Peck.[18] "When ... a law is in its nature a contract ... a repeal of
the law cannot devest" rights which have vested under it. A couple of
years later he applied his principle to the extreme case of an unlimited
remission of taxation.[19] The State of New Jersey had granted an
exemption from taxation to lands ceded to certain Indians. Marshall held
that this contract ran with the land, and inured to the benefit of
grantees from the Indians. If the state cared to resume its power of
taxation, it must buy the grant back, and the citizens of New Jersey
must pay for their improvidence.
Seven years later, in 1810, Marshall may, perhaps, be said to have
reached the culmination of his career, for then he carried his moral
standard to a breaking strain. But, though his theory broke down,
perhaps the most striking evidence of his wonderful intellectual
superiority is that he convinced the Democrat, Joseph Story,--a man who
had been nominated by Madison to oppose him, and of undoubted strength
of character,--of the soundness of his thesis. In 1769 King George III
incorporated certain Trustees of Dartmouth College.
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