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The Theory of Social Revolutions by Brooks Adams
page 61 of 144 (42%)
exist. Second, admitting that a contract had been proved, whether it had
also been shown to have been impaired.

Within ten years after these decisions it had been found in practice
that public opinion would not sustain so rigid an administration of the
law. No legislature could intervene, and a pressure was brought to bear
which the judges could not withstand; therefore, the Court yielded,
declaring that if impairing a contract were, on the whole, for the
public welfare, the Constitution, as Marshall interpreted it, should be
suspended in favor of the legislation which impaired it. They called
this suspension the operation of the "Police Power." It followed, as the
"Police Power" could only come into operation at the discretion of the
Court, that, therefore, within the limits of judicial discretion,
confiscation, however arbitrary and to whatever extent, might go on. In
the energetic language of the Supreme Court of Maine: "This duty and
consequent power override all statute or contract exemptions. The state
cannot free any person or corporation from subjection to this power.
All personal, as well as property rights must be held subject to the
Police Power of the state."[22]

Once the theory of the Police Power was established it became desirable
to define the limits of judicial discretion, but that proved to be
impossible. It could not be determined in advance by abstract reasoning.
Hence, as each litigation arose, the judges could follow no rule but the
rule of common sense, and the Police Power, translated into plain
English, presently came to signify whatever, at the moment, the judges
happened to think reasonable. Consequently, they began guessing at the
drift of public opinion, as it percolated to them through the medium of
their education and prejudices. Sometimes they guessed right and
sometimes wrong, and when they guessed wrong they were cast aside, as
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