Opinion of the Court. In Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U. S. 176, 183, it was said by Mr. Justice Field, delivering judgment, " Any enactment, from whatever source originating, to which a State gives the force of law, is a statute of the State, within the meaning of the clause cited relating to the jurisdiction of this court;" (Rev. Stat. § 709;) and it was therefore held that a statute of the so called Confederate States, if enforced by one of the States as its law, was within the prohibition of the Constitution. So a by-law or ordinance of a municipal corporation may be such an exercise of legislative power delegated by the legislature to the corporation as a political subdivision of the State, having all the force of law within the limits of the municipality, that it may properly be considered as a law, within the meaning of this article of the Constitution of the United States. For instance, the power of determining what persons and property shall be taxed belongs exclusively to the legislative branch of the government, and, whether exercised by the legislature itself, or delegated by it to a municipal corporation, is strictly a legislative power. United States v. New Orleans, 98 U. S. 381, 392; Meriwether v. Garrett, 102 U. S. 472. Accordingly, where the city council of Charleston, upon which the legislature of South Carolina, by the city charter, had conferred the power of taxing persons and property within the city, passed ordinances assessing a tax upon bonds of the city, and thus diminishing the amount of interest which it had agreed to pay, this court held such ordinances to be laws impairing the obligation of contracts, for the reason that the city charter gave limited legislative power to the city council, and, when the ordinances were passed under the supposed authority of the legislative act, their provisions became the law of the State. Murray v. Charleston, 96 U. S. 432, 440. See also Home Ins. Co. v. City Council of Augusta, 93 U. S. 116. But the ordinance now in question involved no exercise of legislative power. The legislature, in the charter granted to the plaintiff, provided that nothing therein should "be so construed as to prevent the city council from granting to any person or persons, contiguous to the river, the privilege of laying Opinion of the Court. pipes to the river, exclusively for his or their own use." The legislature itself thus defined the class of persons to whom, and the object for which, the permission might be granted. All that was left to the city council was the duty of determining what persons came within the definition, and how and where they might be permitted to lay pipes, for the purpose of securing their several rights to draw water from the river, without unreasonable interfering with the convenient use by the public of the lands and highways of the city. The rule was established by the legislature, and its execution only committed to the municipal authorities. The power conferred upon the city council was not legislative, but administrative, and might equally well have been vested by law in the mayor alone, or in any other officer of the city. Railroad Co. v. Ellerman, 105 U. S. 166, 172; Day v. Green, 4 Cush. 433, 438. The permission granted by the city council to the defendant company, though put in the form of an ordinance, was in effect but a license, and not a by-law of the city, still less a law of the State. If that license was within the authority vested in the city council by the law of Louisiana, it was valid; if it transcended that authority, it was illegal and void. But the question whether it was lawful or unlawful depended wholly on the law of the State, and not at all on any provision of the Constitution or laws of the United States. The cases of New Orleans Waterworks v. Rivers, 115 U. S. 674, and St. Tammany Waterworks v. New Orleans Waterworks, 120 U. S. 64, on which the plaintiff relied in support of its bill, were essentially different from the case at bar. In each of those cases, the validity of the article of the Constitution of 1879 abolishing monopolies was drawn in question by the bill, and relied on by the defendants. Rivers did not contend that his property was contiguous to the river. The St. Tammany Waterworks Company had been incorporated since the New Orleans Waterworks Company, under a general statute of the State, for the purpose of supplying the whole city and its inhabitants with water. And both those cases were appeals from the Circuit Court of the United States, upon which this court was not restricted to the consideration Opinion of the Court. of federal questions decided below, but had jurisdiction to determine the whole case. The difference in the extent of the jurisdiction of this court on writ of error to the highest court of a State, and on appeal from a Circuit Court of the United States as affected by the ground of the decision of the court below is illustrated by the cases of contracts payable in Confederate currency, or made in consideration of loans of Confederate currency, during the war of the rebellion, and by the cases of promissory notes given before that war for the price of persons sold as slaves. In Thorington v. Smith, 8 Wall. 1, this court, reversing a judgment of the Circuit Court of the United States in Alabama, held that a contract for the payment of money in Confederate currency was not unlawful. Like decisions have often been made in later cases brought here from the Circuit Courts of the United States. Planters' Bank v. Union Bank, 16 Wall. 483, 497; Confederate Note Case, 19 Wall. 548; Wilmington & Weldon Railroad v. King, 91 U. S. 3; Cook v. Lillo, 103 U. S. 792. Yet in Bethel v. Demaret, 10 Wall. 537, where a suit on a mortgage to