or recognized to enforce it; for the maxim is ex nudo pacto non oritur actio. But, when it does not fall within the predicament of being either illegal or void, its obligatory force is coextensive with its stipulations." 1

Such being the obligation of a contract, it is obvious that the rights of the parties in respect to it are liable to be affected in many ways by changes in the laws, which it could not have been the intention of the constitutional provision to preclude. "There are few laws which concern the general police of a State, or the government of its citizens, in their intercourse with each other or with strangers, which may not in some way or other affect the contracts which they have entered into or may thereafter form. For what are laws of evidence, or which concern remedies, frauds, and perjuries, laws of registration, and those which affect landlord and tenant, sales at auction, acts of limitation, and those which limit the fees of professional men, and the charges of tavern keepers, and a multitude of others which crowd the codes of every State, but laws which affect the validity, construction, or duration, or discharge of contracts?"2 But the changes in these laws are not regarded as necessarily affecting the obligation of contracts. Whatever belongs merely to the remedy, may be altered according to the will of the State, provided the alteration does not impair the obligation of the contract; and it does not impair it, provided it leaves the parties a substantial remedy, according to the course of justice as it existed at the time the contract was made.4

1 Story on Const. § 1380. Slave contracts, which were legal when made, are not rendered invalid by the abolition of slavery; nor can the States make them void by their constitutions, or deny remedies for their enforcement. White v. Hart, 13 Wall. 649; Osborn v. Nicholson, 13 Wall. 653; Jacaway v. Denton, 25 Ark. 641. An act of indemnity held not to relieve a sheriff from his obligation on his official bond to account for moneys which had been paid away under military compulsion. State v. Gatzweiler, 49 Mo. 17; s. c. 8 Am. Rep. 119.

2 Washington, J., in Ogden v.

Saunders, 12 Wheat. 259. As to the indirect modification of contracts by the operation of police laws, see post, pp. *574-*584. The taxing power conferred upon a municipal corporation is not a contract between it and the State. Richmond v. Richmond, &c. R. R. Co., 21 Grat. 611.

8 Bronson v. Kinzie, 1 How. 316, per Taney, Ch. J.

4 Stocking v. Hunt, 3 Denio, 274; Van Baumbach v. Bade, 9 Wis. 578; Bronson v. Kinzie, 1 How. 316; McCracken v. Hayward, 2 How. 608; Butler v. Palmer, 1 Hill, 324; Van Renselaer v. Snyder, 9 Barb. 302, and 13 N. Y. 299; Conkey v. Hart, 14

Changes in Remedies. It has accordingly been held [* 287] that laws changing remedies for the enforcement of legal contracts will be valid, even though the new remedy be less convenient than the old, or less prompt and speedy.1

"Without impairing the obligation of the contract, the remedy may certainly be modified as the wisdom of the nation shall direct." To take a strong instance; although the law at the time the contract is made permits the creditor to take the body of his debtor in execution, there can be no doubt of the right to abolish all laws for this purpose, leaving the creditor to his

remedy against property alone. "Confinement of the debtor may be a punishment for not performing his contract, or may be allowed as a means of inducing him to perform it. But the State may refuse to inflict this punishment, or may withhold this means, and leave the contract in full force. Imprisonment is no part of the contract, and simply to release the prisoner does not impair the obligation." 1 So the exemption laws of a State may be modified from time to time, and the modifications made applicable to existing contracts, provided the exemptions are not so increased as to impair and lessen the value of the contract itself. The State" may, if it thinks proper, direct that the necessary implements of agriculture, or the tools of the mechanic, or articles of necessity in household furniture, shall, like wearing apparel, not be liable to execution on judgments. Regulations of this description have always been considered, in every civilized community, as properly belonging to the remedy, to be

*

exercised or not, by every sovereignty, according to [* 288] its own views of policy and humanity. It must reside in every State to enable it to secure its citizens from unjust and harassing litigation, and to protect them in those pursuits which are necessary to the existence and wellbeing of every community."

1 Sturges v. Crowninshield,

"2

4

Wheat. 122, per Marshall, Ch. J.; Mason v. Haile, 12 Wheat. 370; Bronson v. Newberry, 2 Doug. (Mich.) 38; Maxey v. Loyal, 38 Geo. 531. A special act admitting a party imprisoned on a judgment for tort to take the poor debtors' oath was sustained in Matter of Nichols, 8 R. I. 50.

2 Bronson v. Kinzie, 1 How. 311, per Taney, Ch. J.; Rockwell v. Hubbell's Adm'rs, 2 Doug. (Mich.) 197; Quackenbush v. Danks, 1 Denio, 128, 3 Denio, 594, and 1 N. Y. 129; Morse v. Goold, 11 N. Y. 281; Sprecker v. Wakeley, 11 Wis. 432; Cusic v. Douglas, 3 Kan. 123; Maxey v. Loyal, 38 Geo. 531; Hardeman v. Downer, 39 Geo. 425; Hill v. Kessler, 63 N. C. 437; Farley v. Dowe, 45 Ala. 324; Sneider v. Heidelberger, 45 Ala. 126; In re Kennedy, 2 S. C. N. s. 216;

Gunn v. Barry, 44 Geo. 351. It has been decided that a homestead exemption may be made applicable to previously existing contracts. Hardeman v. Downer, 39 Geo. 425; Ladd v. Adams, 66 N. C. 164. Contra, Homestead Cases, 22 Grat. 266; Edwards v. Kearsey, 96 U. S. Rep. 595, which must be regarded as settling the question. And see Gunn v. Barry, 15 Wall. 622; Kibbey v. Jones, 7 Bush, 243; Kennedy v. Stacey, 57 Tenn. 220; Lessley v. Phipps, 49 Miss. 790. "Statutes pertaining to the remedy are merely such as relate to the course and form of proceedings, but do not affect the substance of a judgment when pronounced." Per Merrick, Ch. J., in Mortun v. Valentine, 15 La. Ann. 150. See Watson v. N. Y. Central R. R. Co., 47 N. Y. 157.

