to the provision in the Maryland Bill of Rights, art. 15, declaring "retrospective laws punishing acts committed before the existence of such laws, to be oppressive and unjust," that it related solely to retrospective criminal laws, and was an express recognition of the legislative power to pass retrospective laws in regard to civil cases and contracts, as laws healing imperfect deeds or validating defective acknowledgments. The objection that the right to plead usury under the act of 1704 was a vested right, and that the act of 1846 was void as tending to divest it, shared a similar fate. The court admitted the sacredness of vested rights, and declared that an act which divested a right under the pretense of regulating the remedy was as objectionable as if aimed at the right itself. But they held that when vested rights were spoken of as being guarded against legislative interference, they were those rights to which a party may adhere, and upon which he may insist, without violating any principle of morality. They held that the borrower had no moral right to repudiate his contract so as to escape the payment of the sum actually received, and that the act in question. was no more than an exercise of legislative authority on the subject of remedies, a power which the Legislature might exercise in relation to past as well as future contracts. A New York act of 1850, chap. 172, declares, that "no corporation shall hereafter interpose the defence of usury” in any action. It has been said that this is in the nature of a penalty or forfeiture remitted by the Legislature; and held, that the act was applicable to an equity case where the defence was set up, and the proofs taken and closed, before the act was passed.† The defence of usury is so odious in all highly civilized and especially in all commercial communities, that it is very difficult to obtain for it an impartial hearing; but as hearing; but as long as the prohibition stands on the statute book, it certainly is the duty of the judiciary fairly to carry out the legislative will; and I cannot understand how an act can be considered within the just limits of the legislative power, nor how it can be regarded otherwise than as an invasion of the judicial prerogative, which by a *Baugher v. Nelson, 9 Gill, 299. The case is indexed as Grinder v. Nelson. Curtis v. Leavitt, 17 Barb. 311. sweeping change of the law, not only affects the interests of parties litigant, but absolutely controls the determination of suits at the time of its passage pending for decision in the proper forum. If the Legislature has this power, it is very obvious that a valid law might be framed general in its terms, but really intended to effect private objects, and calculated to work the grossest injustice. In connection with this subject, the following case in New York is important: Clark and Cornell, commissioners of highways in a town, by direction of the voters of the town sued a a turnpike company; they were unsuccessful, and obliged to pay costs. These costs the town refused to pay. The com missioners then sued the town; and the court of last resort held that they had no remedy. The Legislature then (1851) passed an act directing the question, whether the commissioners should be paid or not, to be submitted at the next meeting of the voters of the town. The voters decided that they would not tax themselves for the purpose. The Legislature was then again appealed to; and in 1852 a law was passed, appointing three commissioners to determine the amount of costs, &c., due Clark and Cornell, to make an award thereof; and declaring it the duty of the supervisors of Chenango county, in which the town was situated, to apportion the amount upon the taxable property of the town, and to provide for its collection like other taxes. Suit was brought by the town against the supervisors, to restrain the levy of the tax, on the ground of its being unconstitutional, as infringing the vested rights of the tax payers of the town. But the law was sustained, as a mere exercise of the power of taxation, and on the ground that the act of 1851 was not in the nature of a contract, nor judicial in its character. Perhaps the decision may be sustained on the grounds on which it is put; but it is obvious that the result of the matter is that the Legislature compels payment out of the pockets of the defendants of a claim which the law had already pronounced they were not bound to pay. Clark and Cornell were the agents of the town. They present to their principals a claim which is rejected and contested. The courts decide that the principal is not liable. The Legislature then steps in, and in effect com pels the payment of the claim by the defendants. This may be called taxation, but in truth it is the reversal of a judicial decision. The power of taxation is a great governmental attribute, with which the courts have very wisely, as we shall hereafter see, shown extreme unwillingness to interfere; but if abused, the abuse should share the fate of all other usurpations. In England, on the subject of retrospective statutes, it has been held, that an act in regard to practice-declaring that when a new trial was granted on the ground that the verdict was against evidence, the costs of the first suit should abide the event, unless the court should otherwise order-was retroactive; but a clause in the same act, that error might be brought upon a special case unless the parties agreed to the contrary, was held not to be so; and Maule, J., said, " As a general rule an act is to be construed so as to be prospective only; for if it were otherwise construed, it would often defeat the intention of the parties who acted under the old law." + Last Statute in Point of Time Controls.-We have already+ had occasion to remark, that importance is attached to the time of the expression of the will of the Legislature. So, if two statutes repugnant to each other be passed in the same session, the latter only shall have effect. So again it is said, if the latter part of a statute be repugnant to the former part thereof it shall stand, and so far as it is repugnant be a repeal of the former part; because it was last agreed to by the makers of the statute. And this principle has been declared by the Supreme Court of the State of New York.