the payment is postponed, the legatee, if he has an absolute indefeasible interest in the legacy, is not bound to wait until the expiration of that period, but may require payment the moment he is competent to give a valid discharge." The point thus decided in Saunders v. Vautier was followed in Wharton v. Masterman, where Lord Herschell said very significantly, "The point seems, in the first instance, to have been rather assumed than decided. It was apparently regarded as a necessary consequence of the conclusion that a gift had vested, that the enjoyment of it must be immediate on the beneficiary becoming sui juris, and could not be postponed until a later date unless the testator had made some other destination of the income during the intervening period.

"It is needless to inquire whether the courts might have given effect to the intention of the testator in such cases to postpone the enjoyment of his bounty to a time fixed by himself subsequent to the attainment by the objects of his bounty of their majority. The doctrine has been so long settled and so often recognized that it would not be proper now to question it."

The doctrine thus stated is the plain outgrowth of certain earlier English decisions in the interest of creditors, which hold, in substance, that the necessary incidents of beneficial ownership in property are liability to creditors and the power of alienation. Having concluded that a testator could not so bestow that which was his own to an object of his bounty as not to be subject to the claims of creditors of the latter, it was a logical conclusion that a testator could not postpone the payment of a vested and absolute legacy beyond the time when the legatee should be able to give a valid discharge. But the acceptance of the principle upon which Saunders v. Vautier and Wharton v. Masterman rest involves the acceptance of the limitation which the earlier English cases place upon the powers of a testator in so disposing of his prop

erty that it may be enjoyed by the recipient without liability to creditors. The foundation of the English doctrine in both classes of cases is an assumption that there is some settled principle of public policy which subjects all property in which one has a beneficial ownership to the claims of creditors and forbids restraint upon alienation. That this theory of public policy is not of universal application, at least in this country, is manifest from the numerous exemption statutes existing which protect to a limited extent the acquisitions of a debtor from the claims of his creditors and restrain his power of alienation in the interest of his family. Neither do we for a moment question the rule that one may not by his own act preserve to himself the enjoyment of property in such manner that it shall not be subject to the claims of creditors or placed beyond his own power of alienation.

But a very different question is presented when we come to the powers of a testator to so bestow that which is absolutely his own as to secure its beneficial enjoyment by an object of his bounty without being subject to the claims of assignees or creditors. This court, and the courts of a number of the States of the Union, have not accepted the limitation which the English courts have placed upon the right of testamentary disposition, and have sustained trusts having as an object the application of a testator's bequest to the support and maintenance of the recipient of his bounty. They have, therefore, rejected the assumption that liability to creditors and freedom of alienation are necessary incidents to the right to enjoy the rents and profits of real estate, or the income from other property.

In the leading case of Nichols v. Eaton, 91 U. S. 716, 725, Mr. Justice Miller, speaking the unanimous voice of this court, said of the English doctrine to which we have referred, and upon which Saunders v. Vautier must in principle rest:

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"We do not see, as implied in the remark of Lord Eldon, that the power of alienation is a necessary incident to a life estate in real property, or that the rents and profits of real property and the interest and dividends of personal property may not be enjoyed by an individual without liability for his debts being attached as a necessary incident to such enjoyment. This doctrine is one which the English Chancery Court has ingrafted upon the common law for the benefit of creditors, and is comparatively of modern origin. We concede that there are limitations which public policy or general statutes impose upon all dispositions of property, such as those designed to prevent perpetuities and accumulation of real estate in corporations and ecclesiastical bodies. We also admit that there is a just and sound policy peculiarly appropriate to the jurisdiction of courts of equity to protect creditors against frauds upon their rights, whether they be actual or constructive frauds. But the doctrine, that the owner of property, in the free exercise of his will in disposing of it, cannot so dispose of it, but that the object of his bounty, who parts with nothing in return, must hold it subject to the debts due his creditors, though that may soon deprive him of all the benefits sought to be conferred by the testator's affection or generosity, is one which we are not prepared to announce as the doctrine of this court."

Touching the theory that public policy forbids restraints upon the disposition of a testator's bounty, the court said (p. 727):

"Nor do we see any reason, in the recognized nature and tenure of property and its transfer by will, why a testator who gives, who gives without any pecuniary return, who gets nothing of property value from the donee, may not attach to that gift the incident of continued use, of uninterrupted benefit of the gift, during the life of the donee. Why a parent, or one who loves another,

and wishes to use his own property in securing the object of his affection, as far as property can do it, from the ills of life, the vicissitudes of fortune, and even his own improvidence, or incapacity for self-protection, should not be permitted to do so, is not readily perceived."

In Hyde v. Woods, 94 U. S. 523, 526, this court said of Nichols v. Eaton, supra:

"In that case, the mother of the bankrupt, Eaton, had bequeathed to him by will the income of a fund, with a condition in the trust that on his bankruptcy or insolvency the legacy should cease and go to his wife or children, if he had any, and if not, it should lapse into the general fund of the testator's estate, and be subject to other dispositions. The assignee of the bankrupt sued to recover the interest bequeathed to the bankrupt, on the ground that this condition was void as against public policy.

"But this court, on a full examination of the authorities, both in England and this country, held that the objection was not well taken; that the owner of property might make such a condition in the transfer of that which was his own, and in doing so violated no creditor's rights and no principle of public policy."

If such a trust as that upheld in Nichols v. Eaton, was not in violation of principles of public policy, it must follow that one which neither restrains creditors nor alienation is not. If that case is to stand the decree of the court below was right.

The principle upon which Nichols v. Eaton stands is in line with the views of a number of other courts. Many of them are cited in that opinion, and to those we add: Broadway National Bank v. Adams, 133 Massachusetts, 170; Mason v. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co., 78 Connecticut, 81; Jourolmon v. Massengill, 86 Tennessee, 81; Henson v. Wright, 88 Tennessee, 501; Brooks v. Raynolds, 59 Fed. Rep. 923; Smith v. Towers, 69 Maryland, 77;

Keyser v. Mitchell, 67 Pa. St. 473; Seymour v. McAvoy, 121 California, 438; Steib v. Whitehead, 111 Illinois, 247; Wallace v. Campbell & Maxey, 53 Texas, 229; Garland v. Garland, 87 Virginia, 758; Lampert v. Haydel, 96 Missouri, 439.

Claflin v. Claflin, 149 Massachusetts, 19, was a case, on its facts, like the case at bar. The testator gave the residue of his estate to trustees in trust to sell and dispose of as follows: Ten thousand dollars to a son when of age; a like sum when he reached twenty-five years, and the balance when he should reach the age of thirty years. When the son reached the age of twenty-one the trustee paid him ten thousand dollars, and thereupon he filed a bill in equity to obtain the whole of the fund. The Massachusetts court held the trust valid and dismissed the bill. Referring to Broadway Bank v. Adams, supra, where a trust for support and maintenance had been upheld against creditors, the court said:

"The decision in Broadway National Bank v. Adams, 133 Massachusetts, 170, rests upon the doctrine that a testator has a right to dispose of his own property with such restrictions and limitations, not repugnant to law, as he sees fit, and that his intentions ought to be carried out unless they contravene some positive rule of law, or are against public policy. The rule contended for by the plaintiff in that case was founded upon the same considerations as that contended for by the plaintiff in this; and the grounds on which this court declined to follow the English rule in that case are applicable to this; and for the reasons there given we are unable to see that the directions of the testator to the trustees to pay the money to the plaintiff when he reached the age of twenty-five and thirty years, and not before, are against public policy, or are so far inconsistent with the rights of property given to the plaintiff that they should not be carried into effect. It cannot be said that these restrictions upon the