Gradually, surely, Marshall's simple doctrine grew in favor throughout the whole country, and is to-day a vital and enduring element of American thought and character as well as of Constitutional law.
As in Fletcher vs. Peck, the principle of the inviolability of contracts was applied where a State and individuals are parties, so the same principle was now asserted in Sturges vs. Crowninshield as to State laws impairing the obligation of contracts between man and man. At the same session, in the celebrated Dartmouth College case,[614] Marshall announced that this principle also covers charters granted by States. Thus did he develop the idea of good faith and stability of engagement as a life-giving principle of the American Constitution.
FOOTNOTES:
[437] M'Culloch vs. Maryland, see infra, chap. vi.
[438] See vol. ii, 60, of this work.
[439] Sumner: History of American Currency, 63.
[440] See Memorial of the Bank for a recharter, April 20, 1808 (Am. State Papers, Finance, ii, 301), and second Memorial, Dec. 18, 1810 (ib. 451-52). Every statement in these petitions was true. See also Dewey: Financial History of the United States, 100, 101.
[441] See vol. ii, 70-71, of this work.
[442] Annals, 1st Cong. 2d. Sess. 1945. By far the strongest objection to a National bank, however, was that it was a monopoly inconsistent with free institutions.
[443] Jefferson to Gallatin, Dec. 13, 1803, Works: Ford: x, 57.