existing law when it was committed; a law cannot destroy or impair the "lawful private contracts" of individuals; and a law cannot take property from one person and give it to another. Essentially, a legislature cannot "change innocence into guilt; [or] violate the right of an antecedent private contract; or the right of private property." Such principles were considered to be rights vested through the social compact which underlies any society.
Although such a theory of vested rights was occasionally referred to in subsequent cases, those justices writing the opinions much preferred to base the rights at issue on specific provisions in the Constitution. Consequently, the idea of vested rights remained influential as a source of values which supported the explicit guarantees of Constitutional provisions, such as the contract clause. It did not, however, become a formal basis for the invalidation of legislative acts. It is ironic, in light of the subsequent reasons for the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, that Chief Justice Roger Taney would mention in passing that a Congressional act which barred slavery in the territories deprived a slave owner of his liberty and property and thus "could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law."
The passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 brought into the Constitution a second due process clause, one which ostensibly extended the protection of due process against state laws. The Supreme Court, however, initially rejected the argument that the Fourteenth Amendment protected fundamental rights against state legislation; it said that these rights were properly protected by the states themselves. This ruling delayed the development of the idea of substantive due process for several years and state legislation went unchallenged in federal courts during this time. The dissenters in this case, however, argued that the Fourteenth Amendment did extend protection again...