[527]

plaintiff approved the responsibility of the guar-
antors and sent the contract to Watertown, N.
Y., to the plaintiff, which subsequently signed
it, and no notice having been given by the
plaintiff to the defendants of the acceptance of
such contract and guaranty, and that it intended
to furnish goods thereon and hold the defend-
ants responsible, the plaintiff cannot recover,
and the jury should find for the defendants."
A verdict was returned for the defendants,
and judgment rendered thereon, which on ex-
ceptions by the plaintiff was affirmed at the
general term, and the plaintiff sued out this
writ of error, pending which one of the de-
fendants died and his executor was summoned

in.

The decision of this case depends upon the application of the rules of law stated in the opinion in the recent case of Davis v. Wells, 104 U. S. 159 [Bk. 26, L. ed. 686], in which the earlier decisions of this court upon the subject are reviewed.

Those rules may be summed up as follows:
A contract of guaranty, like every other con-
tract, can only be made by the mutual assent
of the parties. If the guaranty is signed by the
guarantor at the request of the other party, or
if the latter's agreement to accept is contempo-
raneous with the guaranty, or if the receipt
from him of a valuable consideration, however
small, is acknowledged in the guaranty, the
mutual assent is proved, and the delivery of
the guaranty to him or for his use completes the
contract. But if the guaranty is signed by the
guarantor without any previous request of the
other party, and in his absence, for no consid-
eration moving between them except future ad-
vances to be made to the principal debtor, the
guaranty is, in legal effect, an offer or proposal
on the part of the guarantor, needing an ac-
ceptance by the other party to complete the con-
tract.

The case at bar belongs to the latter class.
There is no evidence of any request from the
plaintiff Corporation to the guarantors, or of
any consideration moving from it and received
or acknowledged by them at the time of their
signing the guaranty. The general words at
the beginning of the guaranty, "value received,"
without stating from whom, are quite as con-
sistent with a consideration received by the
guarantors from the principal debtor only. The
certificate of the sufficiency of the guarantors,
written by the plaintiff's attorney under the
guaranty, bears date two days later than the
guaranty itself. The plaintiff's original con-
tract with the principal debtor was not execut-
ed by the plaintiff until after that. The guar-
antors had no notice that their sufficiency had
been approved, or that their guaranty had been
accepted, or even that the original contract
had been executed or assented to by the plaint-
iff, until long afterwards, when payment was
demanded of them for goods supplied by the
plaintiff to the principal debtor.
Judgment affirmed.

True copy. Test:

CLAY COUNTY, IOWA, Piff. in Err.,

ข.

UNITED STATES, ex rel. HUGH MCAL-
EER, SR., AND HUGH MCALEER, JR.,
Admrs. of MICHAEL MCALEER, Deceased.
(See 8. C., "Clay Co. v. McAleer" Reporter's ed.,
616-619.)

Mandamus to compel tax levy—tax limit—cur-
rent expenses of county-pleading.

Upon a petition for a mandamus to compel the
levy of a tax for the payment of a judgment
against a county, the answer stated that the pro-
insufficient to meet the ordinary current expenses
ceeds of the maximum levy allowed by law were
of the county government. It is held, upon general
demurrer to the answer, that the petitioners are not
entitled to the writ.
[No. 66.]
Argued Nov. 18, 1885. Decided Dec. 7, 1885.

Mr. John Mitchell, for defendant in error.

Mr. Chief Justice Waite delivered the opinion of the court:

This record shows that Michael McAleer recovered a judgment on the 21st of October, 1864, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Iowa, against Clay County, for $9,172.50. Upon this judgment sundry payments have been made, but there still remains due more than $5,000. When the debt in judgment was contracted, the power of the county to levy a tax for ordinary county revenue was limited to four mills annually on the dollar of the assessed value of taxable property; afterwards this was increased to six mills, which is the authorized rate now. On the 2d of May, 1881, the administrators of the judgment creditor, he being dead, petitioned the circuit court for a mandamus directing the county "to set apart of the funds in their hands, and of the revenues collected and to be collected for and during the year 1881, and to pay over the same in an amount sufficient to satisfy said judgment, interest and costs, and, if the amount shall not be sufficient, that then the defendant be compelled to levy for the year 1882 an amount sufficient to pay the said judgment and interest and costs, and for such other relief as may be proper in the premises." The answer states that the full amount of taxes allowed by law for the ordinary revenue of the County was levied for the years 1880 and 1881, and that these levies were all required, and more too, for the proper maintenance of the County government. It is also stated that no part of the revenues for these years could have been devoted to the payment of the judgment "without seriously impairing the efficiency of said The answer concludes as folgovernment."

