Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ It is not illogical to say that the debt is as liable to sale as it is to the acquisition of a lien. To be sure, the lien is allowed by a statute subject to which the contract was made, but the contract was made subject also to the common law, and if the common law applies the principle recognized by the statute of California that a debt is to be regarded as a thing, and therefore subjects it to the ordinary rules in determining the relative rights of an assignee and the claimant of a lien, it does nothing of which the debtor can complain. ”

“ When a man sells a horse, what he does, from the point of view of the law, is to transfer a right, and a right being regarded by the law as a thing, even though a res incorporalis, it is not illogical to apply the same rule to a debt that would be applied to a horse. ”

“ The assignability of a debt incurred under a contract like the present sometimes is sustained on the ground that the provision against assignment is inserted only for the benefit of the city. Whether that form of expression is accurate or merely is an indirect recognition of the principle that we have stated hardly is material here. It is enough to say that we are of opinion that, upon the facts stated, the assignment was not absolutely void, that therefore the bank got a title prior to that of Welles, and consequently that the decree must be reversed. ”