68 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.

But it is equally clear that this high exercise of power on the
part of the judiciary should be exercised with great caution, and
only when the act of the legislature is manifestly beyond the
pale of its authority, for that department is the great depositary
of the power of the government.

The Chancellor is unable to perceive upon what principle this
law is to be condemned. There is certainly no provision in
the constitution and bill of rights of this state, which prohibits
the passage of such a law, and it is impossible, it is thought, to
bring it under the restraining authority of the constitution of
the United States, which does not prohibit the states from
passing retrospective laws generally, but only ex post facto
laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts. Charles
River Bridge vs. Warren Bridge et al., 14 Peters, 339.

It is clearly settled by the high authority of the Supreme
Court of the United States, that retrospective laws, and laws
divesting vested rights, unless ex post facto, or impairing the ob-
ligation of contracts, do not fall within the provision in the con-
stitution of the United States, however repugnant they may be
to the principle of sound legislation. Colder vs. Bull, 3 Dallas,
386; Slatterlee vs. Matthewson, 2 Peters, 413; Watson vs.
Mercer, 8 Peters, 88.

The law under consideration, is certainly not an ex post facto
law, as laws of that character relate only to criminal proceed-
ings; nor is it a law impairing the obligation of contracts, for
so far from impairing the obligation of the contract, it gives it
a force and efficacy which it did not possess before. That laws
of this description are not prohibited by the constitution of the
United States, was most clearly decided in the case of Watson
et al. vs. Mercer, 8 Peters, 89, which affirmed the validity of a
law of Pennsylvania, curing the defective acknowledgment of a
deed made by a feme covert, passed after a recovery by the
heirs of the wife, upon the ground of the defect, healed by the
subsequent act.

But it is not only in courts of equity that the force of this
moral obligation, which has the effect when it can be applied,
of moderating the rigor of the laws against usury, has been felt,