James H. McKenney, Clerk, Sup. Court, U. 8. Lows: "That the maximum levy for said pur

pose for the year 1882 will not be sufficient to pay
the ordinary current expenses of said county,
and that no part thereof can be applied for the
payment of said judgment without seriously
impairing the efficiency of said county govern-

[616]

[617]

[618]

[619]

ment." To this answer the relators demurred, | Lyons, supra, the municipal authorities had
and, upon the hearing, the court ordered that levied a tax of five mills only, when by the
the peremptory writ of mandamus issue com- charter they could have levied ten mills. In
manding the board of supervisors *** forth- this way they showed that the full tax was not
with to levy a tax of one mill on the dollar of needed for current purposes, and the court was
the assessed valuation of the property of said therefore free to require them to proceed with
Clay County*** for 1882, and to be collected the execution of the power which had been con-
with the taxes of the current year, 1882, and to ferred by law until the judgment creditor was
pay the same upon the judgment of relator, paid. But in Coffin v. Davenport, 26 Iowa, 515, the
and that they levy and collect, and pay over a same court held that "when the ordinary ex-
tax of one mill on the dollar each year until re- penses of carrying on the government of a
lator's judgment, interest and costs are fully municipal corporation require all the proceeds
paid." To reverse this judgment the present arising from a tax, which is the full limit the cor-
writ of error was brought.
poration is authorized to levy, it cannot be com-
pelled to apply a part of such fund to the pay.
ment of ajudgment held by a creditor against it.'
The case of Beaulieu v. Pleasant Hill, supra, is
to the same effect, for there the order was to
levy the special tax for the payment of the
judgment, unless it should be made to appear
upon a further return that the power had been
already exhausted, and that the fund raised had
been properly appropriated.

It is conceded "that the court cannot order the board of supervisors to levy a tax in excess of the amount provided by statute in a case like the one under consideration." Such was the effect of the decision of this court in United States v. Macon Co. 99 U. S. 582 [Bk. 25, L. ed. 331], and the courts of Iowa have uniformly held the same way. Coffin v. Davenport, 26 Iowa, 515; Polk v. Winnett, 37 Iowa, 34; Iowa R. R. Land Co. v. County of Sac, 39 Iowa, 134. It is claimed, however, that the court might properly order one mill of the six-mills tax authorized by law to be levied separately from the rest, and set apart specially for the payment of the judgment. It was said in Beaulieu v. Pleasant Hill, 4 McCrary, 554, that this might be done where the full levy was not required to defray the current expenses chargeable upon the ordinary revenue fund, and such is the effect of Coy v. City of Lyons, 17 Iowa, 1. But here the answer shows affirmatively that the whole of the six-mill levy of 1882 will not be sufficient to pay the ordinary current expenses of the County. No effort was made to have the answer more specific and certain, so as to show what the whole amount of the tax would be, and in what way it was to be expended, but the relators were content to go to a hearing upon a general demurrer to the answer as it stood. We must, therefore, assume the fact to be that a special tax cannot be levied to pay the judgment without embarrassing the County in the administration of its current affairs.

It was held in East St. Louis v. United States, 110 U. S. 321 [Bk. 28, L. ed. 162], decided since the judgment in this case below, that "the question what expenditures are proper and necessary for the municipal administration is not judicial; it is confided by law to the municipal authorities. No court has the right to control that discretion, much less to usurp or supersede it. To do so, in a single year, would require a revision of the details of every estimate and expenditure, based upon an inquiry into all branches of the municipal service; to do it for a series of years, and in advance, will be to attempt to foresee every contingency and provide against every contingency that may possibly arise to affect the public necessities." This, we think, disposes of the present controversy. It is true that was a case in which a bondholder was seeking payment out of the ordinary revenue fund after the special tax authorized by law to be levied for his benefit had been exhausted, but the balance due him was just as much a charge on the ordinary revenue fund as if there had been no other provision in his favor. United States v. Clark Co. 96 U. S. 211 [Bk. 24, L. ed. 628]. In Coy v. City of

It follows that the judgment of the court be-
low ordering the levy of a tax of one mill for
the benefit of the relators, upon the facts stated
in the answer and admitted by the demurrer,
was erroneous, and that it must be reversed.

