The Contract Clause and Natural Law, Fletcher v. Peck

[Emsworth]

The Legislature of Georgia was fully entitled to grant land to private companies. There is no provision in the Constitution or laws of Georgia, as they stood in 1795, that contradicted this principle. The original grant of land was completely valid.

Georgia was not constitutionally entitled to impair the original sale of land by a later legislative enactment. The decision, therefore, was sound.

[Emsworth]

Johnson's concurrence was even worse: "I ... declare that a state does not possess the power of revoking its own grants ... on a general principle ... which will impose laws even on the deity."

Haha! I have never seen anything as ridiculous in a Supreme Court opinion.