“ Its language is the language of restraint, not of coercion. It prohibits the States from passing any law impairing the obligation of contracts; it does not enjoin them to enforce contracts. Should a State be sufficiently insane to shut up or abolish its Courts, and thereby withhold all remedy, would this annihilation of remedy annihilate the obligation also of contracts? We know it would not. If the debtor should come within the jurisdiction of any Court of another State, the remedy would be immediately applied, and the inherent obligation of the contract enforced. ”

“ In every instance in which this Court had hitherto applied the prohibition to a State law, it was to some act operating upon antecedent existing contracts. Such, too, was the plain and obvious meaning of the words of the prohibition. How could any law be said to impair the obligation of a contract not in existence when the law was passed? The obligation must first be contracted before it can be impaired. Some right must be vested under a contract, before any party can have a right to complain of a law impairing its obligation. ”

“ In the effort to get rid of the universal vote of mankind in favour of limitation acts, and laws against gaming, usury, marriage, brokage, buying and selling of offices, and many of the same description, we have heard it argued, that, as to limitation acts, the creditor has nothing to complain of, because time is allowed him, of which, if he does not avail himself, it is his own neglect; and as to all others, there is no contract violated, because there was none ever incurred. But it is obvious that this mode of answering the argument involves a surrender to us of our whole ground. ”

“ We come before the Court alleging the law to be void an unconstitutional; they stop the inquiry by opposing to us the law itself. Is this logical? Is it not precisely objectio ejus, cujus dissolutio petitur? If one bring a bill to set aside a judgment, is that judgment itself a good plea in bar to the bill? We propose to inquire if this law is of force to control our contract, or whether, by the constitution of the United States, such force be not denied to it. The plaintiff in error stops us by saying that it does control the contract, and so arrives shortly at the end of the debate. ”

“ The States are forbidden to pass any bill of attainder or ex post facto law, by which a man shall be punished criminally or penally, by loss of life, of his liberty, property, or reputation, for an act which, at the time of its commission, violated no existing law of the land. Why did the authors of the constitution turn their attention to this subject, which, at the first blush, would appear to be peculiarly fit to be left to the discretion of those who have the police and good government of the State under their management and control? ”

“ Nothing but a future operation is here contended for, and nothing is easier than to avoid those rocks and quicksands which are visible to all. Most of the dangers are imaginary, for the interests of each community, its respect for the opinion of mankind, and a remnant of moral feeling which will not cease to operate in the worst of times, will always present important barriers against the gross violation of principle. How is the general government itself made up, but of the same materials which separately make up the governments of the States? ”

“ While all agree that special acts, made for individual cases, are unjust, all admit that a general law, made for all cases, may be both just and politic. The question, then, which meets us in the threshold, is this: if the constitution meant to leave the States the power of establishing systems of bankruptcy to act upon future debts, what great or unportant object, of a political nature, was answered, by denying the power of making such systems applicable to existing debts?
The argument used in Sturges v. Crowninshield, was, at least, a plausible and consistent argument. ”

“ I think it incontestibly true, that the natural obligation of private contracts between individuals in society, ceases, and is converted into a civil obligation, by the very act of surrendering the right and power of enforcing performance into the hands of the government. The right and power of enforcing performance exists, as I think all must admit, only in the law of the land, and the obligation resulting from this condition is a civil obligation. ”

“ On the contrary, the proceedings respecting them of which we know any thing, evince the idea of a pre-existing intrinsic obligation which human law enforces. If, on tracing the right to contract, and the obligations created by contract, to their source, we find them to exist anterior to, and independent of society, we may reasonably conclude that those original and pre-existing principles are, like many other natural rights, brought with man into society; and, although they may be controlled, are not given by human legislation. ”

“ No one supposes that a State legislature is under any restriction in declaring, prospectively, any acts criminal which its own wisdom and policy may deem expedient. And why not apply the same rule of construction and operation to the other provision relating to the rights of property? Neither provision can strictly be considered as introducing any new principle, but only for greater security and safety to incorporate into this charter provisions admitted by all to be among the first principles of our government. ”

“ Whence is derived the obligation of their contracts? They admit the existence of no superior legislative power which is to give them validity, yet their validity is acknowledged by all. If one of these contracts be broken, all admit the right of the injured party to demand reparation for the injury, and to enforce that reparation if it be withheld. He may not have the power to enforce it, but the whole civilized world concurs in saying, that the power, if possessed, is rightfully used. ”