The judgment is consequently reversed, and the
cause remanded for further proceedings according
to law.
True copy. Test:

James H. McKenney, Clerk, Sup. Court, U. s.

MOINA CAMPBELL, Admrx., and J. B. [620]
CAMPBELL, Admr. of the Estate of JOHN
STAMPS, Deceased, Plffs. in Err.,

V.

JAMES H. HOLT.

(See S. C., Reporter's ed., 620-634.)

Constitutional law-"due process of law"-
Statute of Limitations-extension after defense
has accrued.

1. The repeal of a statute of limitations does not
deprive a debtor in whose favor it had become a de-
in violation of the provisions of the Fourteenth
fense, of his property without due process of law,
Amendment.

2. There is a distinction between the effect of
personal property and their operation as a defense
statutes of limitation in vesting rights to real and
to contracts.

[No. 27.]
Submitted Apr. 17, 1885. Decided Dec. 7, 1885.

IN ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State

of Texas.

The history and facts of the case appear in the opinion of the court.

Mr. W. W. Boyce, for plaintiffs in error: When the period prescribed by the Statute of Limitations has once run, so as to cut off the remedy which one might have had for the recovery of property in the possession of another, the title to the property, irrespective of the original right, is regarded in the law as

NOTE.-Statute of Limitations. See, in connection with the above case of Campbell v. Holt, Townsend v. Jemison, 50 U. S., (9 How.), 407, bk. 13, 194, note.

eration of the Statutes of Limitations during
the war. But in 1866 a law was passed which
enacted that these statutes, which had been sus-

vested in the possessor, who is entitled to the
same protection in that respect as the owner is
entitled to in other cases. A subsequent repeal
of the limitation law could not be given a retro-pended during this time, should again com-
active effect so as to disturb this title.

Cooley, Const. Lim. 5th ed. 449, and numerous authorities cited.

A claim of a pecuniary character, after the statute has run, cannot be treated otherwise than a claim of title to property adversely possessed.

Rockport v. Walden, 54 N. H. 167; McMerty v. Morrison, 62 Mo. 140; Goodman v. Munks, 8 Porter (Ala.), 84; Harrison v. Stacy, 6 Rob. (La.) 15; Baker v. Stonebraker, 36 Mo. 338; Shelby v. Guy, 11 Wheat. 361 (24 U. S. bk. 6, L. ed. 495).

A right, to have become a vested right, must have become a title, legal or equitable, to the present or future enjoyment of property, or to the present or future enforcement of a demand, or a legal exemption from a demand made by another.

Cooley, Const. Lim. 448; see further Weidenger y. Spruance, 101 Ill., 278; Wanser v. Atkinson, 43 N. J. 571.

Messrs. F. Charles Hume, Seth Shepard and Sayles & Bassett, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Miller delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Texas.

The action was brought in the District Court of Washington County, Texas, May 16, 1874, by Holt, the defendant in error, against the present plaintiffs in error. Holt sued as devisce and legatee of his wife, Malvina, who was the daughter of John Stamps, deceased, of whose estate Moina and J. B. Campbell are administrators.

mence running on the 2d day of September of
that year. At this time Malvina Stamps was
of age and unmarried, and the statute then be-
gan to run against her in this case, and would
become a bar in two years. This time elapsed
without any suit brought on the claim. It was,
therefore, as the commissioners of appeal ad-
mit, then barred by the statute. But in 1869
the State of Texas, which had not yet been re-
instated and accepted by the two Houses of Con-
gress as in her old relations, made a new Con-
stitution which, it was declared in the ordi-
nance submitting it to the vote of the people,
should take effect when it was accepted by Con-
gress, which was afterwards done.

