Chapter XXXI: Section 10: No State Shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or (1)

Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

Powers Denied to the States

TREATIES, ALLIANCES OR CONFEDERATIONS

At the time of the Civil War this clause was one of the provisions upon which the Court relied in holding that the Confederation formed by the seceding States could not be recognized as having any legal existence.[1544] Today, its practical significance lies in the limitations which it implies upon the power of the States to deal with matters having a bearing upon international relations. In the early case of Holmes _v._ Jennison,[1545] Chief Justice Taney invoked it as a reason for holding that a State had no power to deliver up a fugitive from justice to a foreign State. Recently the kindred idea that the responsibility for the conduct of foreign relations rests exclusively with the Federal Government prompted the Court to hold that, since the oil under the three mile marginal belt along the California coast might well become the subject of international dispute and since the ocean, including this three mile belt, is of vital consequence to the nation in its desire to engage in commerce and to live in peace with the world, the Federal Government has paramount rights in and power over that belt, including full dominion over the resources of the soil under the water area.[1546] In Skiriotes _v._ Florida,[1547] the Court, on the other hand, ruled that this clause did not disable Florida from regulating the manner in which its own citizens may engage in sponge fishing outside its territorial waters. Speaking for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Hughes declared: "When its action does not conflict with federal legislation, the sovereign authority of the State over the conduct of its citizens upon the high seas is analogous to the sovereign authority of the United States over its citizens in like circumstances."[1548]

BILLS OF CREDIT

Within the sense of the Constitution, bills of credit signify a paper medium of exchange, intended to circulate between individuals; and between the Government and individuals, for the ordinary purposes of society. It is immaterial whether the quality of legal tender is imparted to such paper. Interest bearing certificates, in denominations not exceeding ten dollars, which were issued by loan offices established by the State of Missouri, and made receivable in payment of taxes or other moneys due to the State, and in payment of the fees and salaries of State officers, were held to be bills of credit whose issuance was banned by this section.[1549] The States are not forbidden, however, to issue coupons receivable for taxes,[1550] nor to execute instruments binding themselves to pay money at a future day for services rendered or money borrowed.[1551] Bills issued by State banks are not bills of credit;[1552] it is immaterial that the State is the sole stockholder of the bank,[1553] that the officers of the bank were elected by the State legislature,[1554] or that the capital of the bank was raised by the sale of State bonds.[1555]

LEGAL TENDER

Relying on this clause, which applies only to the States and not to the Federal Government,[1556] the Supreme Court has held that where the marshal of a State court received State bank notes in payment and discharge of an execution, the creditor was entitled to demand payment in gold or silver.[1557] Since, however, there is nothing in the Constitution which prohibits a bank depositor from consenting when he draws a check, that payment may be made by draft, a State law which provided that checks drawn on local banks should, at the option of the bank, be payable in exchange drafts was held valid.[1558]

BILLS OF ATTAINDER

Statutes passed after the Civil War with the intent and result of excluding persons who had aided the Confederacy from following certain callings, by the device of requiring them to take an oath that they had never given such aid, were held invalid as being bills of attainder, as well as _ex post facto_ laws.[1559]

EX POST FACTO LAWS

Scope of Provision

This clause, like the cognate restriction imposed on the Federal Government by section 9, relates only to penal and criminal legislation and not to civil laws which affect private rights adversely.[1560] It is directed only against legislative action and does not touch erroneous or inconsistent decisions by the courts.[1561] Even though a law is _ex post facto_ and invalid as to crimes committed prior to its enactment, it is nonetheless valid as to subsequent offenses.[1562] If it mitigates the rigor of the law in force at the time the crime was committed,[1563] or if it merely penalizes the continuance of conduct which was lawfully begun before its passage, the statute is not _ex post facto_. Thus measures penalizing the failure of a railroad to cut drains through existing embankments,[1564] or making illegal the continued possession of intoxicating liquors which were lawfully acquired,[1565] have been held valid.

Denial of Future Privileges to Past Offenders

The right to practice a profession may be denied to one who was convicted of an offense before the statute was enacted if the offense may reasonably be regarded as a continuing disqualification for the profession. Without offending the Constitution, a statute making it a misdemeanor to practice medicine after conviction of a felony may be enforced against a person so convicted before the act was passed.[1566] But the test oath prescribed after the Civil War, whereby office holders, teachers, or preachers were required to swear that they had not participated in the Rebellion, were held invalid on the ground that it had no reasonable relation to fitness to perform official or professional duties, but rather was a punishment for past offenses.[1567] A similar oath required of suitors in the courts also was held void.[1568]

Changes in Punishment

Statutes which changed an indeterminate sentence law to require a judge to impose the maximum sentence, whereas formerly he could impose a sentence between the minimum and maximum;[1569] abolished a rule which prevented a subsequent conviction of first-degree murder after a jury had found the accused guilty in the second-degree by a verdict which had been set aside;[1570] required criminals sentenced to death to be kept thereafter in solitary confinement,[1571] or allowed a warden to fix, within limits of one week, and keep secret the time of execution,[1572] were held to be _ex post facto_ as applied to offenses committed prior to their enactment. But laws providing heavier penalties for new crimes thereafter committed by habitual criminals;[1573] changing the punishment from hanging to electrocution, fixing the place therefor in the penitentiary, and permitting the presence of a greater number of invited witnesses;[1574] or providing for close confinement of six to nine months in the penitentiary, in lieu of three to six months in jail prior to execution, and substituting the warden for the sheriff as hangman, have been sustained.[1575]

