Opinion of the Court. resume it at any time when the public good shall require, whether it be paid for or not. All that one can get by such a charter is a suspension of certain governmental rights in his favor, subject to withdrawal at will. He has in legal effect nothing more than a license to enjoy the privilege on the terms named for the specified time, unless it be sooner abrogated by the sovereign power of the State. It is a permit, good as against existing laws, but subject to future legislative and constitutional control or withdrawal." It is suggested that, in important particulars, the opinion and judgment in Stone v. Mississippi was modified by the decision in New Orleans v. Houston, 119 U. S. 265, 275. So far from this being true the principles announced in the former case were recognized, and held to have no application in the latter case. In New Orleans v. Houston the question was whether the legislature of Louisiana could destroy or impair a lottery charter granted and authorized by the constitution of that State. This court, speaking by Mr. Justice Matthews, said: "It is undoubtedly true that no rights of contract are or can be vested under this constitutional provision which a subsequent constitution might not destroy without impairing the obligation of a contract, within the sense of the Constitution of the United States, for the reason assigned in the case of Stone v. Mississippi. But an ordinary act of legislation cannot have that effect, because the constitutional provision has withdrawn from the scope of the police power of the State, to be exercised by the General Assembly, the subject-matter of the granting of lottery charters, so far as the Louisiana State Lottery Company is concerned, and any act of the legislature contrary to this prohibition is upon familiar principles null and void. The subject is not within the jurisdiction of the police power of the State, as it is permitted to be exercised by the legislature under the constitution of the State." So that in New Orleans v. Houston it was decided, that, while a lottery grant was not a contract within the meaning of the Federal Constitution, the obligation of which was protected against impairment by the State making the grant, the legislature could not strike Opinion of the Court. down a lottery which the fundamental law of the State had authorized. In the argument on behalf of the plaintiff in error much stress was laid upon former decisions of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky relating to rights acquired under lottery grants. Our attention has been particularly called to Gregory v. Shelby College Lottery Trustees, 2 Met. (Ky.) 589, 598. From the report of that case it appears that the legislature of Kentucky in 1838 granted to Shelby College the privilege of raising the sum of one hundred thousand dollars by lottery, with authority to sell or dispose of the scheme or any classes of the lottery. In 1855 the provision of the Revised Statutes, declaring that all lottery privileges should cease, took effect. And the question arose as to the effect of that enactment upon the rights of one who had loaned money to the College upon the faith of the lottery grant, and to secure the loan had taken from the trustees of the institution a mortgage upon their rights under the lottery franchise. The Court of Appeals of Kentucky, conceding that the grant of a privilege to raise money by a lottery was a mere gratuity, was not an act of incorporation, conferred no charter rights, and did not amount to a contract, proceeded: "Although, therefore, the legislature has the power to repeal the grant of a lottery privilege where no rights have accrued under it, and though lotteries have a demoralizing tendency and exercise a very pernicious influence over the ignorant and credulous part of the community, and for this reason have been almost universally denounced by the law-making power in different States of the Union, yet if rights have been acquired or liabilities incurred upon the faith of the privilege conferred by the grant, it would be obviously unjust to permit such rights to be divested by a legislative revocation of the privilege. If, therefore, any vested rights have been acquired under the present grant before the passage of the repealing law, then, to the extent of such rights at least, the law must be regarded as unconstitutional and inoperative. This conclusion is, we think, fully sanctioned by the following adjudged cases: Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518 to 643; Fletcher v. Opinion of the Court. Peck, 9 Cranch, 87; University of Maryland v. Williams, 9 Gill & Johnson, 365; Terret v. Taylor, 9 Cranch, 43, 52; Louisville v. University of Louisville, 15 B. Mon. 642, 692. The plaintiff, Waller, before the repealing act was passed, had, on the faith of the lottery grant, advanced large sums of money, which were appropriated by him for the benefit of Shelby College, and the trustees of the college had mortgaged to him their rights under the lottery franchise for his indemnity. As the lottery privilege was granted for the benefit of the Shelby College, and the money was advanced by Waller with the assent of the trustees of the college, under the belief that it would be realized eventually from the lottery, he became thereby invested with the right to the use of the grant until from such use the sum was produced which he had advanced for the benefit of the college. This was a vested right of which he could not be divested by an act of the legislature. So far, therefore, as the repealing act interferes with or affects this right, it is unconstitutional and inoperative." These principles were recognized in cases subsequently decided by the same court. The defendant insists that his rights having been acquired when these decisions of the highest court of Kentucky were in full force, should be protected according to the law of the State as it was adjudged to be when those rights attached. But is this court required to accept the principles announced by the state court as to the extent to which the contract clause of the Federal Constitution restricts the powers of the state legislatures? Clearly not. The defendant invokes the jurisdiction of this court upon the ground that the rights denied to him by the final judgment of the highest court of Kentucky, and which the State seeks to prevent him from exercising, were acquired under an agreement that constituted a contract within the meaning of the Federal Constitution. This contention is disputed by the State. So that the issue presented makes it necessary to inquire whether that which the defendant asserts to be a contract was a contract of the class to which the Constitution of the United States refers. This court must determine — indeed, it cannot consistently with its duty refuse Opinion of the Court. to determine upon its own responsibility, in each case as it arises, whether that which a party seeks to have protected under the contract clause of the Constitution of the United States is a contract the obligation of which is protected by that instrument against hostile state legislation. In Jefferson Branch Bank v. Skelly, 1 Black, 436, 443, which involved the contract clause of the Constitution, it was contended that this court should accept as conclusive the interpretation placed by the Supreme Court of Ohio upon the constitution and laws of that State as affecting certain state legislation which, it was alleged, constituted a contract, the obligation of which could not be impaired by legislation. Mr. Justice Wayne, delivering the unanimous judgment of the court, said: "The constructions given by the courts of the states to state legislation and to state constitutions have been conclusive upon this court, with a single exception, and that is when it has been called upon to interpret the contracts of States, 'though they have been made in forms of law,' or by the instrumentality of a State's authorized functionaries in conformity with state legislation. It has never been denied, nor is it now, that the Supreme Court of the United States has an appellate power to revise the judgment of the Supreme Court of a State, whenever such a court shall adjudge that not to be a contract which has been alleged, in the forms of legal proceedings, by a litigant, to be one, within the meaning of that clause of the Constitution of the United States which inhibits the States from passing any law impairing the obligation of contracts. Of what use would the appellate power be to the litigant who feels himself aggrieved by some particular state legislation if this court could not decide, independently of all adjudication by the Supreme Court of a State, whether or not the phraseology of the instrument in controversy was expressive of a contract and within the protection of the Constitution of the United States, and that its obligation should be enforced, notwithstanding a contrary conclusion by the Supreme Court of a State? It never was intended, and cannot be sustained by any course of reasoning, that this court should or could with fidelity to the Constitution of the Opinion of the Court. United States follow the construction of the Supreme Court of a State in such a matter, when it entertained a different opinion; and in forming its judgment in such a case, it makes no difference in the obligation of this court in reversing the judgment of the Supreme Court of a State upon such a contract, whether it be one claimed to be such under the form of state legislation, or has been made by a covenant or agreement by the agents of a State, by its authority." The doctrine that this court possesses paramount authority when reviewing the final judgment of a state court upholding a state enactment alleged to be in violation of the contract clause of the Constitution, to determine for itself the existence or non-existence of the contract set up, and whether its obligation has been impaired by the state enactment, has been affirmed in numerous other cases. Ohio Life Ins. Co. v. Debolt, 16 How. 416, 452; Wright v. Nagle, 101 U. S. 791, 794; Louisville Gas Co. v. Citizens' Gas Co., 115 U. S. 683, 697; Vicksburg, Shreveport, &c. Railroad v. Dennis, 116 U. S. 665, 667; N. O. Waterworks Co. v. Louisiana Sugar Co., 125 U. S. 18, 36; Bryan v. Board of Education, 151 U. S. 639, 650; Mobile & Ohio Railroad v. Tennessee, 153 U. S. 486, 493; Bacon v. Texas, 163 U. S. 207, 219. In view of these adjudications it is clear that we are not required to accept as authoritative in this case the decision of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky in Gregory v. Shelby College Lottery Trustees, above cited, to the effect that a legislative revocation of a lottery grant is a violation of the Constitution of the United States so far as such revocation affects rights acquired on the faith of the privilege conferred by the grant, and the exercise of which involves the continuance of that privilege for such time as may be necessary for the full enjoyment of those rights. On the contrary, we hold that a lottery grant is not, in any sense, a contract within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, but is simply a gratuity and license, which the State, under its police powers, and for the protection of the public morals, may at any time revoke, and forbid the further conduct of the lottery; and that no right acquired during the life of the grant, on the |