Lawson v. Jeffries. the review was made peremptory on a case conclusively within the statute; and the law applied to all such cases, without regard to the time which had elapsed between the judgment and the petition. Notice of an application for a review was required to be given to the opposite party, and there was a day in court when both parties could be heard on the motion for a review. Aside from this statute there was no appeal in the cases therein provided for. This statute was sustained in Colby v. Dennis, 36 Me. 9, upon very doubtful reasoning; and in Atkinson et al. v. Dunlap, 50 id. 111, the case of Colby v. Dennis was qualified and limited, and clearly questioned. The last-named case was this: Judgment in 1850; petition for review dismissed; in 1859, after expiration of period for review or error, a law was enacted by the legislature allowing a review in cases where the judgment rendered was based upon perjury, to be established, on petition, to the satisfaction of the court, both parties having a right to be heard on the application for review; petition for review under this statute; review refused on the ground that the statute was prospective and not retroactive; if retroactive, the act was unconstitutional. It was said by the court, that "the legislature, undoubtedly, has constitutional jurisdiction over remedies; but, after all existing remedies have been exhausted, and rights have become permanently vested, all further interference is prohibited." It was further declared, that "a judgment of a court becomes final when, by the then existing laws, the time for a review and for reversal for error has expired; it then becomes a vested right, by force of the constitution and the existing laws; and a statute designed to retroact on such a case, by reviving the right of review, is unconstitutional and void." And it was further stated that, "in 1850, judgment had been rendered for the respondent, which became a verity, subject only to a reversal on error within six years after the entering up thereof, or to be reviewed within three years from that time; both of which contingencies had transpired before the subsequent proceedings hereafter to be considered, and consequently that judgment by the then existing laws became permanent and effectual forever. And why should it be otherwise? * It had passed the time of reversal for error, and the ordeal of two petitions for review, and the statute of limitations had forever barred its further interruption; or, in other words, by force of the constitution and the existing laws, that judgment had become a vested right, and incapable of annihilation, except by payment and * * satisfaction." Lawson v. Jeffries. If a review of such judgments may be ordered for one cause, it may be equally so for another, or any cause within the discretion of the legislature. Then the salutary maxim of the common law, 'finem litibus imponit,' would become obsolete, when all cases heretofore settled by the most solemn aðjudications known to the law, involving all rights and titles acquired under them, might pass in review before a subsequent tribunal, long after witnesses had deceased or their memories had become impaired." Referring to the petitioners for review, the court say: "Their days in court had terminated, all legal remedies exhausted, and the time had arrived when their opponent, protected by the law, could repose in common with all other citizens whose rights had vested, after much tribulation." Similar views expressed in Prop'rs Ken. Purchase v. Labore, 2 Me. 275, are approved in Atkinson v. Dunlap, 50 id. 111. In Burch v. Newbury, 10 N. Y. 394, of the same character with those last referred to, it is said: "The misfortune of having vested rights, under judgments and decrees of our courts, thus disturbed, is far from being trial, if we consider, that on this principle, no judgment whatever, in a court of law, can be rested upon as final." The supreme court of the United States, in The State of Pennsylvania v. The Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421, say: "But it is urged that the act of congress cannot have the effect and operation to annul the judgment of the court already rendered, or the rights determined thereby in favor of the plaintiff. This, as a general proposition, is certainly not to be