The greater difficulty arose from the fact that, whether implied or explicit, the contract before the Court was a public one. In the case of private contracts it is easy enough to distinguish the contract, as the agreement between the parties, from the obligation of the contract which comes from the law and holds the parties to their engagements. But what law was there to hold Georgia to her supposed agreement not to rescind the grant she had made? Not the Constitution of the United States unattended by any other law, since it protects the obligation only after it has come into existence. Not the Constitution of Georgia as construed by her own courts, since they had sustained the rescinding act. Only one possibility remained; the State Constitution must be the source of the obligation--yes; but the State Constitution as it was construed by the United States Supreme Court in this very case, in the light of the "general principles of our political institutions." In short the obligation is a moral one; and this moral obligation is treated by Marshall as having been converted into a legal one by the United States Constitution. However, Marshall apparently fails to find entire satisfaction in this argument, for he next turns to the prohibition against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws with a question which manifests disapproval of the decision in Calder vs. Bull. Yet he hesitates to overrule Calder vs. Bull, and, indeed, even at the very end of his opinion he still declines to indicate clearly the basis of his decision. The State of Georgia, he says, "was restrained" from the passing of the rescinding act "either by general principles which are common to our free institutions, or by particular provisions of the Constitution of the United States." It was not until nine years after Fletcher vs. Peck that this ambiguity was cleared up in the Dartmouth College case in 1819. The case of the Trustees of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward ¹ was a New England product and redolent of the soil from which it sprang. In 1754 the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock of Connecticut had established at his own expense a charity school for instructing Indians in the Christian religion; and so great was his success that he felt encouraged to extend the undertaking and to solicit donations in England. Again success rewarded his efforts; and in 1769 Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire, George III's representative granted the new institution, which was now located at Hanover, New Hampshire, a charter incorporating twelve named persons as "The Trustees of Dartmouth College" with the power to govern the institution, appoint its officers, and fill all vacancies in their own body "forever." ¹ The following account of this case is based on J. M. Shirley's Dartmouth College Causes (St. Louis, 1879) and on the official report, 4 Wheaton, 518.