by the spirit and scope of these fundamental charters.  Our own experience has taught us, nevertheless, that additional fences against these dangers ought not to be omitted.  Very properly, therefore, have the convention added this constitutional bulwark, in favor of personal security and private rights; and I am much deceived, if they have not, in so doing, as faithfully consulted the genuine sentiments as the undoubted interests of their constituents.  The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils.  They have seen with regret, and with indignation, that sudden changes, and legislative interferences in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more industrious and less informed part of the community.  They have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the link of a long chain of repetitions; every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the preceding."[50]

It has already been decided in this court, that a grant is a contract, within the meaning of this provision; and that a grant by a State is also a contract, as much as the grant of an individual.  In the case of Fletcher v.  Peck[51] this court says:  “A contract is a compact between two or more parties, and is either executory or executed.  An executory contract is one in which a party binds himself to do, or not to do, a particular thing; such was the law under which the conveyance was made by the government.  A contract executed is one in which the object of contract is performed; and this, says Blackstone, differs in nothing from a grant.  The contract between Georgia and the purchasers was executed by the grant.  A contract executed, as well as one which is executory, contains obligations binding on the parties.  A grant, in its own nature, amounts to an extinguishment of the right of the grantor, and implies a contract not to reassert that right.  If, under a fair construction of the Constitution, grants are comprehended under the term contracts, is a grant from the State excluded from the operation of the provision?  Is the clause to be considered as inhibiting the State from impairing the obligation of contracts between two individuals, but as excluding from that inhibition contracts made with itself?  The words themselves contain no such distinction.  They are general, and are applicable to contracts of every description.  If contracts made with the State are to be exempted from their operation, the exception must arise from the character of the contracting party, not from the words which are employed.  Whatever respect might have been felt for the State sovereignties, it is not to be disguised that the framers of the Constitution viewed with some apprehension the violent acts which might grow out of the feelings of the moment; and that the people of the United States, in adopting that instrument, have manifested a determination to shield themselves and their property from the effects of those sudden and strong passions to which men are exposed.  The restrictions on the legislative power of the States are obviously founded in this sentiment; and the Constitution of the United States contains what may be deemed a bill of rights for the people of each State.”