secure the payment of promissory notes given for a loan of Confederate currency had been dismissed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, on the ground that the notes and mortgage were nullities, because the Confederate currency, which constituted the consideration, was illegal by the general law of the State, this court dismissed the writ of error, because no statute of the State was drawn in question. And in Bank of West Tennessee v. Citizens' Bank of Louisiana, 13 Wall. 432; S. C. 14 Wall. 9; where the Supreme Court of Louisiana, affirming a judgment rendered by an inferior court of the State before the adoption of article 127 of the State Constitution of 1868, by which "all agreements, the consideration of which was Confederate money, notes or bonds, are null and void, and shall not be enforced by the courts of this state," dismissed a suit to recover money payable in Confederate notes, basing its judgment both upon that article of the Constitution and upon adjudications in that state before its adoption, this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Swayne, dismissed Opinion of the Court. a writ of error, and said: "The result in this case would have been necessarily the same if the Constitution had not contained the provision in question. This brings the case within the authority of Bethel v. Demaret," above cited. In another case at the same term, the disposition by this court of the case of Bank of West Tennessee v. Citizens' Bank of Louisiana was thus explained by Mr. Justice Miller: "As it was apparent from the record that the judgment of the court of original jurisdiction was rendered before that article was adopted, we could not entertain jurisdiction when the decision in that particular point was placed on a ground which existed as a fact and was beyond our control, and was sufficient to support the judgment, because another reason was given which, if it had been the only one, we could review and might reverse." Delmas v. Insurance Co., 14 Wall. 661, 666. In Delmas v. Insurance Co. just cited, where the judgment of the Louisiana court was put wholly upon that article of the Constitution, this court therefore took jurisdiction, and reversed the judgment, but said that where a decision of the highest court of a State, "whether holding such contract valid or void, is made upon the general principles by which courts determine whether a consideration is good or bad on principles of public policy, the decision is one we are not authorized to review." And in Tarver v. Keach, 15 Wall. 67, as well as in Dugger v. Bocock, 104 U. S. 596, 601, the proposition thus stated was affirmed, and was acted on by dismissing a writ of error to a State court. So in Stevenson v. Williams, 19 Wall. 572, where a judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, annulling a judgment of a lower court, on the ground that the promissory notes on which it was rendered had been given for a loan of Confederate money, was brought here by writ of error, this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Field, after disposing of a distinct federal question, and observing that the aforesaid ground would not be deemed, in a federal court, sufficient to set aside the judgment, said: "But the ruling of the State court, in these particulars, however erroneous, is not subject to review by us. It presents no federal question for our examination. It conflicts with no part of the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States. Opinion of the Court. Had the State court refused to uphold the judgment because of the provision in the Constitution of the State, subsequently adopted, prohibiting the enforcement of contracts founded upon Confederate money, a federal question would have been presented. That provision, however, does not appear to have caused the ruling." 19 Wall. 576, 577. Those cases clearly establish that, on a writ of error to a State court, this court had jurisdiction to review and reverse the judgment, if that judgment was based wholly upon the State Constitution; but that if it was based on the previous law of the State, this court had no jurisdiction to review it, although the view taken by the State court was adverse to the view taken by this court in earlier and later cases coming up from a Circuit Court of the United States. In actions brought upon promissory notes given for the purchase of slaves before the war, the same distinction has been maintained. The Constitutions adopted in 1868, by the States of Arkansas, Georgia and Louisiana respectively, provided that the courts of the State should not enforce any contract for the purchase or sale of slaves. In Osborn v. Nicholson, 13 Wall. 654, a judgment rendered for the defendant by the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Arkansas, in an action on a promissory note for the purchase of a slave, was reversed, because this court was of opinion that the contract was valid at the time when it was made, and therefore its obligation was impaired by the subsequent constitution. For like reasons, this court, in White v. Hart, 13 Wall. 646, reversed a similar judgment rendered by the Supreme Court of the State of Georgia, and based upon the provision of its constitution. But in Palmer v. Marston, 14 Wall. 10, where the Supreme Court of Louisiana, in a similar action, had placed its judgment for the defendant upon the law of the State, as established and acted upon before the adoption of the Constitution of 1868 and since adhered to, and had declined to pass upon the question whether the provision of that constitution was valid or invalid as an act of legislation and in relation to the article of the Constitution of the United States against impairing the obligation of contracts, |