One of these cases was that of Fletcher vs. Peck, (6 Cranch 87), in the year 1810. In this case the court held simply that a grant of land, once made by the legislature of Georgia, could not be rescinded by a subsequent legislature.
But no general definition of "the obligation of contracts" was given.
Again, in the year 1819, in the case of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward (4 Wheaton 518), the court held that a charter, granted to Dartmouth College, by the king of England, before the Revolution, was a contract; and that a law of New Hampshire, annulling, or materially altering, the charter, without the consent of the trustees, was a "law impairing the obligation" of that contract.
But, in this case, as in that of Fletcher vs. Peck, the court gave no general definition of "the obligation of contracts."
But in the year 1824, and again in 1827, in the case of Ogden vs. Saunders (12 Wheaton 213) the question was, whether an insolvent law of the State of New York, which discharged a debtor from a debt, contracted after the passage of the law, or, as the courts would say, "contracted under the law"—on his giving up his property to be distributed among his creditors—was a "law impairing the obligation of contracts?"
To the correct decision of this case, it seemed indispensable that the court should give a comprehensive, precise, and universal definition of "the obligation of contracts"; one by which it might forever after be known what was, and what was not, that "obligation of contracts," which the State governments were forbidden to "impair" by "any law" whatever.
The cause was heard at two terms, that of 1824, and that of 1827.
It was argued by Webster, Wheaton, Wirt, Clay, Livingston, Ogden, Jones, Sampson, and Haines; nine in all. Their arguments were so voluminous that they could not be reported at length. Only summaries of them are given. But these summaries occupy thirty-eight pages in the reports.
The judges, at that time, were seven, viz., Marshall, Washington, Johnson, Duvall, Story, Thompson, and Trimble.
The judges gave five different opinions; occupying one hundred pages of the reports.