“ Every bankrupt or insolvent system in the world, must partake of the character of a judicial investigation. Parties whose rights are to be affected, are entitled to a hearing. Hence every system, in common with the particular system now before us, professes to summon the creditors before some tribunal, to show cause against granting a discharge to the bankrupt.
But on what principle can a citizen of another State be forced into the Courts of a State for this investigation? ”

“ Such law, in its principle and object, has in view the benefit of both debtor and creditor, and is no more than the just exercise of the sovereign legislative power of the government to relieve a debtor from his contracts, when necessity, and unforeseen misfortunes, have rendered him incapable of performing them; and whether this power is to be exercised by the States individually, or by the United States, can make no difference in principle. In a government like ours, where sovereignty, to a modified extent, exists both in the States, and in the United States. ”

“ The power of changing the relative situation of debtor and creditor, of interfering with contracts, a power which comes home to every man, touches the interest of all, and controls the conduct of every individual in those things which he supposes to be proper for his own exclusive management, had been used to such an excess by the State legislatures, as to break in upon the ordinary intercourse of society, and destroy all confidence between man and man. ”

“ It can only be, that government may give it back again. As we have no evidence of the surrender, or of the restoration of the right; as this operation of surrender and restoration would be an idle and useless ceremony, the rational inference seems to be, that neither has ever been made; that individuals do not derive from government their right to contract, but bring that right with them into society; that obligation is not conferred on contracts by positive law, but is intrinsic, and is conferred by the act of the parties. ”

“ In a state of nature, these individuals may contract, their contracts are obligatory, and force may rightfully be employed to coerce the party who has broken his engagement.
What is the effect of society upon these rights? When men unite together and form a government, do they surrender their right to contract, as well as their right to enforce the observance of contracts? For what purpose should they make this surrender? Government cannot exercise this power for individuals. It is better that they should exercise it for themselves. ”

“ The constitution was framed for society, and an advanced state of society, in which I will undertake to say that all the contracts of men receive a relative, and not a positive interpretation: for the rights of all must be held and enjoyed in subserviency to the good of the whole. The State construes them, the State applies them, the State controls them, and the State decides how far the social exercise of the rights they give us over each other can be justly asserted. ”

“ If, as the argument admits, a contract never had any obligation, because the pre-existing law of the State, declaring it should have none, attached to it at the moment of its creation, why will not a pre-existing law, declaring it shall have only a qualified obligation, attach to it in like manner at the moment of its creation? A law, declaring that a contract shall not be enforced, upon the happening of a future event, is a law declaring the contract shall have only a qualified or conditional obligation. ”

“ The commercial credit of the nation had severely suffered from this fatal scourge; and the anxiety to be relieved from it, was one of the most pressing motives which induced the formation of the new constitution. It might, perhaps, be doubted, whether the power of coining money, which was given to Congress, and denied to the States, taken in connexion with the prohibition to them to emit bills of credit, or make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in the payment of debts, was not intended to give to Congress the exclusive power of regulating the whole currency of the country ”

“ Yet, when we consider the nature of our Union; that it is intended to make us, in a great measure, one people, as to commercial objects; that, so far as respects the intercommunication of individuals, the lines of separation between States are, in many respects, obliterated; it would not be matter of surprise, if, on the delicate subject of contracts once formed, the interference of State legislation should be greatly abridged, or entirely forbidden. In the nature of the provision, then, there seems to be nothing which ought to influence our construction of the words ”

“ Upon no acknowledged principle can a special exception, out of a general authority, be extended by construction so as to annihilate or embarrass the exercise of the general authority. But, to obviate the force of this view of the subject, the learned counsel admit, that the legislature of a State has authority to provide by law what contracts shall not be obligatory, and to declare that no remedy shall exist for the enforcement of such as the legislative wisdom deems injurious. They say, the obligation of a contract is coeval with its existence ”

“ I admit, that in a state of nature, when men have not submitted themselves to the controlling authority of civil government, the natural obligation of contracts is co-extensive with the duty of performance. ”

“ All the notions of society, particularly in their jurisprudence, are more or less artificial; our constitution no where speaks the language of men in a state of nature; let any one attempt a literal exposition of the phrase which immediately precedes the one under consideration, I mean 'ex post facto,' and he will soon acknowledge a failure. ”

“ The defendants maintain that an error lies at the very foundation of this argument. It assumes that contract is the mere creature of society, and derives all its obligation from human legislation. That it is not the stipulation an individual makes which binds him, but some declaration of the supreme power of a State to which he belongs, that he shall perform what he has undertaken to perform. ”