John McLean

“ It is, whether states and sovereignties are governed by the rules of ordinary honesty; whether the provision in the Constitution, that the obligation of contracts shall by no law be impaired, is mere brutum fulmen. For there is no doubt that private honesty cannot long survive when public dishonesty is legalized; that private promises and obligations will not long be held sacred, when the judiciary, the guardian of the public morals, admits and argues that the state may, at pleasure, violate her pledges and promises; that public and private morals are intimately connected ”

“ It must be an exercise of the power of government. If I order a child to learn a task, that is a law; but if I, at the same time, promise him a reward for doing it, this is no law, but a promise. It is no exercise of the paternal power. An act of the legislature may be in part a law and in part a contract. So far as it is a contract or promise, founded on a valid consideration, it binds the state just as it does an individual; and the former can no more repeal such a contract than an individual can repeal his bond. ”

“ Law, according to the most comprehensive and intelligible definition, 'is a rule of civil action, prescribed by the supreme power of a state, commanding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong;' or, according to a definition less technical, 'commanding what shall be done, and prohibiting what shall not be done.' It is a command from a superior to an inferior, to do or not to do. ”

“ Is this promise a gratuity? On the contrary, it is a valid promise, for a good and valuable consideration. If it is not, in every case where a man becomes security for another, it is a gratuity. If we need an apology for quoting authorities to sustain a self-evident proposition, lying on the very surface of the law, it must be found in the fact that so trite and common and fundamental a principle is actually denied by the Supreme Court of a State.
That such a promise is not a gratuity, but a valid contract, for good consideration, was established before cases were reported. ”

“ The contracts of the state are valid, not because they are acts of the sovereign power, in a legislative form, but because they are its compacts for a consideration with others, as a corporate person. In this last respect, the state is not sovereign; not more than she is when a corporator, partner, stockholder, or trustee. No doubt, if a state in form of law make a grant, deemed an executed contract, she may not resume it. If she in the same form make a contract with individuals, when it is accepted it is equally obligatory, and under the protection of the Constitution. ”

“ It was none to the government of the bank, for they were public officers of a public 'civil institution,' employed in the administration of the government, who might, with the corporation which they governed, have been instantly, at any moment, annihilated by a total repeal. It conferred no immunity, franchise, or privilege. It contained no pledge to the bondholders who advanced the capital of the bank. As to them, the seventeenth section of the charter gave them only a pledge of the faith of the state for the principal and interest of the capital alone. ”

“ It is too well settled to need argument or authority, that a law which authorizes the discharge of a contract by the payment of a smaller sum, or at a different time, or in a different manner, than the parties have stipulated, impairs the obligation, by substituting for the contract of the parties one which they never entered into, and to the performance of which, of course, they have never consented. ”

“ Much more so, when in this case the prohibition is sought to be extended to the almost utter annihilation of state sovereignty. Every state, of necessity, must be left undisturbed in the exercise of these powers, essential to its preservation and safety. Among these, the chief one is the power over its finances and credit, of laying and collecting taxes. So essential is this, that it is almost impossible to conceive of a government without a treasury. ”

“ It is far from being true, that every act which a state does, she does as sovereign. When she takes stock in a banking corporation, she assumes the character of an individual, and as such is subject to all the ordinary obligations which could be incurred by an individual under like circumstances.
Certainly no court will deny the capacity of a state to contract with other states, or with her citizens or citizens of other states. ”

“ What nation that has not found the preservation of faith inconsistent with its necessities? In plainer terms, What nation has not suspended or repudiated her obligations? And where are the countless millions of Continental money, which the necessities of the Revolution forced into circulation, and which the poverty of its exchequer as quietly buried in obliving? ”

“ The conduct of nations is governed by the same rules of morality and honesty that govern individuals. The day has gone by, at least on this continent, when power can sanction and justify iniquity. Might no longer makes right. Thanks to our national Constitution, a new code of national morality has sprung into existence ”

“ Speaking of the taxing power, he says,-'As the whole community is interested in retaining it undiminished, that community has a right to insist that its abandonment ought not to be presumed in a case in which the deliberate purpose of the state to abandon it does not appear.' The power of collecting taxes and prescribing the manner in which they may be paid, is a most essential part of the taxing power. ”

“ Surely a law which prevents the bebtor from discharging a bond in the manner and with the funds with which it could have been discharged when made,-in which it was agreed, when it was made, it might be discharged,-is void for precisely the same reason. The wit of man can observe no difference. ”

“ There are periods in the history of every nation when laws and constitutions are inadequate and feeble for their task, when resort must be had to that brief code, 'Salus republicoe, suprema est lex.' It is the law of necessity. ”

“ When addressed to the citizens at large, it forms the civil jurisprudence of a country; when it is directdd to the public officers of the state, it forms its public and political law. All laws creating public, municipal, or political corporations, are of this class, over which the legislative power of a state is not restrained by the Constitution. ”

“ It would be of most mischievous consequence, if every law which promised a general benefit or advantage, which indicated a particular policy, or ventured upon an untried experiment, should be deemed a compact with the citizen to adhere to it forever. ”

“ May not a nation legitimate its own bankruptcy, as well as that that of the citizen?
When the prohibition of the Constitution is to be extended in restraint of a necessary and essential power of state sovereignty, the control of its revenue and the performance of its trusts,-it may be justly expected that it should be to protect a clear and an undoubted right from violation. These principles were asserted in a most forcible manner by the Chief Justice in an analogous case of Providence Bank v. ”

“ It is presumed there will be no complaint, as there will be no ground for any, by the citizens of the state, if these notes, now dead and worthless, should be so far revived as to reach their appropriate destination. And if, as a consequence, some increase of taxation should be required by the state, it will be nothing more than is common to all other states that perform their contracts. ”

“ They, from their nature, must be repealable, without any other limitation than that property held by such corporations shall be still secured for the use of those for whom, and at whose expense, it has been acquired. ”