LAWS EX POST FACTO. Those which are made to punish actions committed before the existence of such laws, and which had not been declared crimes by preceding laws. Declar. of Rights, Mass. part 1, s. 24 Declar. of Rights, Maryl. art. 15. By the constitution of the United States and those of the several states, the legislatures are forbidden to pass ex post facto laws. Const. U. S. art. 1, s. 10, subd. 1.

2. There is a distinction between ex post facto laws and retrospective laws; every ex post facto law must necessarily be retrospective, but every retro-spective law is not an ex post facto law; the former only are prohibited.

3. Laws under the following circumstances are to be considered ex post facto laws, within the words and intents of the prohibition¹ 1st. Every law that makes an act done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal, and punishes such action. 2d. Every law that aggravates² a crime, or makes it greater than it was when committed. 3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts³ a greater punishment than the law annexed⁴ to the crime when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence and receives less, or different testimony⁵, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender⁶. 3 Dall. 390.

4. The policy, the reason and humanity of the prohibition against passing ex post facto laws, do not extend to civil cases, to cases that merely affect the private property of citizens. Some of the most necessary acts of legislation are, on the contrary, founded upon the principles that private rights must yield to public exigencies⁷. 3 Dall. 400; 8 Wheat. 89; see 1 Cranch, 109; 1 Gall⁸. Rep. 105; 9 Cranch, 374; 2 Pet. S. C. R. 627; Id. 380; Id. 523.

LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. Laws of ancient Rome composed in part from those of Solon, and other Greek legislators, and in part from the unwritten laws or customs of the Romans. These laws first appeared in the year of Rome 303, inscribed⁹ on ten plates of brass¹⁰. The following year two others were added, and the entire code bore the name of the Laws of the Twelve Tables. The principles they contained became the source of all the Roman law, and serve to this day as the foundation of the jurisprudence of the greatest part of Europe.

See a fragment of the Law of the twelve Tables in Coop. Justinian, 656; Gibbon's Rome, c. 44.

LAWS OF THE HANSE TOWNS. A code of maritime¹¹ laws known as the laws of the Hanse towns, or the ordinances¹² of the Hanseatic towns, was first published in German, at Lubec, in 1597. In an assembly of deputies from the several towns held at Lubec, these laws were afterwards, May 23, 1614, revised and enlarged. The text of this digest, and a Latin translation, are published with a commentary by Kuricke; and a French translation has been given by Cleirac.