Ogden vs. Saunders.

of discharge under any other law would not be acknowledged as valid, even in the courts of the State in which the court of the United States that grants it is held. Where is the reciprocity? Where the reason upon which the State courts can thus exercise a power over the suitors of that court, when that court possesses no such power over the suitors of the State courts?

In fact, the constitution takes away the only ground upon which this eminent dominion over particular contracts can be claimed, which is that of sovereignty. For the constitutional suitors in the courts of the United States are not only exempted from the necessity of resorting to the State tribunals, but actually cannot be forced into them. If, then, the law of the English courts had ever been practically adopted in this country in the State tribunals, the constitution has produced such a radical modification of State power over even their own contracts, in the hands of individuals not subject to their jurisdiction, as to furnish ground for excepting the rights of such individuals from the power which the States unquestionably possess over their own contracts and their own citizens.

Follow out the contrary doctrine in its consequences, and see the absurdity it will produce.

The constitution has constituted courts professedly independent of State power in their judicial courts; and yet the judgments of those courts are to be vacated, and their prisoners set at large, under the power of the State courts or of the State laws, without the possibility of protecting themselves from its exercise.

I cannot acquiesce in an incompatibility so obvious.

No one has ever imagined that a prisoner, in confinement under process from the courts of the United States, could avail himself of the insolvent laws of the State in which the court sits. And the reason is, that those laws are municipal and peculiar, and appertaining exclusively to the exercise of State power in that sphere in which it is sovereign; that is, between its own citizens, between suitors subjected to State power exclusively in their controversies between themselves.

In the courts of the United States, no higher power is asserted than that of discharging the individual in confinement under its own process. This affects not to interfere with the rights of creditors in the State courts against the same individual. Perfect reciprocity would seem to indicate that no greater power should

Ogden vs. Saunders.

be exercised under State authority over the rights of suitors who belong to the United States jurisdiction. Even although the principle asserted in the British courts, of supreme and exclusive power over their own contracts, had obtained in the courts of the United States, I must think that power has undergone a radical modification by the judicial powers granted to the United States.

I, therefore, consider the discharge under a State law, as incompetent to discharge a debt due a citizen of another State; and it follows, that the plea of a discharge here set up, is insufficient to bar the rights of the plaintiff.

It becomes necessary, therefore, to consider the other errors assigned in behalf of the defendant; and first, as to the plea of the act of limitations.

The statute pleaded here is not the act of Louisiana, but that of New York; and the question is not raised by the facts or averments, whether he could avail himself of that law if the full time had run out before his departure from New York, as was supposed in argument. The plea is obviously founded on the idea, that the statute of the State of the contract was generally pleadable in any other State, a doctrine that will not bear argu

ment.

The remaining error assigned has regard to the sum for which the judgment is entered, it being for a greater amount than the nominal amount of the bills of exchange on which the suit was brought, and which are found by the verdict.

There has been a defect of explanation on this subject; but, from the best information afforded us, we consider the amount for which judgment is entered, as made up of principal, interest, and damages, and the latter as being legally incident to the finding of the bills of exchange, and their non-payment, and assessed by the Court under a local practice consonant with that by which the amount of written contracts is determined, by reference to the prothonotary, in many other of our courts. We, therefore, see no error in it. The judgment below will, therefore, be affirmed.

And the purport of this adjudication, as I understand it, is, that as between citizens of the same State, a discharge of a bankrupt by the laws of that State is valid as it affects posterior contracts; as against creditors, citizens of other States, it is invalid as to all contracts.

Ogden vs. Saunders.

The propositions which I have endeavored to maintain in the opinion which I have delivered, are these:

1st. That the power given to the United States to pass bankrupt laws is not exclusive.

2d. That the fair and ordinary exercise of that power by the States does not necessarily involve a violation of the obligation of contracts, multo fortiori of posterior contracts.