Changes in Procedure

An accused person does not have a right to be tried in all respects in accordance with the law in force when the crime charged was committed.[1576] The mode of procedure may be changed so long as the substantial rights of the accused are not curtailed.[1577] Laws shifting the place of trial from one county to another,[1578] increasing the number of appellate judges and dividing the appellate court into divisions,[1579] granting a right of appeal to the State,[1580] changing the method of selecting and summoning jurors,[1581] making separate trials for persons jointly indicted a matter of discretion for the trial court rather than a matter of right,[1582] and allowing a comparison of handwriting experts[1583] have been sustained over the objection that they were _ex post facto_. The contrary conclusion was reached with respect to the application to felonies committed before a Territory was admitted to the Union, of the provision in the State constitution which permitted the trial of criminal cases by a jury of eight persons, instead of the common law jury of twelve which was guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment during the period of territorial government.[1584]

OBLIGATION OF CONTRACTS

Definition of Terms

"Law."--The term comprises statutes, constitutional provisions,[1585] municipal ordinances,[1586] and administrative regulations having the force and operation of statutes.[1587] How is it as to judicial decisions? Not only does the abstract principle of the separation of powers forbid the idea that the courts "make" law, but the word "pass" in the above clause seems to confine it to the formal and acknowledged methods of exercise of the law-making function. Accordingly, the Court has frequently said that the clause does not cover judicial decisions, however erroneous, or whatever their effect on existing contract rights.[1588] Nevertheless, there are important exceptions to this rule which are hereinafter set forth.

Status of Judicial Decisions.--Also, while the highest State court usually has final authority in determining the construction as well as the validity of contracts entered into under the laws of the State, and the national courts will be bound by their decision of such matters, nevertheless, for reasons which are fairly obvious, this rule does not hold when the contract is one whose obligation is alleged to have been impaired by State law.[1589] Otherwise, the challenged State authority could be vindicated through the simple device of a modification or outright nullification by the State court of the contract rights in issue. Likewise, the highest State court usually has final authority in construing State statutes and determining their validity in relation to the State constitution. But this rule too has had to bend to some extent to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the obligation of contracts clause.[1590]

Suppose the following situation: (1) a municipality, acting under authority conferred by a State statute, has issued bonds in aid of a railway company; (2) the validity of this statute has been sustained by the highest State court; (3) later the State legislature passes an act to repeal certain taxes to meet the bonds; (4) it is sustained in doing so by a decision of the highest State court holding that the statute authorizing the bonds was unconstitutional _ab initio_. In such a case the Supreme Court would take an appeal from the State court and would reverse the latter's decision of unconstitutionally because of its effect in rendering operative the act to repeal the tax.[1591]

Suppose further, however, that the State court has reversed itself on the question of the constitutionality of the bonds in a suit by a creditor for payment without there having been an act of repeal. In this situation, as the cases stand today, the Supreme Court will still afford relief if the case is one between citizens of different States, which reaches it via a lower federal court.[1592] This is because in cases of this nature the Court formerly felt free to determine questions of fundamental justice for itself. Indeed, in such a case, the Court has apparently in the past regarded itself as free to pass upon the constitutionality of the State law authorizing the bonds even though there has been no prior decision by the highest State court sustaining them, the idea being that contracts entered into simply on the faith of the _presumed_ constitutionality of a State statute are entitled to this protection.[1593]

In other words, in cases of which it has jurisdiction because of diversity of citizenship, the Court has held that the obligation of contracts is capable of impairment by subsequent judicial decisions no less than by subsequent statutes and that it is able to prevent such impairment. In cases, on the other hand, of which it obtains jurisdiction only on the constitutional ground, and by appeal from a State court, it has always adhered in terms to the doctrine that the word "laws" as used in article I, section 10, does not comprehend judicial decisions. Yet even in these cases, it will intervene to protect contracts entered into on the faith of existing decisions from an impairment which is the direct result of a reversal of such decisions, but there must be in the offing, as it were, a statute of some kind--one possibly many years older than the contract rights involved--on which to pin its decision.[1594]

