"Every man should be protected in his lawful acts, and be certain that no ex post facto law shall punish or endamage him for them. ...The sentiment that ex post facto laws are against natural right, is so strong in the United States, that few, if any, of the State constitutions have failed to proscribe them. The federal constitution indeed interdicts them in criminal cases only; but they are equally unjust in civil as in criminal cases, and the omission of a caution which would have been right, does not justify the doing what is wrong. Nor ought it to be presumed that the legislature meant to use a phrase in an unjustifiable sense, if by rules of construction it can be ever strained to what is just."
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Presidents of the United StatesUnitarians from the United StatesFounding Fathers of the United States of AmericaUnited States Secretaries of StatePoliticians from Virginia
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Thomas Jefferson
1743 – 1826
US-amerikanischer Politiker und der dritte Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten (1801–1809).
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