Cite as: 511 U. S. 244 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
repeals were understood to preclude punishment for acts antedating the repeal. See, e. g., United States v. Chambers, 291 U. S. 217, 223-224 (1934); Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Dennis, 224 U. S. 503, 506 (1912); United States v. Tynen, 11 Wall. 88, 93-95 (1871); Norris v. Crocker, 13 How. 429, 440-441 (1852); Maryland ex rel. Washington Cty. v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 3 How. 534, 552 (1845); Yeaton v. United States, 5 Cranch 281, 284 (1809). But see 1 U. S. C. § 109 (repealing common-law rule).
The largest category of cases in which we have applied the presumption against statutory retroactivity has involved new provisions affecting contractual or property rights, matters in which predictability and stability are of prime importance.25 The presumption has not, however, been limited to such cases. At issue in Chew Heong v. United States, 112 U. S. 536 (1884), for example, was a provision of the "Chinese Restriction Act" of 1882 barring Chinese laborers from reentering the United States without a certificate prepared when they exited this country. We held that the statute did not bar the reentry of a laborer who had left the United States before the certification requirement was promulgated. Justice Harlan's opinion for the Court observed that the law in effect before the 1882 enactment had accorded laborers a right to reenter without a certificate, and invoked the "uniformly" accepted rule against "giv[ing] to statutes a retro-25 See, e. g., United States v. Security Industrial Bank, 459 U. S. 70, 79-82 (1982); Claridge Apartments Co. v. Commissioner, 323 U. S. 141, 164 (1944); United States v. St. Louis, S. F. & T. R. Co., 270 U. S. 1, 3 (1926); Holt v. Henley, 232 U. S. 637, 639 (1914); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Laramie Stock Yards Co., 231 U. S., at 199; Twenty per Cent. Cases, 20 Wall. 179, 187 (1874); Sohn v. Waterson, 17 Wall. 596, 599 (1873); Carroll v. Lessee of Carroll, 16 How. 275 (1854). While the great majority of our decisions relying upon the antiretroactivity presumption have involved intervening statutes burdening private parties, we have applied the presumption in cases involving new monetary obligations that fell only on the government. See United States v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 276 U. S. 160 (1928); White v. United States, 191 U. S. 545 (1903).
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