In 1922 Congress, through an amendment to the Judicial Code, endeavored to extend the reviewing power of the Supreme Court to suits involving "'* * * the validity of a contract wherein it is claimed that a change in the rule of law or construction of statutes by the highest court of a State applicable to such contract would be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States * * *'" This appeared to be an invitation to the Court to say frankly that the obligation of a contract can be impaired as well by a subsequent decision as by a subsequent statute. The Court, however, declined the invitation in an opinion by Chief Justice Taft which reviewed many of the cases covered in the preceding paragraphs. Dealing with the Gelpcke and adherent decisions, Chief Justice Taft said: "These cases were not writs of error to the Supreme Court of a State. They were appeals or writs of error to federal courts where recovery was sought upon municipal or county bonds or some other form of contracts, the validity of which had been sustained by decisions of the Supreme Court of a State prior to their execution, and had been denied by the same court after their issue or making. In such cases the federal courts exercising jurisdiction between citizens of different States held themselves free to decide what the State law was, and to enforce it as laid down by the State Supreme Court before the contracts were made rather than in later decisions. They did not base this conclusion on Article I, Sec. 10, of the Federal Constitution, but on the State law as they determined it, which, in diverse citizenship cases, under the third Article of the Federal Constitution they were empowered to do. Burgess _v._ Seligman, 107 U.S. 20 (1883)."[1595] While doubtless this was an available explanation in 1924, the decision in 1938 in Erie Railroad Co. _v._ Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, so cuts down the power of the federal courts to decide diversity of citizenship cases according to their own notions of "general principles of common law" as to raise the question whether the Court will not be required eventually to put Gelpcke and its companions and descendants squarely on the obligation of contracts clause, or else abandon them.

"Obligation."--A contract is analyzable into two elements: the _agreement_, which comes from the parties, and the _obligation_ which comes from the law and makes the agreement binding on the parties. The concept of obligation is an importation from the Civil Law and its appearance in the contracts clause is supposed to have been due to James Wilson, a graduate of Scottish universities and a Civilian. Actually the term as used in the contracts clause has been rendered more or less superfluous by the doctrine that the law in force when a contract is made enters into and comprises a part of the contract itself.[1596] Hence the Court sometimes recognizes the term in its decisions applying the clause, sometimes ignores it. In Sturges _v._ Crowninshield,[1597] decided in 1819, Marshall defines "obligation of contract" as "the law which binds the parties to perform their agreement"; but a little later the same year he sets forth the points presented for consideration in Trustees of Dartmouth College _v._ Woodward[1598] to be: "1. Is this contract protected by the Constitution of the United States? 2. Is it impaired by the acts under which the defendant holds?"[1599] The word "obligation" undoubtedly does carry the implication that the Constitution was intended to protect only _executory_ contracts--i.e., contracts still awaiting performance; but as is indicated in a moment, this implication was early rejected for a certain class of contracts, with immensely important result for the clause.

"Impair."--"The obligations of a contract," says Chief Justice Hughes for the Court in Home Building and Loan Association _v._ Blaisdell,[1600] "are impaired by a law which renders them invalid, or releases or extinguishes them * * * and impairment, * * *, has been predicated of laws which without destroying contracts derogate from substantial contractual rights."[1601] But he straight-away adds: "Not only are existing laws read into contracts in order to fix obligations as between the parties, but the reservation of essential attributes of sovereign power is also read into contracts as a postulate of the legal order. The policy of protecting contracts against impairment presupposes the maintenance of a government by virtue of which contractual relations are worth while,--a government which retains adequate authority to secure the peace and good order of society. This principle of harmonizing the constitutional prohibition with the necessary residuum of State power has had progressive recognition in the decisions of this Court."[1602] In short, the law from which the obligation stems must be understood to include Constitutional Law and, moreover, a "progressive" Constitutional Law.[1603]

"Contracts," Extended to Cover Public Contracts.--Throughout the first century of government under the Constitution, according to Benjamin F. Wright, the contract clause had been considered in almost forty per cent of all cases involving the validity of State legislation, and of these the vast proportion involved legislative grants of one type or other, the most important category being charters of incorporation.[1604] Nor does this numerical prominence of such grants in the cases overrate their relative importance from the point of view of public interest. The question consequently arises whether the clause was intended to be applied solely in protection of private contracts, or in the protection also of public grants or, more broadly, in protection of public contracts, in short, those to which a State is party?

Writing late in life, Madison explained the clause by allusion to what had occurred "in the internal administration of the States," in the years immediately preceding the Constitutional Convention, in regard to private debts. "A violation of contracts," said he, "had become familiar in the form of depreciated paper made a legal tender, of property substituted for money, and installment laws, and the occlusions of the courts of justice."[1605] He had, in fact, written to the same effect in The Federalist, while the adoption of the Constitution was pending.[1606]

The broader view of the intended purpose of the clause is, nevertheless, not without considerable support. For one thing, the clause departs from the comparable provision in the Northwest Ordinance (1787) in two respects: First, in the _presence_ of the word "obligation"; secondly, in the _absence_ of the word "private"; and there is good reason for believing that Wilson may have been responsible for both alterations, inasmuch as two years earlier he had denounced a current proposal to repeal the Bank of North America's Pennsylvania charter, in the following words: "If the act for incorporating the subscribers to the Bank of North America shall be repealed in this manner, a precedent will be established for repealing, in the same manner, every other legislative charter in Pennsylvania. A pretence, as specious as any that can be alleged on this occasion, will never be wanting on any future occasion. Those acts of the State, which have hitherto been considered as the sure anchors of privilege and of property, will become the sport of every varying gust of politics, and will float wildly backwards and forwards on the irregular and impetuous tides of party and faction."[1607]

Furthermore, in its first important constitutional case, that of Chisholm _v._ Georgia,[1608] the Court ruled that its original jurisdiction extended to an action in assumpsit brought by a citizen of South Carolina against the State of Georgia. This construction of the federal judicial power was, to be sure, promptly repealed by the Eleventh Amendment, but without affecting the implication that the contracts protected by the Constitution included public contracts.

