adopted as the measure of the recovery instead of the express terms of the contract." In a suit to enforce a lien for unpaid purchasemoney of real estate sold during the war, for which a note was given payable in dollars, but made with reference to Confederate notes: Held, that a decision that the plaintiff was entitled to recover the value of the land at the time of sale, instead of the value of Confederate notes at that time, was erroneous. Rives v. Duke, 105 U. S. 132; Wil. & W. R. R. v. King, 91 U. S. 3.— Effinger v. Kenney, 115 U. S. 566.

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT

TATIONS.

"It may, therefore, very well be held that, in an action to recover real or personal property, where the question is as to the removal of the bar of the statute of limitations by a legislative act passed after the bar has become perfect, such act deprives the party of his property without due process of law. The reason is, that, by the law in existence before the repealing act, the property had become the defendant's. Both the legal title and the real ownership had become vested in him, and to give the act the effect of transferring this title to plaintiff, would be to deprive him of his property without due process of law. But we are of opinion that to remove the bar which the statute of limitations enables a debtor to interpose to prevent the payment of his debt stands on a very different ground."

"It is much insisted that their right to defence is a vested right, and a right of property which is protected by the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.

"It is to be observed that the word vested right is nowhere used in the Constitution, neither in the original instrument nor in any of the amendments to it.

"We understand very well what is meant by a vested right to real estate, to personal property, or to incorporeal hereditaments. But when we get beyond this, although vested rights may exist, they are better described by some more exact term, as the phrase itself is not one found in the Constitution.

"We certainly do not understand that a right to defeat a just debt by the statute of limitations is a vested right, so as to be beyond legislative power in a proper case. The statutes of limitations are founded in public needs and public policy; are arbitrary enactments of the law-making power. Tioga Railroad v. Blossburg & Corning Railroad, 20 Wall. 137. And other statutes, shortening the period or making it longer, which is necessary to its operation, have

always been held to be within the legislative power until the bar is complete. The right does not enter into or become a part of the contract. No man promises to pay money with any view to being released from that obligation by lapse of time. It violates no right of his, therefore, when the legislature says, time shall be no bar, though such was the law when the contract was made." Foster et al. v. The Essex Bank, 16 Mass. 245.

We are unable to see how a man can be said to have property in the bar of the statute as a defence to his promise to pay. In the most liberal extension of the use of the word property, to choses in action, to incorporeal rights, it is new to call the defence of lapse of time to the obligation to pay money, property. It is no natural right. It is the creation of conventional law.

We can understand a right to enforce the payment of a lawful debt. The Constitution says that no "state shall pass any law impairing this obligation. But we do not understand the right to satisfy that obligation by a protracted failure to pay. We can see no right which the promisor has in the law which permits him to plead lapse of time instead of payment, which shall prevent the legislature from repealing that law, because its effect is to make him fulfil his honest obligations." Bender v. Crawford, 33 Texas, 745, and other Texas cases cited. Opinion by Miller, J. Bradley and Harlan, JJ., dissent.

sense.

Opinion by Bradley, J. "When the statute of limitations gives a man a defence to an action and that defence has absolutely accrued, he has a right which is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from legislative aggression. The words life, liberty, and property, are constitutional terms, and are to be taken in their broadest The term 'property' in this clause embraces all interests which a man may possess outside of himself, that is to say, outside of his life and liberty. It is not confined to mere tangible property, but extends to every species of vested right. It would be a very narrow and technical construction to hold otherwise. A very large proportion of the property of individuals is not visible and tangible, but consists in rights and claims against others. An exemption from a demand, or an immunity from prosecution in a suit, is as valuable to the one party as the right to the demand or to prosecute the suit is to the other. The two things are correlative, and to say that the one is protected by constitutional guaranties and that the other is not, seems to me to be almost an absurdity. One right is as valuable as the other. Remedies are the life of rights, and are

equally protected by the Constitution." (The dissenting opinion is very vigorous and interesting). Campbell v. Holt, 115 U. S. 620. RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. The rule of Packet Co. v. Keokuk, 95 U. S. 80; Penniman's case, 103 U. S. 714, 717; Unity v. Burrage, 103 U. S. 459, "that statutes that are constitutional in part only will be upheld so far as they are not in conflict with the Constitution, provided the allowed and prohibited parts are separable."

Indictment against Presser is based on §§ 5 and 6 of art. XI. of the Military Code of Illinois.

Held, that the said sections are not in violation of the Second Amendment, nor of the Fourteenth Amendment, sec. 1.

The question of the constitutional right to bear arms is examined at length by Mr. Justice Woods. — Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252. LICENSE TAX-IMPAIRING OBLIGATIONS OF CONTRACTS.

