Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/654

638 States, as they were before. They provide rules of civil conduct for every individual who is subject to their power. Ibid.

153. With respect to rules of practice for transacting the business of the courts, a different principle prevails. These rules form the law of the court; and it is, in relation to the federal courts, a law arising under the Constitution of the United States, consequently not subject to state regulations. It is in reference to this principle that the 17th section of the judicial act authorizes the courts of the United States to make all necessary rules for the orderly conducting of business in the said courts, provided the same are not repugnant to the laws of the United States; and under this power the different Circuit Courts, at their first session, adopted the state practice as it then existed, which continues to this day in all the states, except so far as the courts have thought proper, from tune to time, to alter or amend it. Ibid.

154. A law may be unconstitutional, and of course void, in relation to particular cases, and yet valid, to all intents and purposes, in its application to other cases within the scope of its provisions, but varying from the former in particular circumstances. Thus a law prospective in its operation, under which a contract afterwards made may be avoided in a way different from that provided by the parties, would be clearly constitutional; because the stipulations of the parties, which are inconsistent with such a law, never had a legal existence, and of course could not be impaired by the law. But if the law act retrospectively as to other contracts, so as to impair their obligation, the law is invalid, or, in milder terms, affords no rule of decision in these latter cases. Ibid.

155. A law of a state, which declares that a debtor, by delivering up his estate for the benefit of his creditors, shall be forever discharged from the payment of his debts, due or contracted before the passage of the law, whether the creditor do any act or not in aid of the law, cannot be set up to bar the right of such creditor to recover his debt either in a federal or state court; such law impairs the obligation of the contract. Ibid.

156. A law which authorizes the discharge of a contract by a smaller sum, or at a different time, or in a different manner, than the parties have stipulated, impairs its obligation, by substituting, for the contract of the parties, one which they never entered into, and to the performance of which, of course, they never had consented. Ibid.

157. A state law, directing that the court before whom an insolvent debtor is discharged, shall make an order, that whenever a majority of the creditors shall consent, the debtor shall be released, and his future acquisitions exempted from all liability for seven years, is unconstitutional and void. United States v. Kederickson, C. C. U. S. P. Oct. 1821. M. S.

158. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States which forbids Congress to pass laws violating the obligation of contracts, though such power is denied to the states individually. Evans v. Eaton, 1 Peters's C. C. R. 322.

159. If the local ordinances of a city are in collision with an act of Congress, the former must give way. The laws of Congress, made in pursuance of the Constitution of the United States, are the supreme laws of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of the particular state notwithstanding. United States v. Hart, 1 Peters's C. C. R. 390.

160. An act of Congress, laying an embargo for an indefinite period of time, is constitutional and valid. United Slates v. The William, 2 Hall's Am. L. Journ. 255.

161. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States which forbids the legislature of a state to exercise judicial functions. Satterlee v. Mathewson, Peters's Reports, vol. ii. 413.

162. There is no part of the Constitution of the United States, which applies to a state law, which divested rights vested by law in an individual, provided its effect be not to impair the obligation of the contract. Ibid. 413.

163. A tax imposed by a law of any state of the United States or under the authority of such a law, on stock issued for loans made the United States, is unconstitutional. Weston et Al. v. The City Council of Charleston, Ibid. 449.

164. It is not the want of original power in an independent sovereign state to prohibit loans to a foreign government, which restrains the state legislature