One important source of this diversity of opinion is to be found in that ever welling spring of constitutional doctrine in early days, the prevalence of Natural Law notions and the resulting vague significance of the term "law." In Sturges _v._ Crowninshield, as we saw, Marshall defined the _obligation of contracts_ as "the law which binds the parties to perform their undertaking." Whence, however, comes this law? If it comes from the State alone, which Marshall was later to deny even as to private contracts,[1609] then it is hardly possible to hold that the States' own contracts are covered by the clause, which manifestly does not _create_ an obligation for contracts but only protects such obligation as already exists. But if, on the other hand, the law furnishing the obligation of contracts comprises Natural Law and kindred principles, as well as law which springs from State authority, then, inasmuch as the State itself is presumably bound by such principles, the State's own obligations, so far as harmonious with them, are covered by the clause.

Fletcher _v._ Peck

Fletcher _v._ Peck,[1610] which was decided in 1810, has the double claim to fame that it was the first case in which the Supreme Court held a State enactment to be in conflict with the Constitution,[1611] and also the first case to hold that the contracts clause protected public grants. By an act passed on January 7, 1795, the Georgia Legislature directed the sale to four land companies of public lands comprising most of what are now the States of Alabama and Mississippi. As soon became known, the passage of the measure had been secured by open and wholesale bribery. So when a new legislature took over in the winter of 1795-1796, almost its first act was to revoke the sale made the previous year.

Meantime, however, the land companies had disposed of several millions of acres of their holdings to speculators and prospective settlers, and following the rescinding act some of these took counsel with Alexander Hamilton as to their rights. In an opinion which was undoubtedly known to the Court when it decided Fletcher _v._ Peck, Hamilton characterized the repeal as contravening "the first principles of natural justice and social policy," especially so far as it was made, "to the prejudice * * * of third persons * * * innocent of the alleged fraud or corruption; * * * [Moreover, he added,] the Constitution of the United States, article first, section tenth, declares that no State shall pass a law impairing the obligations of contract. This must be equivalent to saying no State shall pass a law revoking, invalidating, or altering a contract. Every grant from one to another, whether the grantor be a State or an individual, is virtually a contract that the grantee shall hold and enjoy the thing granted against the grantor, and his representatives. It, therefore, appears to me that taking the terms of the Constitution in their large sense, and giving them effect according to the general spirit and policy of the provisions, the revocation of the grant by the act of the legislature of Georgia may justly be considered as contrary to the Constitution of the United States, and, therefore null. And that the courts of the United States, in cases within their jurisdiction, will be likely to pronounce it so."[1612] In the debate to which the "Yazoo Land Frauds," as they were contemporaneously known, gave rise in Congress, Hamilton's views were quoted frequently.

So far as it invokes the obligation of contracts clause, Marshall's opinion in Fletcher _v._ Peck performs two creative acts. He recognizes that an obligatory contract is one still to be performed--in other words, is an executory contract; also that a grant of land is an executed contract--a conveyance. But, he asserts, every grant is attended by "an implied contract" on the part of the grantor not to claim again the thing granted. Thus, grants are brought within the category of contracts having continuing obligation and so within article I, Sec. 10. But the question still remained of the nature of this obligation. Marshall's answer to this can only be inferred from his statement at the end of his opinion. The State of Georgia, he says, "was restrained" from the passing of the rescinding act "either by general principles which are common to our free institutions, or by particular provisions of the Constitution of the United States."[1613]

New Jersey _v._ Wilson

The protection thus thrown about land grants was presently extended, in the case of New Jersey _v._ Wilson,[1614] to a grant of immunity from taxation which the State of New Jersey had accorded certain Indian lands; and several years after that, in the Dartmouth College Case,[1615] to the charter privileges of an eleemosynary corporation.

Corporate Charters, Different Ways of Regarding

There are three ways in which the charter of a corporation may be regarded. In the first place, it may be thought of simply as a license terminable at will by the State, like a liquor-seller's license or an auctioneer's license, but affording the incorporators, so long as it remains in force, the privileges and advantages of doing business in the form of a corporation. Nowadays, indeed, when corporate charters are usually issued to all legally qualified applicants by an administrative officer who acts under a general statute, this would probably seem to be the natural way of regarding them were it not for the Dartmouth College decision. But in 1819 charters were granted directly by the State legislatures in the form of special acts, and there were very few profit-taking corporations in the country.[1616] The later extension of the benefits of the Dartmouth College decision to corporations organized under general law took place without discussion.

