Opinion ID: 1303466
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The nature and operation of the suspending act.

Text: This act was passed the 29th of March, 1788, and is as follows. (Here the Judge read the act at large.) This act was passed before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore is not affected by it. If the Legislature had authority to make the confirming act, they had, also, authority to suspend it. Their Constitutional power reached to both, or to neither. By the act of the 28th of March 1787, the commissioners were to ascertain and confirm the claims of the Connecticut settlers, upon the doing whereof the estate, if the law was Constitutional, would become vested in them. This has not been done; the claim in the present instance has not been ascertained and confirmed; and as this act suspends or revokes these ascertaining and confirming powers, it never can be done. Of course, there is an end of the business. The parties are placed on their original ground; they are restored to their pristine situation. IV. After the opinion delivered on the preceeding questions, it is not necessary to determine upon the validity of the repealing law. But it being my intention in this charge to decide upon all the material points in the cause, in order that the whole may, at once, be carried before the Supreme Judicature for revision, I shall detain you, gentlemen, a few mintutes only, while I just touch upon the Constitutionality of the repealing act. This act was passed the 1st of April 1790: The repealing part is as follows. (Here the Judge read the 1st and 2d sections of the act. See 2 Vol. Dall. Edit. Penn. Laws. p. 786.) This act was made after the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, and the argument is, that it is contrary to it:

1. That it is an ex post facto law. But what is the fact? If making a law be a fact within the words of the Constitution, then no law, when once made, can ever be repealed. Some of the Connecticut settlers presented their claims to the commissioners, who received and entered them. These are facts. But are they facts of any avail? Did they give any right or vest any estate? No  whether done or not done, they leave the parties just where they were. They create no interest, affect no title, change no property, when done they are useless and of no efficacy. Other acts were necessary to be performed, but before the performance of them, the law was suspended and then repealed. 2. It impairs the obligation of a contract, and is therefore void. If the property to the lands in question had been vested in the State of Pennsylvania, then the Legislature would have had the liberty and right of disposing or granting them to whom they pleased, at any time, and in any manner. Over public property they have a disposing and controlling power, over private property they have none, except, perhaps, in certain cases, and those under restrictions, and except also, what may arise from the enactment and operation of general laws respecting property, which will affect themselves as well as their constituents. But if the confirming act be a contract between the Legislature of Pennsylvania and the Connecticut settlers, it must be regulated by the rules and principles, which pervade and govern all cases of contracts; and if so, it is clearly void, because it tends, in its operation and consequences, to defraud the Pennsylvania claimants, who are third persons, of their just rights; rights ascertained, protected, and secured by the Constitution and known laws of the land. The plaintiff's title to the land in question, is legally derived from Pennsylvania; how then, on the principles of contract, could Pennsylvania lawfully dispose of it to another? As a contract, it could convey no right, without the owner's consent; without that, it was fraudulent and void. I shall close the discourse with a brief recapitulation of its leading points. 1. The confirming act is unconstitutional and void. It was invalid from the beginning, had no life or operation, and is precisely in the same state, as if it had not been made. If so, the plaintiff's title remains in full force. 2. If the confirming act is constitutional, the conditions of it have not been performed; and, therefore, the estate continues in the plaintiff.

The result is, that the plaintiff is, by law, entitled to recover the premises in question, and of course to your verdict. Verdict for the Plaintiff. []