delivered the opinion of the court.
On the 12th of May, 1866, the plaintiff in error recovered in the Superior Court of Randolph County a judgment against W. R. Hart for the sum of $402.30 principal, and $129.60 interest up to the date of the judgment, and costs. An execution was issued upon the judgment, and placed in the hands of the defendant in error as sheriff of that county. He was thereby commanded to make the sums above mentioned and further interest upon the principal from the 12th of May, 1866, and the costs. The plaintiff in error requested him to levy upon a tract of land of 272J acres, belonging to Hart, the defendant in the judgment. Barry refused. He assigned as the only reason for his refusal that the premises had been set off to Hart under the provisions of the act passed by the General Assembly of the State, and approved October 3d, 1869, entitled “An act to provide for setting apart a homestead of realty and personalty, and for the valuation of said property, and for the full and complete protection and security of the same to the sole use and benefit of families, as required by section first of article seventh of the constitution, and for other purposes.”
The first section of the seventh article of the constitution of Georgia of 1868 provides that “ each head of a family, or guardian or trustee of a family of minor .children, shall be entitled to a homestead of realty to the value of $2000 in specie, and personal property to the value of $1000 in specie, to be valued at the time they are set apart, and no court or ministerial officer in this State shall ever have jurisdiction or authority to enforce any judgment, decree, or execution against said property so set apart, including such improvement as may be made thereon from time to time, except for taxes, money borrowed or expended in the improvement of the homestead, or for the purchase-money of the same, and for labor done thereon, or material furnished therefor, or removal of incumbrances thereon.”
The first section of the act of the 3d October, 1868, is in the same terms.
It may well be doubted whether both these provisions were not intended to be wholly prospective in their effect. But as we understand the Supreme Court of the State has come to a different conclusion, we shall not consider the question.
No one can cast his eyes over the former and later exemptions, without being struck by the greatly, increased magnitude of the latter.
Section 10 of Article 1 of the Constitution of the United States declares that “ no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.”
If the remedy is a part of the obligation of the contract, a clearer ease of impairment can hardly occur than is presented in the record before us. The effect of the act in question, under the circumstances of this judgment, does not indeed merely impair, it annihilates the remedy. There is none left.
But the act reaches still further. It withdraws the land from the lien of the judgment, arid thus destroys a vested right of property which the creditor had acquired in the pursuit of the remedy to which he was entitled by the law as it stood when the judgment was recovered. It is in effect taking one person’s property and giving it to another with
Georgia, since she came into the Union as one of the original thirteen States, has never been a State out of the Union. Her constitutional rights were, for a time, necessarily put in abeyance, but her constitutional disabilities and obligations were in nowise affected by her rebellion. The same view is to be taken of the provision in her organic law and of the statute in question, as if she had been in full communion with her sister States when she gave them being. Though her constitution was sanctioned by Congress, this provision can in no sense be considered an act of that body. The sanction was only permissive as a part of the process of her rehabilitation, and involved nothing affirmative or negative beyond that event. If it were express and unequivocal, the result would be the same. Congress cannot, by authorization or ratification, give the slightest effect to a State law or constitution in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. That instrument is above and beyond the power of Congress and the States, and is alike obligatory upon both. A State can no more impair an existing contract by a constitutional provision, than by a legislative act; both are within the prohibition of the National Constitution.
The legal remedies for the enforcement of a contract, which belong to it at the time and place, where it is made, are a part of its obligation. A State may change them, provided the change involve no impairment of a substantial right. If the provision of the constitution, or the legislative act of a State, fall within the category last mentioned, they are to that extent utterly void. They are, for all the purposes of the contract which they impair, as if they had never existed. The constitutional provision and statute
The judgment is reversed, and the cause will be remanded to the Supreme Court of Georgia with directions to enter a judgment of reversal, to reverse the judgment of the Superior Court of Randolph County, and thereafter to proceed
In conformity to this opinion.