Secondly, a corporate charter may be regarded as a franchise constituting a vested or property interest in the hands of the holders, and therefore as forfeitable only for abuse or in accordance with its own terms. This is the way in which some of the early State courts did regard them at the outset.[1617] It is also the way in which Blackstone regards them in relation to the royal prerogative, although not in relation to the sovereignty of Parliament; and the same point of view finds expression in Story's concurring opinion in Dartmouth College _v._ Woodward, as it did also in Webster's argument in that case.[1618]

The Dartmouth College Case

The third view is the one formulated by Chief Justice Marshall in his controlling opinion in Trustees of Dartmouth College _v._ Woodward.[1619] This is that the charter of Dartmouth College, a purely private institution, was the outcome and partial record of a contract between the donors of the college, on the one hand, and the British Crown, on the other, which contract still continued in force between the State of New Hampshire, as the successor to the Crown and Government of Great Britain, and the trustees, as successors to the donors. The charter, in other words, was not simply a grant--rather it was the documentary record of a still existent agreement between still existent parties.[1620] Taking this view, which he developed with great ingenuity and persuasiveness, Marshall was able to appeal to the obligation of contracts clause directly, and without further use of his fiction in Fletcher _v._ Peck of an executory contract accompanying the grant.

A difficulty still remained, however, in the requirement that a contract must, before it can have obligation, import consideration, that is to say, must be shown not to have been entirely gratuitous on either side. Nor was the consideration which induced the Crown to grant a charter to Dartmouth College a merely speculative one. It consisted of the donations of the donors to the important public interest of education. Fortunately or unfortunately, in dealing with this phase of the case, Marshall used more sweeping terms than were needful. "The objects for which a corporation is created," he wrote, "are universally such as the government wishes to promote. They are deemed beneficial to the country; and this benefit constitutes the consideration, and in most cases, the sole consideration of the grant." In other words, the simple fact of the charter having been granted imports consideration from the point of view of the State.[1621] With this doctrine before it, the Court in Providence Bank _v._ Billings,[1622] and again in Charles River Bridge Company _v._ Warren Bridge Company,[1623] admitted, without discussion of the point, the applicability of the Dartmouth College decision to purely business concerns.

Classes of Cases Under the Clause

The cases just reviewed produce two principal lines of decisions stemming from the obligation of contracts clause: first, public grants; second, private executory contracts. The chief category of the first line of cases consists, in turn, of those involving corporate privileges, both those granted directly by the States and those granted by municipalities by virtue of authority conferred upon them by the State;[1624] while private debts, inclusive of municipal debts, exhaust for the most part the second line.

Public Grants

Municipal Corporations.--Not all grants by a State constitute "contracts" within the sense of article I, section 10. In his Dartmouth College decision Chief Justice Marshall conceded that "if the act of incorporation be a grant of political power, if it creates a civil institution, to be employed in the administration of the government, * * *, the subject is one in which the legislature of the State may act according to its own justment," unrestrained by the Constitution[1625]--thereby drawing a line between "public" and "private" corporations which remained undisturbed for more than half a century.[1626] It has been subsequently held many times that municipal corporations are mere instrumentalities of the State for the more convenient administration of local governments, whose powers may be enlarged, abridged, or entirely withdrawn at the pleasure of the legislature.[1627] The same principle applies, moreover, to the property rights which the municipality derives either directly or indirectly from the State. This was first held as to the grant of a franchise to a municipality to operate a ferry, and has since then been recognized as the universal rule.[1628] As was stated in a case decided in 1923: "The distinction between the municipality as an agent of the State for governmental purposes and as an organization to care for local needs in a private or proprietary capacity," while it limits the legal liability of municipalities for the negligent acts or omissions of its officers or agents, does not, on the other hand, furnish ground for the application of constitutional restraints against the State in favor of its own municipalities.[1629] Thus no contract rights are impaired by a statute removing a county seat, even though the former location was by law to be "permanent" when the citizens of the community had donated land and furnished bonds for the erection of public buildings.[1630] Likewise a statute changing the boundaries of a school district, giving to the new district the property within its limits which had belonged to the former district, and requiring the new district to assume the debts of the old district, does not impair the obligation of contracts.[1631] Nor was the contracts clause violated by State legislation authorizing State control over insolvent communities through a Municipal Finance Commission.[1632]

Public Offices.--On the same ground of public agency, neither appointment nor election to public office creates a contract in the sense of article I, section 10, whether as to tenure, or salary, or duties, all of which remain, so far as the Constitution of the United States is concerned, subject to legislative modification or outright repeal.[1633] Indeed there can be no such thing in this country as property in office, although the common law sustained a different view which sometimes found reflection in early cases.[1634] When, however, services have once been rendered, there arises an implied contract that they shall be compensated at the rate which was in force at the time they were rendered.[1635] Also, an express contract between the State and an individual for the performance of specific services falls within the protection of the Constitution. Thus a contract made by the governor pursuant to a statute authorizing the appointment of a commissioner to conduct, over a period of years, a geological, mineralogical, and agricultural survey of the State, for which a definite sum had been authorized, was held to have been impaired by repeal of the statute.[1636] But a resolution of a New Jersey local board of education reducing teachers' salaries for the school year 1933-1934, pursuant to an act of the legislature authorizing such action, was held not to impair the contract of a teacher who, having served three years, was by earlier legislation exempt from having his salary reduced except for inefficiency or misconduct.[1637] Similarly, it was held that an Illinois statute which reduced the annuity payable to retire teachers under an earlier act did not violate the contracts clause, since it had not been the intention of the earlier act to propose a contract but only to put into effect a general policy.[1638] On the other hand, the right of one, who had become a "permanent teacher" under the Indiana Teachers Tenure Act of 1927, to continued employment was held to be contractual and to have been impaired by the repeal in 1933 of the earlier act.[1639]