denied, especially as it respects adjudications upon the private rights of parties. When they have passed into judgment, the right becomes absolute, and it is the duty of the court to enforce it. The case before us, however, is distinguishable from this class of cases, so far as it respects that portion of the decree directing the abatement of the bridge." The court then proceeded to show that the rule, thus indorsed as inviolable, is not in that case invaded. Two considerations are invoked in support of the claim of the plaintiff in error, which demand attention: 1. The supposed enlarged, if not unrestricted, powers of a constitutional convention; 2. The character of the government at the time of the rendition of the judgment in which a new trial is sought. As to the first: A constitutional convention is convened to build up, not to tear down; to protect, not to destroy. Our American Lawson v. Jeffries. system is peculiarly one of established, regulated law. If, in our system, there is any one feature pre-eminently prominent, it is a sacred regard for law and private rights. A part of the American system, impressed alike upon the people and the States, is the distribution of powers into legislative, executive and judicial. Although a constitutional convention represents the sovereignty of the people, this sovereignty is subordinate to the constitution of the United States and to the great American doctrines of justice, truth, right and law. Even in their sovereign capacity, the people do not possess the license of the commune on the one hand, nor absolute, unrestricted power on the other. Delegates are unrestricted as to the propositions they shall submit to the people; but even ratification does not validate violations of the national constitution, of law, and of rights already established. With the adoption of the federal constitution, arbitrary power, which had theretofore defied the rights of persons and property, was denied an existence, whether in national or State governments, or with the people in their sovereign capacity; and there was ordained a sacred and inviolable separation of legislative, executive and judicial authority. These principles are, with us, fundamental, and cannot be disregarded by a constitutional convention any more than the legislative, executive or judicial departments of a government can exercise the powers of each other. When they do, their acts are void. In regard to the second. Dealing with the delicate questions growing out of the war, we have deemed it the course of wisdom and justice to follow, as far as we could understand it, the spirit of the solution of these matters furnished by the supreme court of the United States, rather than precedents of some of the States. These appear to have pursued the policy of political passion, or followed theories, correct perhaps in the abstract, to impolitic, if not unwise conclusions. At any rate, whether right or wrong, we have not been disposed to act upon extreme views in adjudicating the rights of parties, but have treated, as valid and binding, without constitutional or legislative approval, the ccrtracts of individuals, the judgments of the courts, and the acts of the legislature during the existence of the Confederacy, in all matters of a business and domestic character, not involving directly hostility to the rightful government. Pursuing the rule by which we have thus far been guided, we are not prepared to hold, as the courts of some of our sister States have done, with reference to similar measures, that, Lawson v. Jeffries. because the judgment sought to be annulled for the purpose of a new hearing was rendered by a court acting under the insurrectionary government, affords a sufficient basis to legalize the ordinance herein before quoted. In view of the subject under review, we remark: 1. If a legislative body may grant a new trial, it may order a continuance, annul a judgment, suspend a trial, direct the judgment to be entered, and otherwise interfere with the discretion and independence of the judiciary. The evils that would flow from such an assertion of legislative power are too apparent to be enumerated, and need not be here undertaken. 