Samuel Freeman Miller

“ The vice of the argument of the supreme court of Louisiana is in limiting the protecting power of the constitutional provision against impairing the obligation of contracts, to express contracts,-to specific agreements,-and in rejecting that much larger 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. ”

“ We do not assert the proposition that a person elected to an office for a definite term has any such contract with the government or with the appointing body as to prevent the legislature or other proper authority from abolishing the office, or diminishing its duration, or removing him from office. ”

“ The police jury showed that they had exhausted their power when the application for mandamus was made, by levying the full amount of taxes permissible under this constitutional provision, and the supreme court held they could not be compelled to levy more.
In answer to the argument that, as applied to plaintiff's case, the constitutional provision impaired the obligation of his contract, the supreme court decided that his employment as attorney for the parish did not constitute a contract, either in reference to his regular salary or to his compensation by fees. ”