posing at the time that the title purchased was good, or the lease valid to convey and secure the title and interest therein expressed, the defendant should be entitled to recover of the plaintiff the full value of the improvements made by him or by those through whom he claimed, to be assessed by jury, and to be enforced against the land, and not otherwise. The value was ascertained by estimating the increased value of the land in consequence of the improvements but the plaintiff at his election might have the value of the land without the improvements assessed, and the defendant should purchase the same at that price within four years, or lose the benefit of his claim for improvements. But the benefit of the law was not given to one who had entered on land * by [* 387] virtue of a contract with the owner, unless it should appear that the owner had failed to fulfil such contract on his part.1

This statute, and similar ones which preceded it, have been adjudged constitutional by the Supreme Court of Vermont, and have frequently been enforced. In an early case the court explained the principle of these statutes as follows: "The action for betterments, as they are now termed in the statute, is given on the supposition that the legal title is found to be in the plaintiff in ejectment, and is intended to secure to the defendant the fruit of his labor, and to the plaintiff all that he is justly entitled to, which is his land in as good a situation as it would have been had no labor been bestowed thereon. The statute is highly equitable in all its provisions, and would do exact justice if the value either of the improvements or of the land was always correctly estimated. The principles upon which it is founded are taken from the civil law, where ample provision was made for reimbursing the bona fide possessor the expense of his improvements, if he was removed from his possession by the legal owner. It gives to the possessor not the expense which he has laid out on the land, but the amount which he has increased the value of the land by his betterments thereon; or, in other words, the difference between the value of the land as it is when the owner recovers it, and the value if no improvement had been made. If the owner takes the land together with the improvements, at the advanced value which it has from the labor of the possessor, what can be more just than that he should

pay the difference? But if he is unwilling to pay this difference, by giving a deed as the statue provides, he receives the value as it would have been if nothing had been done thereon. The only objection which can be made is, that it is sometimes compelling the owner to sell when he may have been content with the property in its natural state. But this, when weighed against the loss to the bona fide possessor, and against the injustice of depriving him of the fruits of his labor, and giving it to another, who, by his negligence in not sooner enforcing his claim, has in some measure contributed to the mistake under which he has labored, is not entitled to very great consideration." 1

[* 388]

*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 on 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." 2

Brown v. Storm, 4 Vt. 37. This class of legislation was also elaborately examined and defended by Trumbull, J., in Ross v. Irving, 14 Ill. 171, and in some of the other cases referred to in the succeeding note. See also Bright v. Boyd, 1 Story, 478; s. c. 2 Story, 607.

2 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; Pacquette v. Pickness, 19 Wis. 219; Childs v. Shower, 18 Iowa, 261; Scott v. Mather, 14 Texas, 235; Saunders v. Wilson, 19 Texas, 194; Brackett v. Norcross, 1 Greenl. 92; Hunt's Lessee v. McMahan, 5 Ohio, 132; Longworth v. Worthington, 6 Ohio, 10. See further, Jones v. Carter, 12 Mass. 314; Dothage v. Stuart, 35 Mo. 251; Fenwick v. Gill, 38 Mo. 510; Howard v.

* Betterment laws, then, recognize the existence of an [* 389] equitable right, and give a remedy for its enforcement where none had existed before. It is true that they make a man pay for improvements which he has not directed to be made; but this legislation 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 accomplishes justice as near as the circumstances of the case will admit, when it compels the owner of the land, who, if he declines to sell, must necessarily appropriate the betterments made by another, to pay the value to the person at whose expense they have been made. The case is peculiar; but a statute cannot be void as an unconstitutional interference with private property which adjusts the equities of the parties as near as possible according to natural justice.1

Zeyer, 18 La. An. 407; Pope v. Macon, 23 Ark. 644; Marlow v. Adams, 24 Ark. 109; Ormond v. Martin, 37 Ala. 598; Love v. Shartzer, 31 Cal. 487. For a contrary ruling, see Nelson v. Allen, 1 Yerg. 376. Mr. Justice Story held in Society, &c. v. Wheeler, 2 Gall. 105, 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. See Davis's Lessee v. Powell, 13 Ohio, 308. 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 McCoy 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."

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In Harris v. Inhabitants of Marblehead, 10 Gray, 44, it was held that the betterment law did not apply to a town which had appropriated private property for the purposes of a school-house, and erected the house thereon. The law, it was said, did not apply "where a party is taking land by force of the statute,

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 operation, and in what cases, on the other hand, it may be valid without being general. We speak now in reference to general constitutional principles, and not to any peculiar rules which may have become established by special provisions in the constitutions of individual States.

The cases relating to municipal corporations stand upon peculiar grounds from the fact that those corporations are agencies of government, and as such are 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 the parties representing the interests of the owners, and are remedial in their character. Such statutes are supported by the presumption that the parties in interest would consent if capable of

doing so; and in law they are to be considered as assenting [* 390] in * the person of the guardians or trustees of their rights. And perhaps in any other case, if a party petitions for legislation and avails himself of it, he may justly be held estopped from disputing its validity; so that the great bulk of private legislation which is adopted from year to year, may at once be dismissed from this discussion.

Laws public in their objects may, unless express constitutional provision forbids,2 be either general or local in their application;

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." But as a matter of constitutional authority, we see no reason to doubt that the legislature might extend such a law even to the cases of this description.

1 This doctrine was applied in Ferguson v. Landram, 5 Bush, 230, to parties who had obtained a statute for the levy of a tax to refund bounty moneys, which statute was held void as to other persons.

See ante, p. 128, note 1, and cases cited. To make a statute a public law of general obligation, it is not necessary that it should be equally applicable to

they may embrace many subjects or one, and they may extend to all citizens, or be confined to particular classes, as minors or married women, bankers or traders, and the like. The authority that legislates for the State at large must determine whether particular rules shall extend to the whole State and all its citizens, or, on the other hand, to a subdivision of the State or a single class of its citizens only. The circumstances of a particular locality, or the prevailing public sentiment 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 agencies, and prescribe peculiar restrictions upon taxation in each distinct municipality, provided the State constitution does not forbid. These discriminations are made constantly; and the fact that the laws are of local or special operation only is not supposed to render them obnoxious in principle. The legislature may also deem it desirable to prescribe peculiar rules for the several occupations, and to establish distinctions in the rights, obligations, duties, and capacities 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 matter of public policy to give laborers in one business a specific lien for their wages, when it would be impracticable or impolitic to do the same by persons engaged in some other employments. If the laws be otherwise unobjectionable, all that can be required in these cases is, that they be general in their application to the class or locality to which they apply; and they are then public in character, and of their propriety and policy the legislature must judge.

But a statute would not be constitutional which should proscribe a class or a party for opinion's sake,1 or which should select particular * individuals from a class or locality, and sub- [* 391] ject them to peculiar rules, or impose upon them special

all parts of the State; all that is required is that it shall apply equally to all persons within the territorial limits described in the act. State v. County Commissioners of Baltimore, 29 Md. 516.

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,