2. Placing the solution of the case at bar upon the sole ground of a usurpation of judicial attributes by the convention, we waive, as unnecessary, a discussion of the vexed questions of vested rights, the obligation of contracts, retrospective legislation, due process of law, property in judgments, remedial laws, with incidental and kindred matters propounded and discussed in nearly every case involving any one of this family of questions, and by which cases we are sustained in the result herein arrived at. 3. The right of the restored governments to annul, reopen or evade the judgments of the Confederate courts - whether, if those judgments were void, they could be made valid by the approval of the restored governments and the wisdom of interfering with those judgments, if the right to do so were conceded, are questions which are discussed and variously acted upon in, at least, the States of Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, and in what manner, and with what result, we have before shown. The only basis of a right to annul, as in Florida and Arkansas, to grant new trials in the discretion of the reorganized courts, as in Alabama, was upon the character of the gov ernments under which those judgments were rendered, the illegality of the right thus to interfere being conceded, except for this cause; otherwise admittedly indefensible. In Georgia, this fatal obstacle was obviated, as we have seen, to the satisfaction of the courts of that State at least; whether rightfully, is not for us to determine. Suffice it, that the action of the Mississippi convention was anlike that of the States whose measures were sustained. Without further discussion, we append the authorities coming under our observation in the examination of this case. Adjudications bearing more directly upon the power of a legislative bo ly to VOL. XII.- 45 ་ Lawson v. Jeffries. perform judicial acts. 15 Penn. St. 18; 10 N. Y. 396; 1 N. H. 199; 2 Chip. (Vt.) 77; 7 Humph. 152; 9 Gill. & J. 365; 39 Penn. St. 146; 43 id. 512; 3 R. I. 299; 4 id. 324; 2 Allen, 361; 11 Penn. St. 490; 37 Ga. 158; 40 id. 493; 3 N. Y. 511; 3 Me. 335; 4 Ind. 301; 3 Scam. 238; id. 469; 5 Gilm. 417; 26 Cal. 135; 36 Me. 9; 50 id. 111; 5 Pick. 65; 6 Seld. ; 3 Mich. 436; 21 id. 390; 10 Md. 478; 18 id. 193; 8 Blackf. 10; 24 Ark. 91; 33 Cal. 279; 16 id. 11; 17 id. 547; 10 Yerg. 59; 5 Humph. 165; 41 Ala. 153; Dan. Ch. (Vt.) 237; 10 How. 395; 7 Pet. 222; 11 How. 185; 2 Pet. 380; 8 id. 110; 35 Ga. 26; 38 id. 285; Phil. (N. C.) 149, 209; 15 S. C. (Rich.) 84; 21 La. Ann. 325; 44 Mo. 570; 7 Cald. 15; 32 Tex. 1; 43 Ala. 173, 224. Whether a judgment is property and a vested right. 2 Wm. Black. 396, 436, 464; 2 Kent (11th ed.), 432, 487; 50 Me. 111; 12 N. Y. 209; 4 Dev. 15; 16 Penn. St. 266; 17 B. Monr. 176; 1 Mich. 56; 10 Cal. 305; 4 Barb. 64; 12 Coke, 1; 1 Atk. 182; 1 P. Wms. 267; 6 How. (U. S.) 301; Potter's Dwarris, 479; Cooley's Lim. 33, 94, 355, 361, 569. Vested rights and the obligations of contracts. 12 N. Y. 209; 4 Dev. 15; 4 Barb. 64; 10 id. 223; 3 Mich. 436; 9 Gill. 302; 2 id. 79; 6 Wend. 526; 7 Cal. 1; 16 id. 11; 15 id. 515; 10 id. 305; 9 id. 81; 2 id. 524; 40 Ala. 547; Phil. (N. C.) 200; 7 Cald. Due process of law. 13 N. Y. 378; 11 Mich. 113; 3 N. Y. 511; 43 Ala. 224. Retrospective legislation (particularly as to granting the right of appeal where none existed, or where the time limited by existing laws has expired). 7 Johns. 477; 11 Mass. 396; 45 Me. 507; 2 Greenl. 275; 17 B. Monr. 176; 12 Wheat. 349; 3 id. 28; 11 id. 420; 8 Mass. 423; 13 Pick. 532; 7 Ind. 470; 7 Blackf. 154, 623; 8 id. 56, 58, 116, 160, 177, 455; 1 Ind. 24; 2 id. 65; 5 id. 348; 8 id. 533; 26 Cal. 46; 3 Vt. 502; 2 Aik. 284; 15 Ohio St. 207; 13 Wis. 37; 19 id. 17; 1 Dan. Ch. Pr. 77; 1 Aik. 314; 5 Tex. 433; Dav. Ind. Dig. 215, § 89; Phil. (N. C.) 410; 41 Mo. 63; 40 Ala. 547; 41 id. 153. Judicial acts: 24 Ark. 91; 1 N. H. 199; 10 N. Y. 396; 41 Ala. 153; 43 id. 173; id. 224. Remedies. 1 E. D. Smith, 681, 739; 3 Mich. 436; 2 Gill, 79; 4 Cal. 127; 9 Wis. 559; 13 id. 37; 19 id. 17; 7 Tex. 348; 5 id. 433; 4 Wheat. 122; 12 id. 349; 7 Humph. 130; 2 Ala. 397; 1 Comst. 536; 1 McLean, 135; 8 W. & S. 49; 3 Den. 247; Davis' Ind. Dig. 214, § 73; 30 Ala. 547; Story's Conflict of Laws, title, Remedies. Power of a legislature to divest vested rights. 4 Greene (Iowa), 168; 2 id. 94, 181; 6 Col. 650; 5 Tex. 442; 16 Ohio, 599; 17 id. 125; 1 Aik. 264; 10 Yerg. 505; 1 Sneed, 83; 2 Swan, |