Samuel Freeman Miller

“ In regard to the states, which are expressly forbidden to impair by legislation the obligation of contracts, it has been repeatedly held that a statute of limitation which reduces materially the time within which suit may be commenced, though passed after the contract was made, is not void if a reasonable time is left for the enforcement of the contract by suit before the statute bars that right. ”

“ These provisions furnish the rules by which the manner of setting up the defense is to be governed, and they leave no doubt in our mind that the liberality which they intended to prescribe in the matter requires that the present plea of the statute of limitations, being good in substance, is sufficient in form of statement. ”

“ And though the action was one properly brought originally in the state court, and which might have been tried there, it was held that as the money collected by the collector had been paid into the treasury, and the United States was responsible for the judgment which might be recovered against him, and congress having also modified the right of action which plaintiff had at common law, the provisions of the act in regard to time of commencing the action governed the case, and that they were necessarily exclusive. ”

“ The plea makes it plain that it was the purpose of the Schofield order to seize the debt due from defendant to plaintiff, to confiscate it for military purposes. The sum enforced from Mitchell was the precise sum due to Clark for those rents. It was to answer Clark's obligation or default the order was made and enforced against Mitchell. He could not help himself. It could as well be said that the garnishee in attachment is not protected when paying under the order of the court, because there was error in the proceeding against his creditor. ”

“ Schofield may not of itself be a sufficient defense to the action, invokes the aid of the fourth section of article 11 of the constitution of the state of Missouri as making the facts set out in the first plea a good defense. ”

“ For most of these acts there was constitutional power in congress to have authorized them, if it had acted in the matter in advance. It is possible that in a few cases, for acts performed in haste and in the presence of an overpowering emergency, there was no constitutional power anywhere to make them good. ”