And laws which change the rules of evidence relate to the remedy only; and while, as we have elsewhere shown, such laws may, on general principles, be applied to existing causes of action, so, too, it is plain that they are not precluded from such application by the constitutional clause we are considering.1 And it has been held that the legislature may even take away a common-law remedy altogether, without substituting any in its place, if another and efficient remedy remains. Thus, a law abolishing distress for rent has been sustained as applicable to leases in force at its passage; 2 and it was also held that an express stipulation in the lease, that the lessor should have this remedy, would not prevent the legislature from abolishing it, because this was a subject concerning which it was not competent for the parties to contract in such manner as to bind the hands of the State. In the language of the court: "If this is a subject on which parties can contract, and if their contracts when made become by virtue of the Constitution of the United States superior to the power of the legislature, then it follows that whatever at any time exists as part of the machinery for the administration of justice may be perpetuated, if parties choose so to agree. That this can scarcely have been within the contemplation of the makers of the Constitution, and that if it prevail as law it will give rise to grave inconveniences, is quite obvious. Every such stipulation is in its own nature conditional upon the lawful continuance of

the process. The State is no party to their contract. [* 289] It is bound to afford adequate process for the enforcement of rights; but it has not tied its own hands as to the modes by which it will administer justice. Those from necessity belong to the supreme power to prescribe; and their continuance is not the subject of contract between private parties. In truth, it is not at all probable that the parties made their agreement with reference to the possible abolition of distress for rent. The first clause of this special provision is, that the lessor may distrain, sue, re-enter, or resort to any other legal remedy, and the second

1 Neass v. Mercer, 15 Barb. 318; Rich v. Flanders, 39 N. H. 304; Howard v. Moot, 64 N. Y. 262; post, pp. *367-*369. On this subject see the discussions in the federal courts, Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122; Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213;

Bronson v. Kinzie, 1 How. 311; Mc-
Cracken v. Hayward, 2 How. 608;
Curtis v. Whitney, 13 Wall. 68.

2 Van Rensselaer v. Synder, 9 Barb. 302, and 13 N. Y. 299; Guild v. Rogers, 8 Barb. 502; Conkey v. Hart, 14 N. Y. 22.

is, that in cases of distress the lessee waives the exemption of certain property from the process, which by law was exempted. This waiver of exemption was undoubtedly the substantial thing which the parties had in view; but yet perhaps their language cannot be confined to this object, and it may therefore be proper to consider the contract as if it had been their clear purpose to preserve their legal remedy, even if the legislature should think fit to abolish it. In that aspect of it the contract was a subject over which they had no control." 1

But a law which deprives a party of all legal remedy must necessarily be void. "If the legislature of the State were to undertake to make a law preventing the legal remedy upon a contract lawfully made, and binding on the party to it, there is no question that such legislature would, by such act, exceed its legitimate powers. Such an act must necessarily impair the obligation of the contract within the meaning of the Constitution."2 This has been held in regard to those cases in which it was sought to deprive certain classes of persons of the right to maintain suits, because of their having participated in rebellion against the government. And where a statute does not leave a party

1 Conkey v. Hart, 14 N. Y. 30; citing Handy v. Chatfield, 23 Wend. 35; Mason v. Haile, 12 Wheat. 370; Stocking v. Hunt, 3 Denio, 274; and Van Rensselaer v. Snyder, 13 N. Y. 299. See Briscoe v. Anketell, 28 Miss. 361.

2 Call v. Hagger, 8 Mass. 430. See Osborne v. Nicholson, 13 Wall. 662; U. S. v. Conway, Hempst. 313; Johnson v. Bond, Hempst. 533; West v. Sansom, 44 Geo. 295. See Griffin v. Wilcox, 21 Ind. 370; Penrose v. Erie Canal Co., 56 Penn. St. 46; Thompson v. Commonwealth, 81 Penn. St. 314; post, p. *361. An act withdrawing all the property of a debtor from the operation of legal process, leaving only a barren right to sue, is void. State v. Bank of South Carolina, 1 S. C. N. s. 63.

8 Rison v. Farr, 24 Ark. 161; McFarland v. Butler, 8 Minn. 116; Jackson v. Same, 8 Minn. 117. But there is nothing to preclude the people

of a State, in an amendment to their constitution, taking away rights of action, or other rights, so long as they abstain from impairing the obligation of contracts, and from imposing punishments. The power to do so has been exercised with a view to the quieting of controversies and the restoration of domestic peace after the late civil war. Thus, in Missouri and some other States, all rights of action for any thing done by the State or federal military authorities, during the war, were taken away by constitutional provision; and the authority to do this was fully supported. Drehman v. Stifel, 41 Mo. 184; s. c. in error, 8 Wall. 595. And see Hess v. Johnson, 3 W. Va. 645. A remedy may also be denied to a party until he has performed his duty to the State in respect to the demand in suit: e. g. paid the tax upon the debt sued for. Walker v. Whitehead, 43 Geo. 538; Garrett v. Cordell, 43 Geo. 366 ;