THE SUPREME COURT UNDER JOHN MARSHALL

Impact of the Supreme Court under John Marshall

John Marshall's Decisions On Property Rights

1. Fletcher v Peck case

Peck had purchased some land from the state of Georgia, which he later sold to Fletcher. Subsequently, the Georgia state legislature rescinded the original sale to Peck. Fletcher's claim was that he had bought the land in good faith and that Peck was guilty of breach of contract.

Decision

That a legislature could repeal or modify the acts of a preceding legislature, but it could not invalidate a previously made contract.

Decision Analysis

Speaking for the Court, Chief Justice JOHN MARSHALL deplored the corruption that had found its way into the state legislature but found that the validity of a law cannot depend on the motives of its framers. Nor can private individuals be expected to conduct an inquiry into the probity of a legislature before they enter into a private contract on the basis of a statute enacted by that legislature.

Marshall then turned to the question of whether the statute enacted in 1796 could nullify rights and claims established under the bill that had authorized the land sale in 1795. Although he agreed that as a general principle "one legislature is competent to repeal any act which a former legislature was competent to pass," Marshall held that actions taken under a law cannot be undone by a subsequent legislature. If the law in question is a contract, he reasoned, repeal of the law cannot divest rights that have vested under the contract. To hold otherwise would be tantamount to seizing without compensation property that an individual had acquired fairly and honestly.

In addition to basing his argument on such general considerations, Marshall found that the original grant was a contract within the meaning of the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that "No State shall … pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts". Reasoning that the Constitution did not distinguish between contracts between individuals and contracts to which a state was a party, Marshall held that the Framers of the Constitution intended the clause to apply to both. The purpose of the clause, he explained, was to restrain the power of the state legislatures over the lives and property of individuals.

Under the act rescinding the bill of 1795, however, Fletcher would forfeit the property "for a crime not committed by him, but by those from whom he purchased." Thus the rescinding act "would have the effect of an ex post facto law" and would therefore be unconstitutional. Accordingly Marshall concluded that in spite of the profits reaped by the dishonesty of the land speculators; both general principles and the U.S. Constitution prevented a state legislature from rendering a contract null and void.

Accuracy of the decision

When the case made to the Supreme Court 25 years later the United States was torn between two competing political philosophies. One was known as federalism, which maintained that the federal government was more important than any ...