The last circumstance stated in this opinion -the negligence of the owner in asserting his claim - is evidently deemed important in some States, whose statutes only allow a recovery for improvements by one who has been in possession a certain number of years. But a later Vermont case dismisses it from consideration as a necessary ground upon which to base the right of recovery. "The right of the occupant to recover the value of his improvements," say the court, "does not depend upon the question whether the real owner has been vigilant or negligent in the assertion of his rights. It stands upon a principle of natural justice and equity, viz., that the occupant in good faith, believing himself to be the owner, has added to the permanent value of the land by his labor and his money; is in equity entitled to such added value; and that it would be unjust that the owner of the land should be enriched by acquiring the value of such improvements, without compensation to him who made them. This principle of natural justice has been very widely, we may say universally, recognized." 1

1 Whitney v. Richardson, 31 Vt. 306. For other cases in which similar laws have been held constitutional, see Armstrong v. Jackson, 1 Blackf. 374; Fowler v. Halbert, 4 Bibb, 54; Withington v. Corey, 2 N. H. 115; Bacon v. Callender, 6 Mass. 303; Ross v. Irving, 14 Ill. 171; Pacquette v. Pickness, 19 Wis. 219; Childs v. Shower, 18 Iowa, 261; Saunders v. Wilson, 19 Texas, 194; Brackett v. Norcross, 1 Greenl. 92; Hunt's Lessee v. M'Mahan, 5 Ohio, 132. For a contrary ruling, see Nelson v. Allen, 1 Yerg. 376. Mr. Justice Story, in Society, &c. v. Wheeler, 2 Gall. 105, held that such a law could not constitutionally be made to apply to improvements made before its passage; but this decision was made under the New Hampshire constitution, which forbade retrospective laws. The principles of equity upon which such legislation is sustained would seem not to depend upon the time when the improvements were made. In Childs v. Shower, 18 Iowa, 261, it was held that the legislature could not constitutionally make the value of the improvements a personal charge against the owner of the land, and authorize a personal judgment against him. The same ruling was had in M'Coy v. Grandy, 3 Ohio, N. S. 463. A statute had been passed authorizing the occupying claimant, at his option, after judgment rendered against him for the recovery of the land, to demand payment from the successful claimant of the full value of his lasting and valuable improvements, or to pay to the successful claimant the value of the land without the improvements, and retain it. The court say: "The occupying claimant act, . . . . in securing to the occupant a compensation for his improvements as a condition precedent to the restitution of the lands to the owner, goes to the utmost stretch of the legislative power touching this subject. And the statute. . . . providing for the transfer of the fee in the land to the occupying claimant, without the consent of the owner, is a palpable invasion of the right of private property, and clearly in conflict with the constitution."

....

Betterment laws, then, recognize the existence of an equitable right, and give a remedy for it where none had been given before. It is true that they make a man pay for improvements which he has not directed to be made, but the case presents no feature of officious interference by the government with private property. The improvements have been made by one person in good faith, and are now to be appropriated by another. The parties cannot be placed in statu quo, and the statute therefore accomplishes justice as near as the circumstances of the case will admit, by compelling the owner, who, if he declines to sell, must necessarily appropriate the betterments made by another, to pay for their value. The case is peculiar, but a statute cannot be void as an unconstitutional interference with private property which adjusts the rights of parties as near as possible according to natural justice.1

Unequal and Partial Legislation.

In the course of our discussion of this subject, it has been seen that some statutes are void, though general in their scope, while others are valid, though establishing rules for single cases only. An enactment may therefore be the law of the land, without being a general law. And this being so, it may be important to consider in what cases constitutional principles will require a statute to be general in its application, and in what cases it may be valid without being so.

The cases relating to municipal corporations stand upon peculiar grounds, from the fact that those corporations are mere agencies of government, and as such subject to complete legislative control. Statutes authorizing the sale of property of minors, and other persons under disability, are also exceptional, in that they are applied for by parties representing the interest of the owners, and are remedial in their character. Such statutes are supported by the presumption that the party in interest would consent if capable of doing so, and in law is to be considered as assenting in

A town which, against the owner's will, illegally takes a lot of land for a school-house lot, and erects a school-house thereon, cannot be allowed anything for betterments. The betterment law, it is said, does not apply "where a party is taking land by force of the statute, and is bound to see that all the steps are regular. If it did, the party taking the land might in fact compel a sale of the land, or compel the party to buy the school-house, or any other building erected upon it." Harris v. Inhabitants of Marblehead, 10 Gray, 44.

the person of the guardian of his interest. And perhaps in any other case, if a party petitions for legislation and avails himself of it, he may be justly held estopped from disputing its validity; so that the great bulk of private legislation which is being procured from year to year may be at once dismissed from this discussion.

Laws public in their objects may be general or local in their application; they may embrace many subjects or one, and they may extend to all the citizens or be confined to particular classes, as minors, or married women, bankers or traders, and the like. The power that legislates for the State at large must determine whether particular rules shall extend to the whole State and all its citizens, or to a part of the State or a class of its citizens only. The circumstances of a particular locality, or the prevailing public opinion in that section of the State, may require or make acceptable different police regulations from those demanded in another, or call for different taxation, and a different application of the public moneys. The legislature may, therefore, prescribe or authorize different laws of police, allow the right of eminent domain to be exercised in different cases and through different modes, and prescribe peculiar restrictions upon taxation in each distinct municipality, provided the State constitution does not forbid. This is done constantly, and the fact that the laws are local in their operation is not supposed to render them objectionable in principle. The legislature may also deem it desirable to establish peculiar rules for the several occupations, and distinctions in the rights, obligations, and legal capacities of different classes of citizens. The business of common carriers, for instance, or of bankers, may require special statutory regulations for the general benefit, and it may be desirable to give one class of laborers a special lien for their wages, while it would be impracticable or impolitic to do the same by persons engaged in some other employments. If otherwise unobjectionable, all that can be required in these cases is, that they be general in their application to the class or the locality to which they apply, and they are then general laws in the constitutional sense.