Revocable Privileges Versus "Contracts": Tax Exemptions.--From a different point of view, the Court has sought to distinguish between grants of privileges, whether to individuals or to corporations, which are contracts and those which are mere revocable licenses, although on account of the doctrine of presumed consideration mentioned earlier, this has not always been easy to do. In pursuance of the precedent set in New Jersey _v._ Wilson,[1640] the legislature of a State "may exempt particular parcels of property or the property of particular persons or corporations from taxation, either for a specified period or perpetually, or may limit the amount or rate of taxation, to which such property shall be subjected," and such an exemption is frequently a contract within the sense of the Constitution. Indeed this is always so when the immunity is conferred upon a corporation by the clear terms of its charter.[1641] When, on the other hand, an immunity of this sort springs from general law, its precise nature is more open to doubt, as a comparison of decisions will serve to illustrate.

In Piqua Branch of the State Bank _v._ Knoop,[1642] a closely divided Court held that a general banking law of the State of Ohio which provided that companies complying therewith and their stockholders should be exempt from all but certain taxes, was, as to a bank organized under it and its stockholders, a contract within the meaning of article I, section 10. "The provision was not," the Court said, "a legislative command nor a rule of taxation until changed, but a contract stipulating against any change, from the nature of the language used and the circumstances under which it was adopted."[1643] When, however, the State of Michigan pledged itself, by a general legislative act, not to tax any corporation, company, or individual undertaking to manufacture salt in the State from water there obtained by boring on property used for this purpose and, furthermore, to pay a bounty on the salt so manufactured, it was held not to have engaged itself within the constitutional sense. "General encouragements," said the Court, "held out to all persons indiscriminately, to engage in a particular trade or manufacture, whether such encouragement be in the shape of bounties or drawbacks, or other advantage, are always under the legislative control, and may be discontinued at any time."[1644] So far as exemption from taxation is concerned the difference between these two cases is obviously slight; but the later one is unquestionable authority for the proposition that legislative bounties are repealable at will.

Furthermore, exemptions from taxation have in certain cases been treated as gratuities repealable at will, even when conferred by specific legislative enactments. This would seem always to be the case when the beneficiaries were already in existence when the exemption was created and did nothing of a more positive nature to qualify for it than to continue in existence.[1645] Yet the cases are not always easy to explain in relation to each other, except in light of the fact that the Court's wider point of view has altered from time to time.[1646]

Vested Rights.--Lastly, the term "contracts" is used in the contracts clause in its popular sense of an agreement of minds. The clause therefore does not protect vested rights that are not referable to such an agreement between the State and an individual, such as the right to recovery under a judgment. The individual in question may have a case under the Fourteenth Amendment, but not one under article I, section 10.[1647]

Reservation of the Right to Alter and Repeal

So much for the meaning of the word "contract" when public grants are meant. It is next in order to consider four principles or doctrines whereby the Court has itself broken down the force of the Dartmouth College decision in great measure in favor of State legislative power. By the logic of the Dartmouth College decision itself the State may reserve in a corporate charter the right to "amend, alter, and repeal" the same, and such reservation becomes a part of the contract between the State and the incorporators, the obligation of which is accordingly not impaired by the exercise of the right.[1648] Later decisions recognize that the State may reserve the right to amend, alter, and repeal by general law, with the result of incorporating the reservation in all charters of subsequent date.[1649] There is, however, a difference between a reservation by a statute and one by constitutional provision. While the former may be repealed as to a subsequent charter by the specific terms thereof, the latter may not.[1650]

The Right to Reserve: When Limited.--Is the right which is reserved by a State to "amend" or "alter" a charter without restriction? When it is accompanied, as it generally is, by the right to "repeal," one would suppose that the answer to this question was self-evident. None the less, there are a number of judicial dicta to the effect that this power is not without limit, that it must be exercised reasonably and in good faith, and that the alterations made must be consistent with the scope and object of the grant, etc.[1651] Such utterances amount, apparently, to little more than an anchor to windward, for while some of the State courts have applied tests of this nature to the disallowance of legislation, it does not appear that the Supreme Court of the United States has ever done so.[1652]

Quite different is it with the distinction pointed out in the cases between the franchises and privileges which a corporation derives from its charter and the rights of property and contract which accrue to it in the course of its existence. Even the outright repeal of the former does not wipe out the latter or cause them to escheat to the State. The primary heirs of the defunct organization are its creditors; but whatever of value remains after their valid claims are met goes to the former shareholders.[1653] By the earlier weight of authority, on the other hand, persons who contract with companies whose charters are subject to legislative amendment or repeal do so at their own risk: any "such contracts made between individuals and the corporation do not vary or in any manner change or modify the relation between the State and the corporation in respect to the right of the State to alter, modify, or amend such a charter, * * *"[1654] But later holdings becloud this rule.[1655]

Corporations As Persons Subject To The Law.--But suppose the State neglects to reserve the right to amend, alter, or repeal--is it, then, without power to control its corporate creatures? By no means. Private corporations, like other private persons, are always presumed to be subject to the legislative power of the State; from which it follows that immunities conferred by charter are to be treated as exceptions to an otherwise controlling rule. This principle was recognized by Chief Justice Marshall in the case of Providence Bank _v._ Billings,[1656] in which he held that in the absence of express stipulation or reasonable implication to the contrary in its charter, the bank was subject to the taxing power of the State, notwithstanding that the power to tax is the power to destroy.

