1864. January Term. Burroughs V. Peyton. itself, to such an extent, of the right to exercise the powers with which it is invested. It is true that the case supposed is an extreme one, not likely to arise even if the right in question were possessed by governments. But it tests the principle. In determining the powers of Abrahams governments we ought not only to look to what will probably be done, but we should look also to what may possibly be done under them. No government can have the right to endanger the life of the nation it represents by contracting that it will not exercise the powers confided to it. For a proposition so obviously true it can hardly be necessary to cite authority; but the authorities are ample to show that, in less important matters than that of military defence, "a legislative body cannot part with its powers by any proceeding, so as not to be able to continue the exercise of them," and if any attempt be made to do so the act is null and void. "It can and should exercise them; again and again, as often as the public interests require." "It cannot abridge its own legislative power, by making permanent and irrepealable contracts in reference to matters of public interest." East Hartford v. Hartford Bridge Company, 10 How. U. S. R. 511; Goszler v. The Corporation of Georgetown, 6 Wheat. R. 593. In the case of The Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company v. Debolt, 16 How. U. S. R. 416, in which the question was as to the validity of a State law, Chief Justice Taney says: "The powers of sovereignty confided to the legislative body of a State are undoubtedly a trust committed to them, to be executed to the best of their judgment, for the public good; and no one legislature can by their own act disarm their successors of any of the powers or rights of sovereignty confided by the people to the legislative body, unless they are authorized to do so by the Constitution under which they are elected." V. Same. 1864. January Term. V. Abrahams V. Same. We think, therefore, that if it appeared that Congress had attempted to make a binding and irrepealable conBurroughs tract to exempt from liability to all subsequent calls for Peyton. military service those who put in substitutes, during the time for which they were put in, such contract would be void, because of the want of power in Congress to make it. But there has been no attempt to make any such contract. Exemption from future liability on the part of a citizen to render military service at the call of the country is not a subject matter of contract, within the meaning of the clause of the Constitution prohibiting the passage of any law impairing the obligation of contracts. By the term "contracts " in that clause it is not meant to include rights and interests growing out of measures of public policy. Acts in reference to such measures are to be regarded as rather in the nature of leg islation than of compact, and although rights or interests may have been acquired under them, those rights and interests cannot be considered as violated by subsequent legislative changes which may destroy them. Whatever in the nature of a contract could be considered to exist, there must be implied in it a condition that the power is reserved to the legislature to change the law thereafter as the public interest may from time to time appear to require. In delivering the opinion of the whole court in the case of Butler v. Pennsylvania, 10 How. U. S. R. 416, Mr. Justice Daniel says: "The contracts designed to be protected by the 10th section of the first article of the Federal Constitution are contracts by which perfect rights, certain, definite, fixed private rights of property are vested. These are clearly distinguishable from measures or engagements adopted or undertaken by the body politic or State government, for the benefit of all, and from the necessity of the case, and, according to universal understanding, to be varied or discontinued as the public good may require." Accordingly it was 1864. January Term. Burroughs V. Peyton. V. Same. held in that case that an appointment to a public office, which, by the existing law of the State, was to be held for one year, with a fixed per diem compensation, does not amount to a contract by the State thus to employ and pay the officer during the year; so that a law repealing Abrahams the one under which the officer went in, and directing that the office should be vacated before the expiration of the year, and that the officer, in the meantime, should receive a smaller per diem compensation than he was entitled to under the law by virtue of which he was appointed, was held to be valid ; and the officer, who continued to discharge the duties of the office from the day fixed by the latter statute for the reduction of his compensation until the day when the office was vacated, was held to be entitled to the reduced compensation only, and not to that fixed by the statute under which he received his appointment. See also East Hartford v. Hartford Bridge Co., 10 How. U. S. R. 511; and the opinion of Mr. Justice Campbell in the case of State Bank of Ohio v. Knoop, 16 How. U. S. R. 369, 405. So, divorces granted by the legislature of a State do not (according to the great preponderance of authority, and, as we think, in accordance with sound principle) impair the obligation of contracts, within the meaning of the constitutional inhibition; because marriage, although usually denominated a contract, and certainly one in some senses, is also a status or civil relation, and therefore subject to legislative control. Bishop on Mar. and Div., § 771 to § 775. Where a seizure was made by a revenue officer, under a promise, contained in a law. of the United States, that on conviction he should share the forfeiture, and a condemnation was regularly had adjudging the forfeiture to have been incurred, it was held that a discharge of the forfeiture by the Secretary of the Treasury, without making compensation to the revenue officer, who had incurred trouble and expense 1864. January V. Peyton. V. Same. in making the seizure and procuring the condemnation, Term. was no violation of vested rights or impairment of the Burroughs obligation of a contract. United States v. Morris, 10 Wheat: R. 246. See also the cases of The State Bank Abrahams of Ohio v. Knoop, 16 How. U. S. R. 369; The Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company v. Debolt, Id. 416; Alexander v. The Duke of Wellington, 2 Russ. & Myl. 35, 6 Cond. Eng. Ch. R. 383; The Elsebe Maas, 5 Chr. Rob. Adm. R. 155. For the marked distinction between an engagement to render military service and a contract, the cases of The United States v. Cottingham, 1 Rob. R. 615, and The United States v. Blakeney, 3 Gratt. 405, decided by our own court, may be referred to. To borrow the language of Mr. Justice Campbell in the case of The State Bank of Ohio v. Knoop, and apply it to the cases before us: "A plain distinction exists between statutes which create hopes and expectations and those which form contracts." Congress allowed exemptions from military service to those who furnished substitutes, "on existing considerations of policy, without annexing restraints on their will, or abdicating their prerogative, and consequently are free to modify, alter, or repeal them." Whatever, therefore, may have been the expectation, at the time, in reference to the extent of the exemption obtained by putting in a substitute, there was clearly no contract the obligation of which has been impaired, and no vested right which has been violated by the passage of the law putting" an end to the exemption from military service of those who have heretofore furnished substitutes." The truth seems to be that substitution was permitted as an act of grace and favor on the part of the government, and not as a matter of contract. The govern ment received nothing except the service of one man in the place of another to whose service it was entitled. The consideration paid by the principal for the service 1864. January Term. V. V. Same. of the substitute was a matter of private arrangement between them, with which the government had nothing to do. It is true that, under a regulation made by the Burroughs Secretary of War, the substitute was not received for Peyton. less than three years of the war, although the party put- Abrahams ting him in may not have had so long to serve. And it is said that, in this way, the government received more than a mere equivalent for the service of the principal. The advantage gained by the government is rather seeming than substantial: for the government has the undoubted right, on the expiration of the time for which the principal is liable, to make a new call upon him, and compel him to serve so long as the necessities of the country may require. The only advantage, then, it can be said to have gained is that it has relieved itself from the inconvenience of having to make a new call as soon as it might otherwise have been required to make it; and this advantage cannot be regarded as a material one. Indeed, it was found that substitution on these terms was so disadvantageous to the service that, before the passage of the act now under consideration, one was passed prohibiting entirely all future substitution. It was originally permitted as a privilege to individuals, and not from any benefit the government expected to derive from it; and it did not cease to be a privilege because of the terms imposed as a condition of granting it. It is said, however, that where the substitute is in service at the time that the principal is ́again called in, the government gets the service of two men, when, but for the substitution, it would have had the service of one of them only. This is an incident of the substitution which may result favorably to the government in the case supposed; but it is not perceived that either the principal or the substitute has a right to complain. The substitute is required to serve no longer than he has, for a consideration satisfactory to himself, |