Opinion of the Court. with the Circuit Court that if Congress has the right to determine in what courts such questions must be tried, it must necessarily have the power to regulate the remedy, including the right to prescribe the time within which the suit must be brought. That court further cites from the same opinion with approval, as follows: "Nor is the objection sound that in such cases the action, if tried in the State courts, will be subject to the laws of limitations prescribed by the States, while in the federal courts a different rule would prevail. For the act of Congress by its terms applies to all cases of the character described in the statute, and we see no reason to limit its application to the federal courts. If Congress has a right to legislate on this subject, it has the right to make that legislation the law of all courts into which such a case may come, and we think they have done this in the statute under consideration." That a similar statute in regard to suits by or against an assignee in bankruptcy governs the State courts, see Jenkins v. The Bank, 106 U. S. 571, and Jenkins v. Lowenthal, 110 U. S. 222. It is no answer to this to say that it interferes with the validity of contracts, for no provision of the Constitution prohibits Congress from doing this, as it does the States; and where the question of the power of Congress arises, as in the legal tender cases, and in bankruptcy cases, it does not depend upon the incidental effect of its exercise on contracts, but on the existence of the power itself. In regard to the States, which are expressly forbidden to impair by legislation the obligation of contracts, it has been repeatedly held that a statute of limitation which reduces materially the time within which suit may be commenced, though passed after the contract was made, is not void if a reasonable time is left for the enforcement of the contract by suit before the statute bars that right. Such is the case before us, for the statute leaves two years after its passage, and two years after cause of action accrued, within which suit could be brought. Opinion of the Court, It is said that the plea does not bring the case within the provisions of the act of Congress, because this is an action to recover of the defendant the rents which are due from him to the plaintiff on a contract in writing, and that the trespass committed on the defendant by order of General Schofield is no answer to plaintiff's right under the contract. But we are of opinion that both the language and the spirit of the statute embrace the present case. The plea makes it plain that it was the purpose of the Schofield order to seize the debt due from defendant to plaintiff, to confiscate it for military purposes. The sum enforced from Mitchell was the precise sum due to Clark for those rents. It was to answer Clark's obligation or default the order was made and enforced against Mitchell. He could not help himself. It could as well be said that the garnishee in attachment is not protected when paying under the order of the court, because there was error in the proceeding against his creditor. In all the confiscation of debts in the cases arising out of the late rebellion the same thing was done by the courts that was done here by the military power, namely, a debt due by a debtor, who was present, was seized and paid over to the United States. Can it be held that this was no proceeding against the creditor? It cannot be denied that such a procedure, if well conducted, is a good defence. It was the purpose of this statute to make it a defence here, though done without authority, if the creditor's right was not asserted by suit within two years. The language of the statute is, that no svit shall be maintained unless brought within two years, for any wrongs done or committed or act omitted to be done, by virtue or under color of authority, derived from or exercised by, or under, the President. The act done here was the payment, under summary confiscation, of the debt due Clark to the military officer. The act omitted was the omission by Mitchell, during all these years, under that order, to pay to Clark. The two years' statute was intended to cover the act done by Mitchell in paying according to the order of Schofield, and the omission, in refusing to pay to Clark. Opinion of the Court. The case of Harrison v. Myers, 92 U. S. 111, was a case where the rent due under a lease from an absconding malcontent, was seized by a military order. This court held that the lessor could not afterward insist on the contract. His property was seized, says the court, and the tenant was no longer responsible to him, who could no longer secure him possession, and as the lessee was obliged to render obedience to paramount authority, it was entirely competent for him to enter into a new contract to protect his interest. It is said, however, that the Supreme Court of Missouri held the plea to be bad because it did not set out a copy of the order of General Schofield on which the defence is founded, either in hæc verba or in substance, and that this, not being a question of federal law, is sufficient to sustain the judgment of that court. But there are several sufficient answers to this: 1. The opinion of the Supreme Court, while mentioning this objection en passant, does not decide that it is of itself sufficient to invalidate the plea. 2. It does proceed in a lengthy discussion of the plea on its merits, and rests its judgment on the ground that Congress had no power to pass the statute of limitations in question. 