CAMPBELL'S CASE—2 BLAND. 219

judgment, or to direct the judiciary to do so in any manner, so as
onerously or destructively to affect the rights of any one; or by
passing or repealing any law, to deprive any one of a previously
vested right of property McMechen v. The Mayor of Baltimore,
2 H. & J. 41. And looking to the delegated and *very
limited nature of onr government, as compared with that of 233
England, it may be confidently affirmed, that this Court would be
acting entirely within the range of its unquestionable authority, in
going fully as far as the English tribunals have gone, in controlling
all legislative enactments, in relation to private property; by dis-
regarding the facts assumed in the enactment, when found to be
untrue; by setting such legislative enactments aside when obtained
by fraud; and by confining their operation, so as to prevent them
from impairing the obligation of contracts, or affecting the rights
of purchasers, or the interests of third persons who are strangers
to them. And in treating all special and private legislative enact-
ments as a sort of conveyance which can only be allowed to bind
those who are parties to them by having asked for or assented to
their passage. Beall v. Harwood, 2 H. & J. 171; Owings v. Speed,
5 Wheat. 420; Cassell v. Carroll, 11 Wheat. 149.

Where it appeared, that, in consequence of a misrepresentation
to the General Assembly, the party had obtained that which he
could not have obtained on a fair and full statement of facts; that
he had not only concealed facts, which, if known, would have
defeated his purpose: but had suggested a matter which he knew
to be contrary to the truth. It was held by this Court to be incon-
sistent with reason and justice to suppose, that, because the de-
fendant's patent was sanctioned by an Act of the Legislature, his
title most be clear and indefeasible: and that the Court was pre-
cluded from an examination of the circumstances alleged in the
bill. That the Legislature, not being constituted for the investi-
gation of facts, relative to the rights of individuals, or of matters
in controversy between private persons, it never could be admitted,
upon any sound principle of justice, that any allegation or matter
of fact assumed in a legislative enactment should be considered as
incontrovertible by any one not a party to it. For even if the Leg-
islature should be deemed a tribunal competent to the examination
of facts, and that too from which there should be no appeal, it was
certainly an universal rule, that no man should be affected by a
decision to which he was neither party nor privy. The State v. Reed,
4 H. & McH. 10; Fisher vs. Lane, 3 Wilton, 302; 1826, cli. 164.
Nor is the truth of any fact thus assumed in an Act of one General
Assembly, considered as at all conclusive upon their successors.
As where it had been asserted, that the object contemplated by
the Act incorporating The Potomac Company had been accom-
plished; 1802, ch. 84; the truth of that* fact was virtually
denied by the Act of a succeeding General Assembly, which 234