Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/276

 268 a party from imprisonment under a judgment upon a contract, though passed subsequently to the imprisonment, be an unconstitutional exercise of power; for it would leave the obligation of the contract undisturbed. The states still possess the rightful authority to abolish imprisonment for debt; and may apply it to present, as well as to future imprisonment.

§ 1393. Whether, indeed, independently of the constitution of the United States, the nature of republican and free governments does not necessarily impose some restraints upon the legislative power, has been much discussed. It seems to be the general opinion, fortified by a strong current of judicial opinion, that since the American revolution no state government can be presumed to possess the transcendental sovereignty, to take away vested rights of property; to take the property of A and transfer it to B by a mere legislative act. That government can scarcely be deemed to be free, where the rights of property are left solely dependent upon a legislative body, without any restraint. The fundamental maxims of a free government seem to require, that the rights of personal liberty, and private property, should be held sacred. At least, no court of justice, in this country, would be warranted in assuming, that any state legislature possessed a power to violate and disregard them; or that such a power, so repugnant to the common principles of justice and civil liberty, lurked under any general grant of legislative authority, or ought to be implied from any general expression of the will of the people, in the usual forms of the constitutional delegation of