, then a person seized of an estate in fee-simple, under
legislative sanction, is, in truth, nothing more than a solemn tenant at
will....

"To receive the legislative stamp of stability and permanency, acts of
incorporation are applied for from the legislature. If these acts may be
repealed without notice, without accusation, without hearing, without
proof, without forfeiture, where is the stamp of their stability?... If
the act for incorporating the subscribers to the Bank of North America
shall be repealed in this manner, a precedent will be established for
repealing, in the same manner, every other legislative charter in
Pennsylvania.... Those acts of the state, which have hitherto been
considered as the sure anchors of privilege and of property, will become
the sport of every varying gust of politics, and will float wildly
backwards and forwards on the irregular and impetuous tides of party and
faction."[184]

In 1810 the case of Fletcher v. Peck[185] was decided in the Supreme
Court of the United States. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the
opinion of the court, said:

"The principle asserted is that one legislature is competent to repeal
any act which a former legislature was competent to pass; and that one
legislature can not abridge the powers of a succeeding legislature. The
correctness of this principle, so far as respects general legislation,
can never be controverted. But if an act be done under a law, a
succeeding legislature can not undo it....

"When then a law is in the nature of a contract, when absolute rights
have vested under that contract, a repeal of the law can not devest
those rights; ...

"It may well be doubted whether the nature of society and of government
does not prescribe some limits to the legislative power; ...

"It is, then, the unanimous opinion of the court, that, in this case,
the estate having passed into the hands of a purchaser for a valuable
consideration, without notice, the state of Georgia was restrained,
either by general principles, which are common to our free institutions,
or by the particular provisions of the Constitution of the United
States, from passing a law whereby the estate of the plaintiff in the
premises so purchased could be constitutionally and legally impaired and
rendered null and void."

It is evident from this opinion that the court would have been disposed
at that time to declare state laws impairing property rights null and
void, even if t