But a statute would not be constitutional which should proscribe a class or a party for opinion's sake,1 or which should select partic

1 The sixth section of the Metropolitan Police Law of Baltimore (1859) provided that "no Black Republican, or indorser or supporter of the Helper book, shall be appointed to any office" under the Board of Police which it established. This

ular individuals from a class or locality, and subject them to peculiar rules, or impose upon them special obligations or burdens, from which others in the same locality or class are exempt.1

The legislature may suspend the operation of the general laws of the State; but when it does so, the suspension must be general, and cannot be made in individual cases, or for particular localities.2 Privileges may be granted to individuals, when by so doing the rights of other persons are not injuriously affected; disabilities may be removed; the legislature as parens patriæ may grant authority to the guardians of incompetent persons to exercise a statutory authority over their estate for their assistance, comfort, or support, and for the discharge of legal or equitable liens upon it; but every one has a right to demand that he be governed by general rules, and a special statute that singles his case out as one to be regulated by a different law from that which is applied in

was claimed to be unconstitutional, as introducing into legislation the principle of proscription for the sake of political opinion, which was directly opposed to the cardinal principles on which the constitution was founded. The court dismissed the objection in the following words: "That portion of the sixth section which relates to Black Republicans, &c. is obnoxious to the objection urged against it, if we are to consider that class of persons as proscribed on account of their political or religious opinions. But we cannot understand, officially, who are meant to be affected by the proviso, and therefore cannot express a judicial opinion on the question." Baltimore v. State, 15 Md. 468. See also p. 484. This does not seem to be a very satisfactory disposition of so grave a constitutional objection to a legislative act. That courts may take judicial notice of the fact that the electors of the country are divided into parties with well-known designations cannot be doubted; and when one of these is proscribed by a name familiarly applied to it by its opponents, the inference that it is done because of political opinion seems to be too conclusive to need further support than that which is found in the act itself. And we know no reason why courts should decline to take notice of those facts of general notoriety, which, like the names of political parties, are a part of the public history of the times.

1 Lin Sing v. Washburn, 20 Cal. 534. The constitution of Michigan forbids legislative divorces. The legislature passed an act authorizing the Circuit Court for St. Joseph County to grant a divorce from the bonds of matrimony to James M. Teft, provided it should be made to appear to the court that his wife for five years had been, and still was, hopelessly insane. Insanity was not a ground for divorce under the general law, and the act was held void. Teft v. Teft, 3 Mich. 67.

2 That the statute of limitations cannot be suspended in particular cases, while allowed to remain in force generally, see Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396; Davison v. Johonnot, 7 Met. 393. And that the general exemption laws of the State cannot be varied for particular cases or localities, see Bull v. Conroe, 13 Wis. 238, 244.

all similar cases would not be legitimate legislation, but an arbitrary mandate, unrecognized in free government. Mr. Locke has said of those who make the laws: "They are to govern by promulgated, established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favorite at court and the countryman at plough";1 and this may be justly said to have become a maxim in the law, by which may be tested the authority and binding force of legislative enactments.2

3

Special courts could not be created for the trial of the rights and obligations of particular individuals; and those cases in which legislative acts granting new trials or other special relief in judicial proceedings, while they have been regarded as usurpations of judicial authority, have also been considered obnoxious to the objection that they undertook to suspend general laws in special

1 Locke on Civil Government, § 142.

2 In Lewis v. Webb, 3 Greenl. 326, the validity of a statute granting an appeal from a decree of the Probate Court in a particular case came under review. The court say: "On principle it can never be within the bounds of legitimate legislation to enact a special law, or pass a resolve dispensing with the general law in a particular case, and granting a privilege and indulgence to one man, by way of exemption from the operation and effect of such general law, leaving all other persons under its operation. Such a law is neither just nor reasonable in its consequences. It is our boast that we live under a government of laws, and not of men; but this can hardly be deemed a blessing, unless those laws have for their immovable basis the great principles of constitutional equality. Can it be supposed for a moment that, if the legislature should pass a general law, and add a section by way of proviso, that it never should be construed to have any operation or effect upon the persons, rights, or property of Archelaus Lewis or John Gordon, such a proviso would receive the sanction or even the countenance of a court of law? And how does the supposed case differ from the present? A resolve passed after the general law can produce only the same effect as such proviso. In fact, neither can have any legal operation." See also Durham v. Lewiston, 4 Greenl. 140; Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396; Piquet, Appellant, 5 Pick. 64; Budd v. State, 3 Humph. 483; Wally's Heirs v. Kennedy, 2 Yerg. 554. In the last case it is said: "The rights of every individual must stand or fall by the same rule or law that governs every other member of the body politic, or land, under similar circumstances; and every partial or private law, which directly proposes to destroy or affect individual rights, or does the same thing by affording remedies leading to similar consequences, is unconstitutional and void. Were it otherwise, odious individuals and corporations would be governed by one law; the mass of the community and those who made the law by another; whereas the like general law affecting the whole community equally could not have been passed."

3

As, for instance, the debtors of a particular bank. Bank of the State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. 599.