Cite as: 524 U. S. 498 (1998)
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
ed.)). These authorities confirm my view that the case is controlled not by the Takings Clause but by well-settled due process principles respecting retroactive laws.
Given my view that the takings analysis is inapplicable in this case, it is unnecessary to comment upon the plural-ity's effort to resolve a jurisdictional question despite little briefing by the parties on a point which has divided the Courts of Appeals.
II
When the constitutionality of the Coal Act is tested under the Due Process Clause, it must be invalidated. Accepted principles forbidding retroactive legislation of this type are sufficient to dispose of the case.
Although we have been hesitant to subject economic legislation to due process scrutiny as a general matter, the Court has given careful consideration to due process challenges to legislation with retroactive effects. As today's plurality opinion notes, for centuries our law has harbored a singular distrust of retroactive statutes. Ante, at 532-533. In the words of Chancellor Kent: "A retroactive statute would partake in its character of the mischiefs of an ex post facto law . . . ; and in every other case relating to contracts or property, it would be against every sound principle." 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *455; see also ibid. (rule against retroactive application of statutes to be "founded not only in English law, but on the principles of general jurisprudence"). Justice Story reached a similar conclusion: "Retrospective laws are, indeed, generally unjust; and, as has been forcibly said, neither accord with sound legislation nor with the fundamental principles of the social compact." 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution § 1398 (5th ed. 1891).
The Court's due process jurisprudence reflects this distrust. For example, in Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U. S. 1, 15 (1976), the Court held due process requires an inquiry into whether in enacting the retroactive law the legislature acted in an arbitrary and irrational way. Even though prospective economic legislation carries with it
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