92 HEPBURN'S CASE—3 BLAND.

It must be recollected, however, that the positive statutory limi-
tation here alluded to, 1780, ch. 18. is not like the common statutes
for limitation of actions, which allows the party a certain time to
sue, after his right has accrued, but it specifies the first of Septem-
ber, 1787, as the day, after which no claims of the kind described
therein shall be made against the State; and consequently, if that,
limitation embraces this case, this claim, as against the State at
least, has been precluded and barred from that time. From the
nature of this case, this positive limitation, and the presumption
of satisfaction may, with convenience, be considered together, and
I shall, therefore, so consider them.

I have shewn that it must have been the intention of the Gen-
eral Assembly, in referring this case to the Chancellor, that he
should be governed by those substantial principles of equity appli-
cable to all similar controversies; and that the mere forms of pro-
ceeding, * and technicalities peculiar to the course of this
110 court, and nothing more, were to be put aside. But it is
asked on the part of the petitioner, in reference to the Statute of
Limitations and the lapse of years relied on as a defence on behalf
of the State; why this shew of justice and liberality, if the techni-
cal presumption arising from the lapse of time, of which the Legis-
lature were fully advised, was to be relied on as a bar f

But as I have said upon a former occasion, in this, as in all other
eases, it must strike every one, that the lapse of years cannot fail
to give rise to an unanswerable presumption against the validity
of an antiquated claim of any kind, however much it may have
been originally a favorite of the law, as in cases of dower or the
like. I cannot think it a reasonable demand on the Court to give
parties the advantage of a stale and antiquated claim, to suf-
fer them to make the Court the depository of their slumbering
rights; and then to come and revive then!, when, from lapse of
time, it is become utterly impossible to ascend to the whole justice
of the case. There is surely a principle of limitation in the admin-
istration of every system of jurisprudence, to be derived out of the
nature of things, which does entitle the Court to avail itself of the
universal maxim, vigilantibus non dormientibus subveniunt leges.
The Rebecca, 5 Rob. Adm. Rep. 104. The maxims which refer to
descents, discontinuances, non-claims, and collateral warranties,
are only the wise arts and inventions of the law, to quiet posses-
sions and strengthen the rights of property. Dudley v. Dudley,
Prec. Cha. 249. And in England it has been generally thought,
that sixty years, the limitation to writs of right, is too long a time
for titles to remain in dubio; and it has often been lamented there,
by eminent lawyers, that the period had not been shortened. Gild.
Exeu. 12; Charlwood v. Morgan, 1 New Rep. 66; Stackhouse v.
Barnston, 10 Ves. 469.