out any conviction in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. If an act inflicts a milder degree of punishment than death it is called 'a bill of pains and penalties.""

But a definition was given by Chief Justice Marshall in Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, where he says: "A bill of attainder may affect the life of an individual or may confiscate his estate, or both." This was a favorite resort of tyranny to be rid of troublesome subjects, by attainting them, and having the attainder work corruption of blood and forfeiture of estate, so that one's life and estate might be taken and his children outlawed. As a power liable to abuse in times of strong public excitement, partisan passion or popular prejudice, it was wisely forbidden by the Constitution to the Congress and to any State to pass such laws.

The power to banish from the State and confiscate property is not attainder. Cooper v. Telfair, 4 Dall., 14. This was a law passed before the adoption of the Constitution.

"A bill of attainder can be only for crimes already committed; and a law is not ex post facto, unless it looks back to an act done before its passage." Ch. J. Marshall in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat., 335.

The phrase ex post facto laws is not applicable to civil laws but to penal and criminal laws, which can punish no party for acts antecedently done, which were not punishable at all when committed or not punishable to

the extent or in the manner prescribed. Watson v. Mercer, 8 Peters, 110, citing Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall., 386; Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87; Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat., 266; Satterlee v. Matthewson, 2 Pet., 380.

A resolution of the legislature of a State or a law, setting aside a decree of a court of probate or granting a new hearing with liberty of appeal is not an ex post facto law. Calder v. Bull, supra.

A law passed after death of a citizen compelling executors to pay a tax, from property on their lands in a State, or property out of the State, is not ex post facto. Carpenter v. Pennsylvania, 17 How., 456.

A statute which simply authorizes the imposition of a tax according to a previous assessment is not invalid. An act may be retrospective and not be ex post facto. Locke v. New Orleans, 4 Wall., 172.

The clauses of the Constitution adopted in the State of Missouri after the civil war, which deprived priests and clergymen of the right to preach and teach because of antecedent sympathy with the rebellion, held ex post facto and void. Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall., 277.

An act of Congress debarring persons from practicing in the Federal courts, unless they took an oath that they had not voluntarily given aid or countenance to the rebellion, held void as ex post facto. Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall., 333.

The Constitution of the State of Missouri, adopted

in 1865, provided that no person should be prosecuted in a civil action for, or on account of any act by him done, or performed, after January 1, 1861, by virtue of military authority vested in him by the government of the United States or State, or in pursuance of orders received by him from any person vested with such authority. It also provided that the immunity of the section might be pleaded in bar of any action or proceeding begun before or after the adoption of the section. It was held not an ex post facto law nor a bill of attainder, nor an act impairing the obligation of a contract. Drehman v. Stifle, 8 Wall., 595.

An act of West Virginia, which deprived a person of a right for past misconduct without judicial trial, partook of the nature of a bill of pains and penalties and was unconstitutional. Pierce v. Carskadon, 16 Wall.,

234.

A statute in New York passed in 1895, prohibited any one from practicing medicine, who had ever been convicted of felony. H. had been found guilty and convicted before this statute in 1878 of procuring an abortion. Held, in Supreme Court of the State and in the Supreme Court of the United States that this was a reasonable police regulation and not an ex post facto law. Hawker v. New York, 170 U. S., 201. Several judges dissenting.

"The inhibition upon the passage of ex post facto laws does not give a criminal a right to be tried, in all

respects, by the law in force when the crime charged was committed. The mode of trial is always under legislative control, subject only to the condition that the legislature may not under the guise of establishing modes of procedure and prescribing remedies, violate the accepted principles that protect an accused person against ex post facto enactments." Gibson v. Missis

sippi, 162 U. S., 565.

A statute which simply enlarges the class of persons which may be competent to testify, is not ex post facto in its application to offenses previously committed; for it does not attach criminality to any act previously done, which when done did not violate law, nor does it alter the punishment or lessen the amount of proof necessary. It merely alters the mode of procedure in which the accused has no vested right. Hopt v. Utah, 110 U. S., 574.

The prescribing of different modes of procedure, and the abolition of courts and creation of new ones, leaving untouched all the substantial protections with which the existing law surrounds the accused, is not an ex post facto law, as meant in the Constitution. Duncan v. Missouri, 152 U. S., 377.

The act of March 1, 1889 (25 Stat. at L., 785, Ch. 333), which subjects persons charged with murder committed under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, but not within any State, to trial in a judicial district different from the one in which they

might have been tried at the time the offense was committed is not an ex post facto law, as a change of the place of the trial is not involved in any of the definitions of an ex post facto law. Cook v. United States,

138 U. S., 157.

The statute of a State authorizing the comparison of disputed hand writing with any writing proved to be genuine is not an ex post facto law, in its application as altering the rules of evidence in existence at the time of the commission of the offense. Thompson v. Missouri, 171 U. S., 380.

An act of Congress approved in the afternoon raised the duty on tobacco, and imposed a fine for removing it from the warehouse without the stamp to show that the tax had been paid. Held, that this act would operate as ex post facto as to tobacco removed the same day at an earlier hour. Burgess v. Salmon, 97 U. S., 381.

The decisions as to ex post facto laws are made under the two clauses, one forbidding Congress to pass such laws, the other forbidding the States from passing the like. Instances of State ex post facto laws and decisions relating to the same will be found on page 146. In either case the Supreme Court can review the decision, in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction.