counsel assert to be impaired?
The right which settlers had to the possession of the land, under the title obtained in 1812 by purchase from Wharton, is said to be affected, and the contract under the patent for the state is said to be impaired. Look at the situation of the parties. ”

“ To make a rule for it after the action is performed, is to substitute the will of the legislature for a rule, which is despotism itself; for what that will may be no man can foresee, and it is the same whether it proceeds from an American legislator or an eastern despot. ”

“ Under such circumstances, no one could imagine that the men, who thus exposed their all in defence of their settlements, could be driven from them afterwards by honest or upright legislation. Hence we find the assembly of Pennsylvania, in 1784, passed an act for restoring possessions from which the Connecticut settlers had been removed. 7 Smith, 531. And when they enacted the law to prevent intrusion from new emigrants, they cautiously and with a just regard for good faith, declare, that their enactments shall not apply to those who resided there before the passage of the law. ”

“ But let us look at the law, as it stood between Satterlee and Matthewson. Matthewson leased the property in question to Satterlee. It was also agreed that either of the parties might put an end to the tenancy at the end of one year. All this took place when there was no act in existence against Connecticut settlers in Pennsylvania; on the contrary, many of the New England men had gallantly defended the northern borders of the state, where this land is located, from Indian barbarities, and many of them lost their lives there. ”

“ They ought always to be liberally construed in favour of the rights of the citizen. Opinion of Judge Johnson, 12 Wheaton, 256. These provisions were intended to be equal and invariable in their operation, and to embrace all cases of unjust legislation affecting the property or liberty of individuals. Retrospective laws are always unjust, and are contrary to the fundamental principles of our social compact. In these clauses of the constitution, regard must be had to the spirit. Suppose a law were to declare a valid lease void. ”

“ Such a law, penned in plain terms, would excite universal abhorrence in every one who has the least feeling of respect for individual rights. It is not the less dangerous and objectionable, for being more indirectly accomplished. ”

“ It creates a lease where none before existed. It makes one a landlord and the other a tenant, creating for each the capacities and disabilities belonging to that character. It carries this back for thirty-five years. It thus makes A.'s possession the possession of B., and introduces the statute of limitations as a bar. Thus, it creates lease, tenancy, possession, bar, and completely changes the whole case. The effect is precisely this, that Satterlee shall have no defence in the pending suit. ”

“ The plaintiff there sold the defendant a tract of land, lying in the county of Luzerne, and held by him under a deed from a committee of the Susquehanna Company, under the Connecticut title, and not derived from the authority of this commonwealth or the late proprietaries of Pennsylvania ”

“ That would, in fact, be a resumption; for she could not grant without assuming the dominion over the land. Such a proceeding is entirely indefensible, and is used as the strongest illustration of what rightful legislation cannot accomplish, by Justice Patterson in Vanhorne vs. ”