Article 12, section 43, of this Constitution is
in these words: "The Statutes of Limitations
of civil suits were suspended by the so-called
Act of Secession of the 28th of January, 1861,
and shall be considered as suspended within
this State, until the acceptance of this Consti-
tution by the United States Congress."'

The District Court of Washington County, and the commissioners of appeal, following many previous decisions of the supreme court of the State, held that this provision removed the bar of the Statute of Limitations, though before its taking effect the time had elapsed [622] necessary to make the bar complete in this case.

The defendants, both by plea and by prayers for instruction to the jury, and in argument before the commissioners of appeal, insisted that the bar of the statute, being complete and perfect, could not, as a defense, be taken away by this constitutional provision, and that, to do so would violate that part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which declares that no State shall "deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

The action was founded in the allegation that
Malvina Stamps, afterwards Holt, inherited
from her mother, Henrietta Stamps, the wife This writ of error to the state court is found-
of John Stamps, an interest in lands and ne-ed on that proposition, and we must inquire into
groes which her mother owned at the time of its soundness.
her death. That the land was sold by her
father, John Stamps, who received the money
and converted it to his own use, and that he also
received the hire and profits of the negroes so
long as they remained slaves under the laws of
Texas.

The action is based on contract. It is for
hire of the negroes used by the father, and for
the money received for the land of his daugh-
ter, sold by him. The allegation is of indebt-
edness on this account, and the plea is that the
action is barred by the Statute of Limitations.
The defendants set up several defenses, among It is not a suit to recover possession of real or
others the Statute of Limitations of the State personal property, but to recover for the vio-
[621] of Texas, but, on a trial by jury, Holt recov-lation of an implied contract to pay money.
ered a judgment for $8,692.93. From this
judgment an appeal was taken to the supreme
court of the State, and referred, by consent of By the long and undisturbed possession of
parties, to the commissioners of appeal, by tangible property, real or personal, one may
whom it was confirmed, and this affirmance acquire a title to it, or ownership, superior in
was made the judgment of the supreme court. law to that of another, who may be able to
There were several assignments of error in prove an antecedent and, at one time, para-
the hearing before the commissioners of ap-mount title. This superior or antecedent title
peal, but the only one which we can consider is
that growing out of the plea of the Statute of
Limitations.

The distinction is clear, and, in the view we
take of the case, important.

has been lost by the laches of the person hold. ing it, in failing within a reasonable time to assert it effectively; as, by resuming the possesThe cause of action in this case accrued be- sion to which he was entitled, or asserting his fore the outbreak of the war, the mother hav-right by suit in the proper court. What the ing died in 1857, and Malvina Stamps was a primary owner has lost by his laches, the other minor during all the time preceding the insur-party has gained by continued possession, withrection. It seems that the Legislature of Tex-out question of his right. This is the foundaas had passed several Acts suspending the op- tion of the doctrine of prescription, a doctrine

which, in the English law, is mainly applied
to incorporeal hereditaments, but which in the
Roman law, and the codes founded on it, is ap-
plied to property of all kinds.

Mr. Angell, in his work on Limitations of Actions, says that the word limitation is used in reference to "the time which is prescribed by the authority of the law during which a title may be acquired to property by virtue of a [623] simple adverse possession and enjoyment, or the time at the end of which no action at law or suit in equity can be maintained;" and in the Roman law it is called præscriptio.

[624]

"Prescription, therefore (he says), is of two kinds that is, it is either an instrument for the acquisition of property, or an instrument of an exemption only from the servitude of judicial process." Angell, Limitations, §§ 1, 2.

Possession has always been a means of acquiring title to property. It was the earliest mode recognized by mankind of the appropriation of anything tangible by one person to his own use, to the exclusion of others, and legislators and publicists have always acknowledged its efficacy in confirming or creating title.

