The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-08-09

Itmdlueu IU udu Deon impaired Dy
the acts Of the legislature of New
Hampshire in question. The SUI
preme court of the United States,
(only one judge dissenting) decided
in the affirmative; and the deliber-
ate Judgment of many lawyers of our
day is that it decided every one of
them enormously.
SENsELESS DECISION.
In the first place, the charter of
the college was no contract at all.
Some benevolent nobleman and gen.
tleman had subscribed to a fund to
enlarge the school of DR.. WheelOck
from school for the instruction of
Indian youth into school for the in
struction of English-speaking youth;
and the king, moved merely by con-
siderations relating to the welfare Of
his subjects, as parens pdtri9, out of
his own special grace and mere mo-
ton, as the charter recites, and not
for anything which the corporators
gave him or agreed to do, granted to
them the charter. The reasons on
which this was held to be contract,
on which question the Jurisdiction
of the court depended, were slurred
over by che chief justice in few sem
fences, the substance of which was
that this was a grant, and that
grant, according to blackstone, diff
fered in nothing from contract.
He did not stop to analyze this die
tum of Blackstone. He did not want
to do it, for that would have defeat
the Jurisdiction of which he was
evidently so greedy.
A grant, in it's usual acceptation,
is merely gift under seal of land or
of incorporeal Entertainments. 1t is
gift of something which cannot
pass and be executed by delivery,
and which must therefore pass by the
executing and delivery of a deed. It
may or may not be contract. If it
has been patrchosed-if a consideration
has passed for it, if something is
agreed to be done for it, it is a con-
tract. If not, it is no contract.
Must | attempt to prove this to
body of lawyers? If begger meets
you in the street and solicits of you
a nickel, and you give him the nick
ell, that is not a contract; it is mere
ly an executed gift. So, if, by deed
of gift you make an advancement
to your son. that is no contract.
A gift is no contract, whether by
chettels executed by delivery, or of
land or incorporeal Entertainments
executed by the delivery of a deed;
an advancement is no contract; a
devise is no contract. You have a
law school in your State University
at Lawrence; but your professors do
not teach the students that an exc
cuted gift, oral or written, is a con-
tract. You have courts of justice in
Topeka; but no lawyer argues there
in that gift is contract. But it
was necessary to the enormous
seizure of jurisdiction made by the
Supreme Court of the United States
in the Dartmouth College case, for
court to hold that gift in the form
of grant under seal is a contract,
and they did not hesitate to decide
it, though without giving any law
yer-like reasons for their decision.
But the second proposition which
they encountered presented even
greater difficulty. The constitution
of the United States did not say that
no State should impair the effect OF
contracts, or divest rights vested
through contracts; those safeguards
of property rights were left to the
State constitutions: it said that no
state should impair the obligation of
contracts. Now what is the obliga-
tion of a contract? It is merely the
duty which either of the contracting
parties has assumed towards the
other for the consideration named.
This duty exists only so long as the
contract remains eTecutOry. When
the contract is performed on either
side the obligation of the contract
assumed by that contracting party
is discharged and is at an end. The
Federal constitution intended that
when man, by contract, has
agreed to pay money or do a certain
thing, and has not paid that money
or done that thing, the legislature
of the State shall not step in and
say that he shall be exOnerated from
paying that money or doing that
thing That was what it meant, and
that was all it meant That is all
that can be gathered from the mean
ing OF the words employed, and that
is all that can be discovered by the
language as interpreted by writer's in
the Federalist. 1t was aimed at pre-
venting the States from passing laws
which they were SO frequently pass
ing to relieve the distreSSes produced
nv the roVOlntiOn. St9V-19wC laws