Corporations and the Police Power.--And of course the same principle is equally applicable to the exercise by the State of its police powers. Thus, in what was perhaps the leading case before the Civil War, the Supreme Court of Vermont held that the legislature of that State had the right, in furtherance of the public safety, to require chartered companies operating railways to fence in their tracks and provide cattle yards. In a matter of this nature, said the Court, corporations are on a level with individuals engaged in the same business, unless, from their charter, they can prove the contrary.[1657] Since then the rule has been applied many times in justification of State regulation of railroads,[1658] and even of the application of a State prohibition law to a company which had been chartered expressly to manufacture beer.[1659]

The Strict Construction of Public Grants

Long, however, before the cases last cited were decided, the principle which they illustrate had come to be powerfully reinforced by two others, the first of which is that all charter privileges and immunities are to be strictly construed as against the claims of the State; or as it is otherwise often phrased, "nothing passes by implication in a public grant."

The Charles River Bridge Case.--The leading case is that of the Charles River Bridge Company _v._ Warren Bridge Company,[1660] which was decided shortly after Chief Justice Marshall's death by a substantially new Court. The question at issue was whether the charter of the complaining company, which authorized it to operate a toll bridge, stood in the way of the State's permitting another company of later date to operate a free bridge in the immediate vicinity. Inasmuch as the first company could point to no clause in its charter which specifically vested it with an exclusive right, the Court held the charter of the second company to be valid on the principle just stated. Justice Story, who remained from the old Bench, presented a vigorous dissent, in which he argued cogently, but unavailingly, that the monopoly claimed by the Charles River Bridge Company was fully as reasonable an implication from the terms of its charter and the circumstances surrounding its concession as perpetuity had been from the terms of the Dartmouth College charter and the environing transaction.

The Court was in fact making new law, because it was looking at things from a new point of view. This was the period when judicial recognition of the Police Power began to take on a doctrinal character. It was also the period when the railroad business was just beginning. Chief Justice Taney's opinion evinces the influence of both these developments. The power of the State to provide for its own internal happiness and prosperity was not, he asserted, to be pared away by mere legal intendments; nor was its ability to avail itself of the lights of modern science to be frustrated by obsolete interests such as those of the old turnpike companies, the charter privileges of which, he apprehended, might easily become a bar to the development of transportation along new lines.[1661]

Applications of the Strict Construction Rule.--The rule of strict construction has been reiterated by the Court many times. A good illustration is afforded by the following passage from its opinion in Blair _v._ Chicago,[1662] decided nearly seventy years after the Charles River Bridge Case: "Legislative grants of this character should be in such unequivocal form of expression that the legislative mind may be distinctly impressed with their character and import, in order that the privileges may be intelligently granted or purposely withheld. It is a matter of common knowledge that grants of this character are usually prepared by those interested in them, and submitted to the legislature with a view to obtain from such bodies the most liberal grant of privileges which they are willing to give. This is one among many reasons why they are to be strictly construed. * * * 'The principle is this, that all rights which are asserted against the State must be clearly defined, and not raised by inference or presumption; and if the charter is silent about a power, it does not exist. If, on a fair reading of the instrument, reasonable doubts arise as to the proper interpretation to be given to it, those doubts are to be solved in favor of the State; and where it is susceptible of two meanings, the one restricting and the other extending the powers of the corporation, that construction is to be adopted which works the least harm to the State.'"[1663]

Strict Construction of Tax Exemptions.--An excellent illustration of the operation of the rule in relation to tax exemptions is furnished by the derivative doctrine that an immunity of this character must be deemed as intended solely for the benefit of the corporation receiving it and hence may not, in the absence of express permission by the State, be passed on to a successor.[1664] Thus, where two companies, each exempt from taxation, were permitted by the legislature to consolidate the new corporation was held to be subject to taxation.[1665] Again, a statute which granted a corporation all "the rights and privileges" of an earlier corporation was held not to confer the latter's "immunity" from taxation.[1666] Yet again, a legislative authorization of the transfer by one corporation to another of the former's "estate, property, right, privileges, and franchises" was held not to clothe the later company with the earlier one's exemption from taxation.[1667]

Furthermore, an exemption from taxation is to be strictly construed even in the hands of one clearly entitled to it. So the exemption conferred by its charter on a railway company was held not to extend to branch roads constructed by it under a later statute.[1668] Also, a general exemption of the property of a corporation from taxation was held to refer only to the property actually employed in its business.[1669] Also, the charter exemption of the capital stock of a railroad from taxation "for ten years after completion of the said road" was held not to become operative until the completion of the road.[1670] So also the exemption of the campus and endowment fund of a college was held to leave other lands of the college, though a part of its endowment, subject to taxation.[1671] Likewise, provisions in a statute that bonds of the State and its political subdivisions are not to be taxed and shall not be taxed were held not to exempt interest on them from taxation as income of the owners.[1672]