A statute of Virginia required every attorney at law to obtain a revenue license, for which he was obliged to pay from $15 to $25. In payment of this fee, Royall tendered ten dollars and seventy-five cents in United States money, and a coupon for $15 cut from a bond of the State of Virginia, issued under the Act of the General Assembly of March 30, 1871.

Opinion by Matthews, J. The decisions of Antoni v. Wright, 22 Gratt. 833; Wise v. Rogers, 24 Gratt. 169; Clarke v. Tyler, 30 Gratt. 134; Hartman v. Greenhow, 102 U. S. 672; Antoni v. Greenhow, 107 U. S. 769; Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 270, affirmed.

"tax"

Held, also, that the payment required in this case was a within the meaning of the Act of 1871. Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418; Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275.

"The State of Virginia has sued the defendant for the recovery of a tax which he offered to pay, when it became due, in its own coupons, which, by the law of its contract, were receivable in satisfaction of the demand. Certainly the state cannot be permitted to recover against its own contract from the other contracting party, as to whom the only default alleged is that he has performed the contract on his part." - Royall v. Virginia, 116 U. S. 572.

EXPORTS, TAXES ON- REGULATION OF COMMERCE. "Goods intended for exportation to another state are liable to taxation as part of the general mass of property in the state of their origin, until actually started in course of transportation to the state of their destination, or delivered to a common carrier for that purpose, pro

vided they are taxed in the usual way in which such property is taxed, and not taxed by reason or because of such exportation, or intended exportation; the carrying of them to and depositing them at a depot for the purpose of transportation is no part of that transportation."

Bradley, J., in giving the opinion in Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, says in substance: The question is whether the products of a state are liable to be taxed like other property within the state, though intended for exportation to another state, and partially prepared for that purpose, by being deposited at a place of shipment, such products being owned by persons residing in another state.

Property cannot be exempt from taxation by reason of being owned by non-residents of the state. A state has jurisdiction of all persons and things within its territory which do not belong to some other jurisdiction, such as the representatives of foreign governments, with their houses and effects, and property belonging to or in the use of the government of the United States.

Does the owner's state of mind in relation to the goods, i. e. his intent to export them, and his partial preparation to do so, exempt them from taxation?

Logs cut in the State of Maine, and detained while in the course of transportation through New Hampshire by low water or other causes, are already in the course of commercial transportation, and are clearly under the protection of the Constitution.

So would the goods in question be when actually started in the course of transportation to another state, or delivered to a carrier for such transportation. There must be a point of time when they cease to be governed exclusively by the domestic law, and begin to be governed and protected by the national law of commercial regulation, and that moment seems to us to be a legitimate one for this purpose, in which they commence their final movement for transportation from the state of their origin to that of their destination. When the products of the farm or the forest are collected and brought in from the surrounding country to a station or town serving as an entrepot for that particular region, whether on a river or a line of railroad, such products are not yet exports, nor are they in process of exportation, nor is exportation begun until they are committed to the common carrier for transportation out of the state to the state of their destination, or have started on their ultimate passage to that state. Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622.

No definite rule has been adopted with regard to the point of time at which the taxing power of the state ceases as to goods exported to a foreign country or to another state.

The true rule is that the products of one state intended for exportation to another state do not cease to be part of the general mass of property in the state, subject, as such, to its jurisdiction, and to taxation in the usual way, until they have been shipped, or entered with a common carrier for transportation to another state, or have been started upon such transportation in a continuous route or journey.

It seems to us untenable to hold that a crop or herd is exempt from taxation merely because it is, by its owner, intended for exportation.

As long as wheat, corn, and cotton are on the lands which produce them, they are part of the general property of the state. And so they continue to be until they have entered upon their final journeys for leaving the state and going into another state.

The carrying of products in carts, or even floating them, to the depot where the journey is to commence, is no part of that journey. That is all preliminary work, performed for the purpose of putting the property in a state of preparation and readiness for transportation.

Until actually launched on its way to another state, or committed to a common carrier for transportation to such state, its destination is not fixed and certain.

The logs taxed in this case in New Hampshire were cut in that state, and had not when taxed been shipped, or started, or their final voyage, or journey, to the State of Maine. They had only been drawn from Wentworth's Location to Errol, the place from which they were to be transported to Lewiston in the State of Maine. They come precisely within the character of property which according to the principles here laid down is taxable. And see Turpin v. Burgess, 117 U. S. 504.

REGULATION OF COMMERCE. -A tax imposed by a statute of a state upon an occupation which necessarily discriminates against the introduction and sale of the products of another state, or against the citizens of another state, is repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.

The police power of a state, to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors and preserve the public health and morals, does not warrant the enactment of laws infringing positive enactments, provisions of the Constitution of the United States.