session of the slave for a period of time which
would bar the action, but having failed to plead
the Statute of Limitations, the question was
whether he could avail himself of the lapse of
time. "The plea (said the court) is non detinet
in the present tense, and under this plea any-
thing which will show a better right in the de-
fendant than in the plaintiff may be admitted
as competent evidence. The plea puts in issue
the plaintiff's right. Five years' uninterrupted
adverse possession of a slave not only bars the
remedy of the claimant out of possession, but
vests the absolute legal right in the possessor.
Therefore, proof of such possession may show
that the claimant has no right to the slave and
cannot recover. Consequently, it would seem
to result, from the reason of the case, that the
adverse possession may be proved under the
general issue." Answering the objection that
in assumpsit and other actions the statute to be
available must be pleaded, and by analogy
should be pleaded in that case, he says: "The
same reason does not apply to assumpsit, be-
cause the Statute of Limitations does not de-
stroy the right in foro conscientia to the benefit
The English and American statutes of limit- of assumpsit, but only bars the remedy if the
ation have in many cases the same effect, and, defendant chooses to rely on the bar. Time
if there is any conflict of decisions on the sub- does not pay the debt, but time may vest the
ject, the weight of authority is in favor of the right of property." Again he says: "This is
proposition that, where one has had the peace- perfectly true in detinue for a slave, because,
able, undisturbed, open possession of real or in such a case, the lapse of time has devested
personal property, with an assertion of his the plaintiff of his right of property, and vested
ownership, for the period which, under the law, it in the defendant.*** But it is not so in
would bar an action for its recovery by the real debt, because the Statute of Limitations does not
owner, the former has acquired a good title-destroy nor pay the debt." "This (he says)
a title superior to that of the latter, whose neg-
lect to avail himself of his legal rights has lost
him his title. This doctrine has been repeatedly
asserted in this court. Leffingwell v. Warren,
2 Black, 599 [67 U.S. bk. 17, L. ed. 261]; Croxall
v. Shererd, 5 Wall. 289 [72 U. S. bk. 18, L. ed.
580]; Dickerson v. Colgrove, 100 U. S. 583 [Bk.
25, L. ed. 620]; Bicknell v. Comstock, 113 U. S.
152 [Bk. 28, L. ed. 963]. It is the doctrine of
the English courts, and has been often asserted
in the highest courts of the States of the
Union.

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 very different ground.

A case aptly illustrating this difference in the
effect of the Statute of Limitations is found in
3 J. J. Marshall's Ky. R. 364 (Smart v. Baugh),
in which the opinion was delivered by Chief
Justice Robertson, whose reputation as a jurist
entitles his views to the highest consideration.
The action was detinue for a slave, and the
defendant having proved his undisturbed pos-
115 U. S.
U. S.. BOOK 29

has been abundantly established by authority.
*** A'debt barred by time is a sufficient con-
sideration for a new assumpsit. The Statute
of Limitations only disqualifies the plaintiff to
recover a debt by suit if the defendant rely on
time in his plea. It is a personal privilege, ac-
corded by law for reasons of public expediency;
and the privilege can only be asserted by plea."

The distinction between the effect of statutes
of limitation in vesting rights to real and per-
sonal property, and its operation as a defense
to contracts, is well stated in Jones v. Jones, 18
Alabama, 248. See also Langdell's Equity
Pleadings, SS 118, et sequitur.

We are aware that there are to be found, in the opinions of courts of the States of the Union, expressions of the idea that the lapse of time required to bar the action extinguishes the right, and that this is the principle on which the statutes of limitation of actions rest.

But it will be found that many of these are in cases where the suits are for the recovery of specific real or personal property, and where the proposition was true, because the right of the plaintiff in the property was extinguished and had become vested in the defendant. In others, the Constitution of the State forbids retrospective legislation. That the proposition is sound, that, in regard to debt or assumpsit on contract, the remedy alone is gone and not the obligation, is obvious from a class of cases which have never been disputed.

1. It is uniformly conceded that the debt is a sufficient consideration for a new promise to pay, made after the bar has become perfect.

2. It has been held, in all the English courts, that, though the right of action may be barred in the country where the defendant resides or 31 485

[625]

has resided, and where the contract was made,
so that the bar in that jurisdiction is complete,
it is no defense, if he can be found, to a suit in
another country.