Strict Construction and the Police Power.--The police power, too, has frequently benefited from the doctrine of strict construction, although, for a reason pointed out below, this recourse is today seldom, if ever, necessary in this connection. Some of the more striking cases may be briefly summarized. The provision in the charter of a railway company permitting it to set reasonable charges still left the legislature free to determine what charges were reasonable.[1673] On the other hand, when a railway agreed to accept certain rates for a specified period, it thereby foreclosed the question of the reasonableness of such rates.[1674] The grant to a company of the right to supply a city with water for twenty-five years was held not to prevent a similar concession to another company by the same city.[1675] The promise by a city in the charter of a water company not to make a similar grant to any other person or corporation was held not to prevent the city itself from engaging in the business.[1676] A municipal concession to a water company which was to run for thirty years and which was accompanied by the provision that the "said company shall charge the following rates," was held not to prevent the city from reducing such rates.[1677] But more broadly, the grant to a municipality of the power to regulate the charges of public service companies was held not to bestow the right to contract away this power.[1678] Indeed, any claim by a private corporation that it received the rate-making power from a municipality must survive a two-fold challenge: first, as to the right of the municipality under its charter to make such a grant; secondly, as to whether it has actually done so; and in both respects an affirmative answer must be based on express words and not on implication.[1679]

The Doctrine of Inalienable State Powers

The second of the doctrines mentioned above whereby the principle of the subordination of all persons, corporate and individual alike, to the legislative power of the State has been fortified, is the doctrine that certain of the State's powers are inalienable, and that any attempt by a State to alienate them, upon any consideration whatsoever, is _ipso facto_ void, and hence incapable of producing a "contract" within the meaning of article I, section 10. One of the earliest cases to assert this principle occurred in New York in 1826. The corporation of the City of New York, having conveyed certain lands for the purposes of a church and cemetery together with a covenant for quiet enjoyment, later passed a by-law forbidding their use as a cemetery. In denying an action against the city for breach of covenant, the State court said the defendants "had no power as a party, [to the covenant] to make a contract which should control or embarrass their legislative powers and duties."[1680]

The Eminent Domain Power Inalienable.--The Supreme Court first applied similar doctrine in 1848 in a case involving a grant of exclusive right to construct a bridge at a specified locality. Sustaining the right of the State of Vermont to make a new grant to a competing company, the Court held that the obligation of the earlier exclusive grant was sufficiently recognized in making just compensation for it; and that corporate franchises, like all other forms of property, are subject to the overruling power of eminent domain.[1681] This reasoning was reinforced by an appeal to the theory of State sovereignty, which was held to involve the corollary of the inalienability of all the principal powers of a State.

The subordination of all charter rights and privileges to the power of eminent domain has been maintained by the Court ever since; not even an explicit agreement by the State to forego the exercise of the power will avail against it.[1682] Conversely, the State may revoke an improvident grant of the public petitionary without recourse to the power of eminent domain, such a grant being inherently beyond the power of the State to make. So when the legislature of Illinois in 1869 devised to the Illinois Central Railroad Company, its successors and assigns, the State's right and title to nearly a thousand acres of submerged land under Lake Michigan along the harbor front of Chicago, and four years later sought to repeal the grant, the Court, in a four-to-three decision, sustained an action by the State to recover the lands in question. Said Justice Field, speaking for the majority: "Such abdication is not consistent with the exercise of that trust which requires the government of the State to preserve such waters for the use of public. The trust devolving upon the State for the public, and which can only be discharged by the management and control of property in which the public has an interest, cannot be relinquished by a transfer of the property. * * * Any grant of the kind is necessarily revocable, and the exercise of the trust by which the property was held by the State can be resumed at any time."[1683] The case affords an interesting commentary on Fletcher _v._ Peck.[1684]

The Taxing Power Not Inalienable.--On the other hand, repeated endeavors to subject tax exemptions to the doctrine of inalienability though at times supported by powerful minorities on the Bench, have always failed.[1685] As recently as January, 1952, the Court ruled that the Georgia Railway Company was entitled to seek an injunction in the federal courts against an attempt by Georgia's Revenue Commission to compel it to pay _ad valorem_ taxes contrary to the terms of its special charter issued in 1833. To the argument that this was a suit contrary to the Eleventh Amendment it returned the answer that the immunity from Federal jurisdiction created by the Amendment "does not extend to individuals who act as officers without constitutional authority."[1686]

The Police Power; When Inalienable.--The leading case involving the police power is Stone _v._ Mississippi, 101 U.S. 814, decided in 1880. In 1867 the legislature of Mississippi chartered a company to which it expressly granted the power to conduct a lottery. Two years later the State adopted a new Constitution which contained a provision forbidding lotteries; and a year later the legislature passed an act to put this provision into effect. In upholding this act and the constitutional provision on which it was based, the Court said: "The power of governing is a trust committed by the people to the government, no part of which can be granted away. The people, in their sovereign capacity, have established their agencies for the preservation of the public health and the public morals, and the protection of public and private rights," and these agencies can neither give away nor sell their discretion. All that one can get by a charter permitting the business of conducting a lottery "is suspension of certain governmental rights in his favor, subject to withdrawal at will."[1687]