3. The question whether a plea sets up a sufficient defence, when the defence relied on arises under an act of Congress, does present, and that necessarily, a question of federal law; for the question is and must be, does the plea state facts which under the act of Congress constitute a good defence? 4. In this particular matter Congress made even the manner of pleading the defence a question of federal law by the provisions of the statutes on this subject. By section four of the act of 1863, 12 Stat. 756, it is enacted that the defence which it affords may be made by special plea or under the general issue; and by section one of the act of 1866, 14 Stat. 46, that the order which shall be a sufficient defence may be written or verbal, general or special. These provisions furnish the rules by which the manner of setting up the defence is to be governed, and they leave no doubt in our mind that the liberality which they intended to Opinion of the Court. prescribe in the matter requires that the present plea of the statute of limitations, being good in substance, is sufficient in form of statement. If the order was verbal, if it was general, if it could be given in evidence under the general issue, it is sufficiently set out in this plea as an order of General Schofield, in command of that military department, under which defendant was compelled to pay to that officer's subordinate the rent he owed to plaintiff. In the case of Bean v. Beckwith, 18 Wall. 510, the defendants did not rely upon the statute of limitations of 1863, but pleaded as a special defence that one of them was a provostmarshal, and the other acted under his orders; and that they both acted under the authority and by the order of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. But whether there was in that case a special order of the President to the provostmarshal, or whether he assumed to arrest and imprison the plaintiff under some proclamation or general order, did not appear by the plea, and as it was a case of arrest and imprisonment this court held that the authority of the defendants to make it should be specifically set forth. That is not the present case, for the defendant here did as he was compelled to by others, and probably never saw the order under which he was forced to pay the money, and has not now within his control the order under which the officer acted. He has, besides, given with sufficient clearness the substance of General Schofield's order to enable plaintiff to deny its existence, if he can, or to make any other reply appropriate to the merits of the case, and if the order was verbal no better statement of it can be exacted. We concur in the opinion of the lower courts in Missouri that the plea of the statute of limitations is a good plea and is sufficiently set out; and for the error in sustaining the demurrer to this plea The judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri is reversed, and the case remanded to that court for further proceedings, not inconsistent with this opinion. Dissenting Opinion: Field, J. MR. JUSTICE FIELD, dissenting. I cannot agree with my associates in the judgment in this case. I know of no law that was ever enacted in the United States, which would justify a military officer in enforcing the payment to him of a debt due from one loyal citizen to another loyal citizen, neither being in the military service, or residing in a State declared to be in insurrection, or in which the courts of law were not open and in the peaceful exercise of their jurisdiction. Such a law, in my opinion-I say it with respectwould dishonor the statute-book of the United States; and that which has never been enacted by legislative power can never be rightly adjudged to exist by a judicial tribunal. The averment of the answer that the payment was enforced as a means of carrying on military operations by the United States, we know to be untrue. At that time the government appropriated the requisite funds to prosecute the war, and our legislation and history show that no plundering of loyal citizens in loyal States, nor any forced contribution from them, was ever ordered or sanctioned by public authority. The enforced payment in question could, therefore, be no defence to the claim of the plaintiff. And it is difficult to understand how the act of Congress of March 3d, 1863, 12 Stat. 755, or the amendatory act of May 11, 1866, 14 Stat. 46, fixing a limitation to actions against military officers for certain acts done by them during the war, or against parties acting under their direction, can be invoked in this case. The fourth section of the act of March 3d, 1863, makes the order or authority of the President a defence only to actions "for any search, seizure, arrest, or imprisonment made, done, or committed, or acts omitted to be done, under and by virtue of such order or under color of any law of Congress." It has reference to acts affecting the person or such property as is subject to physical seizure. It does not apply to actions for breaches of contract between citizens in loyal States, or to any questions arising out of such contracts. Debts being intangible things, were incapable of seizure in any proper sense of that term; and the debtors were not discharged from liability because of |