allow probate of a will, and granting a rehearing by the court of probate with liberty of appeal therefrom, after the time limited by existing laws for an appeal has passed; declaring that the relation of landlord and tenant exists between parties as to whom the courts of the state have decided, that that relation does not exist ;2 curing defective acknowledgments of deeds by femes covert; construing by a declaratory statute, after the death of a decedent, existing tax laws so as to subject to a collateral inheritance tax the distributive shares of non-resident distributees; directing a county court to set aside an inquisition condemning certain land for the use of a railway and to order a new inquisition; directing the imposition of a tax according to an assessment theretofore made; and authorizing the sale of lands on which the state has a lien for debts due to it. Upon the same principle, Congress having passed an act for the admission of a territory as a state, and having in that act omitted to provide for the disposal of causes pending in the Supreme Court of the United States, on appeal from the territorial courts, may by a subsequent act properly make provision for such causes, for such legislation is remedial. So also Congress may by statute impose a tax retrospectively." 80. In Fletcher v. Peck,10 Marshall, C. J., defines an ex post facto law to be one "which renders an act punishable in a manner in which it was not pun 1 Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386. 2 Satterlee v. Matthewson, 2 Pet. 380. 3 Watson v. Mercer, 8 Pet. 88. 4 Carpenter v. Pennsylvania, 17 How. 456. 5 B. & S. R. R. v. Nesbit, 10 How. 395. 6 Locke v. New Orleans, 4 Wall. 172. Livingstone v. Moore, 7 Pet. 469. Freeborn v. Smith, 2 Wall. 160. Stockdale v. The Insurance Companies, 20 Wall. 223. 10 6 Cr. 138. ishable when it was committed." In Cummings v. Missouri, Field, J., defines an ex post facto law, as "one which imposes a punishment for an act which was not punishable at the time it was committed; or imposes additional punishment to that then prescribed; or changes the rules of evidence by which less or different testimony is sufficient to convict than was required." In Calder v. Bull, Chase, J., classified ex post facto laws as follows:-"first, those that make an action, done before the passing of a law, and which was innocent when done, criminal, and punish such action; second, those that aggravate a crime, or make it greater than it was when committed; third, those that change the punishment and inflict greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when committed; and, fourth, those that alter the legal rules of evidence and receive less or different testimony to convict the offender than that required at the time of the commission of the offense." That classification is quoted with approval by Miller, J., in his judgment in Kring v. Missouri.3 81. Laws have been held to be ex post facto, which, after the commission of an act, alter the situation of the accused to his disadvantage, as for instance, by providing that the plea of autrefois convict should not at a second trial be a defense in the case of a prisoner convicted of murder in the second degree under an indictment charging murder in the first degree, the law having been at the time of the commission of the crime that such a plea was a defense; or by requiring a clergyman, or a lawyer, as a condition precedent to the practice of his profession, to take an oath that he 1 4 Wall. 325. 23 Dall. 386. 5 3 107 U. S. 221. Kring v. Missouri, 107 U. S. 221. 5 Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277. • Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333. has not done an act, for the doing of which, when done, deprivation of office was not a legal penalty; or by requiring one who applies to a court to open a judgment rendered against him in absentia, to take oath, as a condition precedent to his obtaining the desired relief, that he has not done an act for the doing of which the deprivation of the right to sue in courts of justice was not by law antecedently imposed as a penalty. Upon the same principle, Congress cannot provide, by statute, that an act, which is not an offense against the law at the time of its doing, may become such by a subsequent independent act with which it has no necessary connection; as, for instance, that subsequent bankruptcy, either voluntary or involuntary, shall render criminal and punishable by imprisonment the obtaining of goods with intent to defraud at any time within three months before the commission of the act of bankruptcy.2 82. On the other hand, a law of a state changing the venue in a criminal case, though passed subsequently to the commission of the offense, is not ex post facto;3 nor is a law open to that objection, which, though passed after the commission of an offense, enlarges the class of persons who may be competent to testify as witnesses at the trial, as, for instance, by repealing a statutory prohibition of the admission of the testimony of convicted felons, nor is a law ex post facto which denies the exercise of the right of franchise to bigamists, or polygamists, for "the disfranchisement operates upon the existing state and condition of the person, and not upon a past offense." 5 83. A bill of attainder is defined by Field, J., in Cummings v. Missouri," as "a legislative act which in 1 Pierce v. Carskadon, 16 Wall. 234. 2 United States v. Fox, 95 U. S. 670. 3 Gut v. The State, 9 Wall. 35. 4 Hopt v. Utah, 110 U. S. 574. 5 Murphy ". Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15. 6 4 Wall. 323. flicts punishment without a judicial trial," and he adds, "if the punishment be less than death, the act is termed a bill of pains and penalties. Within the meaning of the Constitution, bills of attainder include bills of pains and penalties." It has been held that a state Constitution, requiring clergymen as a condition precedent to the exercise of their profession, to take oath that they had not committed certain designated acts, some of which were at the time offenses subject to legal penalties, and others of which were innocent acts,' and that a state statute requiring one who applied to a court to open a judgment rendered against him in absentia, to take oath that he had not committed certain designated public offenses,2 and that an act of Congress, requiring a lawyer, as a condition precedent to the exercise of his profession, to take an oath that he had not voluntarily borne arms against the United States, etc., constituted in each case a bill of pains and penalties and was, therefore, subject to the constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder, inasmuch as, by legislative action, and without judicial investigation, the statute imposed a punishment for an act done before the enactment of the statute, the oath being offered to the party incriminated as a means of compelling an admission of guilt. 3 1 Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277. 8 Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333. CHAPTER VII. THE PROHIBITION OF STATE BILLS OF CREDIT. 84. Bills of credit defined. 85. What are, and what are not, bills of credit. 84. Section 10 of article I of the Constitution declares that "no state shall . . . . emit bills of credit." Bills of credit within the meaning of this constitutional provision are promissory notes issued by a state government on its credit "intended to circulate throughout the community for its ordinary purposes as money," and redeemable on demand, or at a day certain in the future.1 85. A state, therefore, may not issue interest-bearing certificates in denominations "not exceeding ten dollars, nor less than fifty cents" receivable by the state in payment of taxes, and of debts due to the state, and payable to officers of the state in discharge of salaries and fees of office, and redeemable by the state under an arrangement that there shall be withdrawn "annually from circulation one-tenth part of the certificates."2 Nevertheless, a state may incorporate a bank, of which that state shall be the sole shareholder, and it may authorize that bank to issue notes as circulation, without contravening the constitutional prohibition, the distinction being that such notes are issued, not on the credit of the state, but on the credit of the capital and 1 Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet. 411; Byrne v. Missouri, 8 id. 40; Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 id. 257. 2 Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet. 410; Byrne v. Missouri, 8 id. 40. |