Stephen Johnson Field

“ When a contract is thus connected by its consideration with an illegal transaction a court of justice will not aid its enforcement. It is sometimes said that the test whether a demand connected with an illegal transaction is capable of being enforced at law, is, whether the plaintiff requires any aid from the illegal transaction to establish his case. ”

“ They have no necessary relation to the hostile government, whether invading or insurgent. They are transactions in the ordinary course of civil society, and though they may indirectly and remotely promote the ends of the unlawful government, are without blame, except when proved to have been entered into with actual intent to further invasion or insurrection.' And so the court held that such contracts could be enforced in the courts of the United States, after the restoration of peace, to the extent of their just obligation. ”

“ Neither ground can be maintained. The contract expressed by the note is indeed collateral to that upon which the bonds were issued; that is to say, it is not the same, but a different contract. Yet it is connected with that contract by the fact that the bonds constitute its consideration; it therefore gives value and currency to those bonds, and to that extent advances the purposes for which the bonds were issued. ”

“ But I did assent to it on the ground that, while it was unsupported by and in some degree at variance with the general doctrine of the turpitude of consideration as affecting the validity of contracts, it was necessary to be established as a principle to prevent the grossest injustice in reference to transactions of millions of people for several years in duration. ”

“ An ingenious argument is presented on the part of the able and learned counsel of the plaintiff, by which it is attempted to sustain the validity of the note in suit on the ground that it is a contract collateral to that upon which the bonds were issued, and therefore not tainted by it ”