THE CASE OF GELPCKE v, DUBUQUE. 3^9 in the region of constitutional law, that there is more than one rea- sonable and allowable interpretation of a thing. It is familiar that they will not set aside the interpretation put upon the constitution by a coordinate legislature, in enacting a law, unless the mistake be very plain indeed, — so plain (in the ordinary phrase used in such cases) as to be beyond reasonable doubt. If the rule be under- stood in this sense only, that any contract which was held good at the time of making it by the highest court of the State, and which came within a permissible interpretation of the State constitution and laWy will be sustained in the United States courts, I think that it is a sound one, and should be upheld. It is a rule which the State court should accept; and if the adoption of it by the United States court lead to resistance on the part of the State authorities, that is a result which must be submitted to and dealt with as may be possible. Such temporary consequences were probably anticipated when the constitution was formed. But it may be confidently ex- pected that so just a rule will ultimately commend itself to all courts. It will be observed that the rule is one regulating the administra- tion of a particular jurisdiction of the United States courts. It does not necessarily follow that this same rule should be applied in any other class of cases. Since the rule must be attended with the qualification above named, the question next arises whether the doctrine which was laid down in the earlier decisions in Iowa gives a construction to the constitution of that State which is a rational, a permissible one. I have no doubt that it does. Indeed, it appears to me that the Supreme Court of the United States is right in saying that this view was the just and sound interpretation of that constitution. And it may now be added also that the Supreme Court of Iowa, within seven or eight years after the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the present case, came back again to the doctrine of the earlier cases, and that this doctrine is now the fixed law of the State. ^ It is enough, however, to say that the view was one which might reasonably be held. It will be observed that the decision of this case does not at all turn upon the clause of the Constitution of the United States re- lating to impairing the obligation of contracts; and it should be added that it does not in any degree turn upon a theory that the
- Stewart v. Supervisors, 30 Iowa, 193.
