258
CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
by a state, by a special law, or under general laws, when once perfected, are equally as incapable of being resumed by a subsequent law, as those founded on a valuable consideration. Thus, if a state grant glebe lands, or other lands to parishes, towns, or private persons gratuitously, they constitute irrevocable executed contracts.[1] And it may be laid down, as a general principle, that, whenever a law is in its own nature a contract, and absolute rights have vested under it, a repeal of that law cannot divest those rights, or annihilate or impair the tide so acquired. A grant (as has been already stated) amounts to an extinguishment of the right of the grantor, and implies a contract not to reassert it.[2]
§ 1386. The cases above spoken of are cases, in which rights of property are concerned, and are, manifestly, within the scope of the prohibition. But a question, of a more nice and delicate nature, has been also litigated; and that is, how far charters, granted by a state, are contracts within the meaning of the constitution. That the framers of the constitution did not intend to restrain the states in the regulation of their civil institutions, adopted for internal government, is admitted; and it has never been so construed. It has always been understood, that the contracts spoken of in the constitution were those, which respected property, or some other object of value, and which conferred rights capable of being asserted in a court of justice.[3] A charter is certainly in form and sub-- ↑ Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch, 52; S. C. 3 Peters's Cond. R. 259; Town of Pawlet v. Clarke, Cranch, 535; S. C. 3 Peters's Cond. R. 408; 1 Kent's Comm. Lect. 19, p. 389.
- ↑ Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 135; S. C. 2 Peters's Cond. R. 308; 1 Kent's Comm. Lect. 19, p. 388.
- ↑ Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. R. 518, 629.