3d. But when, in the exercise of that power, the States pass beyond their own limits, and the rights of their own citizens, and act upon the rights of citizens of other States, there arise a conflict of sovereign power, and a collision with the judicial powers granted to the United States, which renders the exercise of such a power incompatible with the rights of other States, and with the constitution of the United States.

MR. JUSTICE WASHINGTON, MR. JUSTICE THOMPSON, and MR. JUSTICE TRIMBLE, dissented.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL, MR. JUSTICE DUVALL, and MR. JUSTICE STORY, assented to the judgment, which was entered for the defendant in error.

Judgment affirmed.

LAWS IMPAIRING THE OBLIGATION OF CONTRACTS.

BRONSON US. KINZIE ET AL.*

Validity of Stay-laws.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case comes before the Court upon a division of opinion in the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Illinois, upon certain questions which arose in the case, and which have been certified to this Court according to the act of Congress.

It appears from the record, that, on the 13th of July, 1838, John H. Kinzie executed a bond to Arthur Bronson, conditioned for the payment of $4000, on the 1st of July, 1842, with interest thereon, to be paid semi-annually; and, in order to secure the payment of the said sum of money and interest, Kinzie and wife, on the same day, conveyed to the said Bronson, in fee simple, by way of mortgage, one undivided half part of certain houses and lots in the town of Chicago, with the usual proviso that the deed should be null and void if the said principal and interest were duly paid; and Kinzie, among other things, covenanted that, if default should be made in the payment of the principal or interest, or any part thereof, it should be lawful for Bronson or his representatives to enter upon and sell the mortgaged premises at public auction, and, as attorney of Kinzie and wife, to convey the same to the purchaser; and out of the moneys arising from such sale, to retain the amount that might then be due him on the aforesaid bond, with the costs and charges of sale, rendering the overplus, if any, to Kinzie.

The interest not having been paid, Bronson, on the 27th of March, 1841, filed his bill to foreclose the mortgage. In the meantime, after the mortgage was made, and before the bill was filed, the Legislature of Illinois, on the 19th of February, 1841,

Howard's Rep. 111.

Bronson vs. Kinzie et al.

passed a law, the 8th section of which provided that mortgagors and judgment creditors should have the same right to redeem mortgaged premises sold by the decree of a Court of Chancery, that had been given to the debtors and judgment creditors by a previous law passed in 1825, in cases where lands were sold under execution. The law of 1825 authorized the party whose lands should be sold by execution, after that law took effect, to redeem them within twelve months from the day of sale, by repaying the purchase-money with interest at the rate of 10 per cent.; and if the debtor did not redeem it within the time limited, any judgment creditor was authorized to do so upon the like terms, within fifteen months from the sale. This act, which took effect on the 1st of May, 1825, was held, it seems, not to extend to sales of mortgaged premises under a decree of foreclosure; and the act of February 19, 1841, above mentioned, was passed to embrace them.

By another act of the Legislature of Illinois, approved the 27th of February, 1841, it was directed that, "when any execu tion should be issued out of any of the courts of the State, and be levied on any property, real or personal, or both, it should be the duty of the officer levying such execution to summon three householders of the proper county, one of whom should be chosen by such officer, one by the plaintiff, and one by the defendant in the execution; or, in default of the parties making such choice, the officer should choose for them; which householders, after being duly sworn by such officer so to do, should fairly and impartially value the property upon which such execution was levied, having reference to its cash value; and that they should endorse the valuation thereof upon the execution, or upon a piece of paper thereunto attached, signed by them; and when such property should be offered for sale, it should not be struck off, unless two-thirds of the amount of such valuation should be bid therefor." It further provided, among other things, that all sales of mortgaged property should be made according to the provisions of that act, whether the foreclosure of said mortgage was by judgment at law or decree in chancery. It also directed that the provisions of this law should extend to all judgments rendered prior to the 1st of May, 1841, and to all judgments that might be rendered on any contract or cause of action accruing prior to that day, and not to any other judgments than as before specified. These are, in substance, the provisions