** So in Kentucky it has been said, "If there be an absolute inconsistency between these statutes, the act of 1825 being posterior in date, and also more comprehensive in its terms, must have superseded the other so far as they conflicted."++ So in Pennsylvania it has been said, that in cases of irreconcilable repugnancy the rule is to let the last part determine the intentions of the lawgiver.‡‡ Town of Guilford v. Supervisors of Chenango Co. 3 Kernan, 147. Hughes v. Lumley, 4 Ellis & Blackb. 358, 359; Jenkins v. Betham, 15 C. B. 169 and 190. Ante, pp. 48, 49, 65, 107. Bacon, Abr. Stat. D. ** Harington v. Trustees of Rochester, 10 Wend. 547. + Naz. Lit. & Benev. Inst. v. Commonwealth, 14 B. Monroe, 266. + Packer v. Sunbury & Erie R. R. Co. 7 Harris (Penn.) R. 211. But it is only in cases of irreconcilable repugnancy that this rule applies; it gives way to the fundamental principle, that the intention of the Legislature is to govern. "A subse quent statute," says Parsons, C. J., "generally will control the provisions of former statutes, which are repugnant to it accord ing to its strict letter. But there are exceptions to this rule, depending on the construction of the last statute agreeably to the intention of the Legislature."* (a) "The general rule is conceded to be," it has been said in Pennsylvania, "that where two statutes contain repugnant provisions, the one last signed by the governor is a repeal of one previously signed. But this is so merely because it is presumed to be so intended by the law-making power. Where the intention is otherwise, and that intention is manifest upon the face of either enactment, the plain meaning of the legislative power thus manifested is the paramount rule of construction. It is no part of the duty of the judiciary to resort to technical subtleties to defeat the ob vious purposes of the legislative power in a matter over which that power has a constitutional right to control." † Misdescription and Surplusage.-The maxim, Falsa demonstratio non nocet, applies to statutes as well as in other cases.(b) * Pease v. Whitney et al. 5 Mass. 380, 382. wealth, 26 Pennsylvania Reports, pp. 448, The Southwark Bank v. The Common- 449. (a) Thus, when a statute appropriated a sum granted to the State by Congress to the redemption of certain bonds, and a subsequent statute made an appropriation which if fully carried out would interfere with the first, the second act was held to apply only to the surplus of the fund after redeeming the bonds as provided for by the former act. State v. Bishop, 41 Mo. 16. (b) Mistake and False Description.-An amendatory statute referring to the amended act by its date and by its subject-matter, and the reference to the date being wrong, the other reference, if it identifies the statute to be amended, is sufficient. Madison &c. Pl. R. v. Reynolds, 3 Wisc. 287, and see Blake v. Brackett, 47 Me. 28. If a clerical or typographical error is manifest, e. g., " penal for "final," the correction will be made in construction. Moody v. Stephenson, 1 Minn. 401; Jocelyn v. Barrett, 18 Ind. 128; Nazro v. Merchants' Ins. Co. 14 Wisc. 295. Where the language was that a person convicted of a certain crime should be "imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than two, nor more than five years, or by fine and imprisonment, one or both at the discretion of the jury trying the same," it was held that the words " be punished" must be supplied between the word "or" and "by fine." Turner v. State, 40 Ala. 21. The word "article" in an amendatory statute was read "chapter" in Gibson v. Belcher, 1 Bush (Ky.) 145. A clerical error in the title made in engrossing the bill after its passage, but before its approval by the It was early held that, in an act of Parliament, the misnomer of a corporation where the express intention appears shall not avoid the act, any more than in a will, when the true corporation intended is apparent.* So, where a statute is referred to by general descriptive particulars, some of which are manifestly false and others true, the former may be rejected as surplusage, provided the remainder is sufficient to show clearly what is meant. Thus again, where a statute referred to the vote of a town by a wrong date, where the reference would have been good without any date at all, it was held that the erroneous date might be rejected as surplusage. Connection between Cause and Effect.-The relation of cause and effect sometimes presents itself in regard to the construction of statutes; and here we find a class of questions analogous to those growing out of the subject of remoteness or consequentiality of damages, and dependent on the maxim proxima causa non remota spectatur. So, where the embargo act of 22d December, 1807, required a bond conditioned to reland certain goods in some port of the United States, "the dangers of the seas only excepted," it was held by the Supreme Court of the United States, where a vessel was driven by stress of weather into one of the West Indies, and there detained by the The Chancellor of Oxford's Case, 10 Shrewsbury v. Boylston, 1 Pick. 108. Rep. 57. governer, will not invalidate the act, provided the act as a whole on inspection will not mislead. People v. Onandaga, 16 Mich. 254, Cooley, J., dissenting. When the context is plain and the meaning requires it, words may be transposed. Matthews v. Commonwealth, 18 Gratt. 989. A clause clearly inserted from inadvertence will be disregarded. Pond v. Maddox, 38 Cal. 572. When there clearly was some mistake which might be one or the other of two possible ones, and the only question was which of the two had probably been made,—that is, which of the two possible corrections should be made,-the court held that the mistake least likely to have been detected-the one most latent-was the one made. Jenks v. Langdon, 21 Ohio, N. S. 362. A statute providing for indictment "on conviction" of bribery, the words " on conviction were rejected as surplusage. U. S. v. Stern, 5 Blatch. C. C. 512. Falsa Demonstratio.-See State v. King, 28 Cal. 265 (reference to the wrong section); Chambers v. State, 25 Tex. 307 ("provisions to art. 411," for "proviso to art. 411"); State v. Orange, 3 Vroom, 49 (mistake in description of a street in the ordinance for laying it out); Commonwealth v. Marshall, 69 Penn. St. 328 (mistake in the date of an ordinance sought to be validated); and see People v. Clute, 63 Barb. 356. |