In the case of Williams v. Jones, 18 East, 439, the contract sued on was made in India, and by the law of limitations of that jurisdiction the right of action was barred. But the recovery on it was allowed in England on the ground that the bar did not exist in England, and the right itself had not been lost. Lord Ellenborough said: "Here there is only an extinction of the remedy in the foreign court, [626] according to the law stated to be received there, but no extinction of the right." Bayley, Justice, said: "The Statute of Limitations only bars the plaintiff's remedy and not the debt, and the extent of the defendant's argument is only to show that the remedy is barred in India, but that does not show it to be barred here."

among jurists on this point, we think it well
settled to be a plea to the remedy; and, conse-
quently, that the lex fori must prevail." So
well is this doctrine established, that many
States of the Union have made it a part of their
statute of limitations, that, when the action
is barred by the law of a State in which de-
fendants had resided, it shall also be a bar to an
action in those States.

There are numerous cases where a contract
incapable of enforcement for want of a remedy,
or because there is some obstruction to the
remedy, can be so aided by legislation as to be-
come the proper ground of a valid action; as
in the case of a physician, practicing without
license, who was forbidden to compel payment
for his service by suit. The statute being
repealed which made this prohibition, he re-
covered in the court a judgment for the value
of his services on the ground that the first stat-
ute only affected the remedy. Hewitt v. Wil-
The decisions are numerous to the same ef- cox, 1 Metcalf, Mass. 154. Of like character
fect in the American courts. In the case of is the effect of a repeal of the laws against
Le Roy v. Crowninshield, 2 Mason, 151, Judge usury, in enabling parties to recover on con-
Story had conceded that the authorities were tracts in which the law forbade such recovery
that way, but intimated that, if the question before the repeal. Wood v. Kennedy, 19 Ind.
were res nova, sound principle might require a 68; Welch v. Wadsworth, 30 Conn. 149; Butler
different decision. But in the case of Town-v. Palmer, 1 Hill, 324; Hampton v. Common-
send v. Jemison, 9 How. 407 [50 U. S. bk. 13, wealth, 7 Harris, 329; Baugher v. Nelson, 9 Gill,
L. ed. 194], Mr. Justice Wayne says that, in 304.
the previous case of McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13
Pet. 312 [38 U. S. bk. 10, L. ed. 177], in which
Judge Story participated, he concurred in the
doctrine that, on principle as well as authority,
the bar of the statute in one State cannot be
pleaded as a defense in the courts of another
State, though the contract be made in the
former.

In this case of Townsend v. Jemison the opinion of the court contains an elaborate examination of the whole question. It explains the difference between statutes whose effect is to vest title to property by adverse possession, and those which merely affect the remedy, as in case of contract. The result of it is summed up in a single sentence: The rule in the courts of the United States, in respect to pleas of the Statute of Limitations, has always been that they strictly affect the remedy and not the merits. Again: "The rule is that the Statute of Limitations of the country in which the suit is brought, may be pleaded to bar a recovery upon a contract made out of its political jurisdiction, and that the limitation of the lex loci contractus cannot be." And it is said that in the cases decided in England on this subject there has been no fluctuation.

The case before the court was an action brought in Alabama against a citizen of Mississippi, on a contract made in the latter State, and which, by the laws of that State, was barred by the lapse of time. In the case of McElmoyle v. Cohen, the question was "whether the Statute of Limitations of the State of [627] Georgia can be pleaded to an action in that State upon a judgment rendered in the State of South Carolina.

The court, in its opinion, says: "This will be determined by settling what is the nature of a plea of the Statute of Limitations. Is it a plea that settles the right of a party on a contract or judgment, or one that bars the remedy? Whatever diversity of opinion there may be

In all this class of cases the ground taken is, that there exists a contract, but, by reason of no remedy having been provided for its enforcement, or the remedy ordinarily applicable to that class having, for reasons of public policy, been forbidden or withheld, the Legislature, by providing a remedy where none exists, or removing the statutory obstruction to the use of the remedy, enables the party to enforce the contract, otherwise unobjectionable.

Such is the precise case before us. The implied obligation of defendants' intestate to pay [628] his child for the use of her property remains. It was a valid contract, implied by the law before the statute began to run in 1866. Its nature and character were not changed by the lapse of two years, though the statute made that a valid defense to a suit on it. But this defense, a purely arbitrary creation of the law, fell with the repeal of the law on which it depended.

It is much insisted that this right to defense 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 term "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 language of 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 limitation, as often asserted, and especially by this court, are founded in public needs and public policy—are arbitrary enactments by the