Samuel Freeman Miller

“ The government cannot be subjected to the influences which oblige private debtors to pay their debts. It pays no interest for withholding even the greatest sums, though, by confession, justly due. Acceptance of payment from such debtors, in such an emergency as Child & Company were placed in by the non-payment, was payment accepted under duress. Formerly, indeed, it was held that illegal restraint of the person was necessary to constitute duress, and that a detention of papers or goods of the party would not be duress. ”

“ If the principle contended for here be sound, no party can safely pay by way of compromise any sum less than what is claimed of him, for the compromise will be void as obtained by duress. The common and generally praiseworthy procedure by which business men every day sacrifice part of claims which they believe to be just to secure payment of the remainder would always be duress, and the compromise void. ”

“ But no case can be found, we apprehend, where a party who, without force or intimidation and with a full knowledge of all the facts of the case, accepts on account of an unliquidated and controverted demand, a sum less than what he claims and believes to be due him, and agrees to accept that sum in full satisfaction, has been permitted to avoid his act on the ground that this is duress. ”