But no one definition of "the obligation of contracts" could be agreed on; not even by a majority.
Here, then, sixteen lawyers and judges—many of them among the most eminent the country has ever had—were called upon to give their opinions upon a question of the highest importance to all men's natural rights, to all the interests of civilized society, and to the very existence of civilization itself; a question, upon the answer to which depended the real validity, or invalidity, of every contract that ever was made, or ever will be made, between man and man. And yet, by their disagreements, they all virtually acknowledged that they did not know what "the obligation of contracts" was!
But this was not all. Although they could not agree as to what "the obligation of contracts" was, they did all agree that it could be nothing which the State lawmakers could not prohibit and abolish, by laws passed before the contracts were made. That is to say, they all agreed that the State lawmakers had absolute power to prohibit all contracts whatsoever, for buying and selling, borrowing and lending, giving and receiving, property; and that, whenever they did prohibit any particular contract, or class of contracts, all such contracts, thereafter made, could have no "obligation"!
They said this, be it noted, not of contracts that were naturally and intrinsically criminal and void, but of contracts that were naturally and intrinsically as just, and lawful, and useful, and necessary, as any that men ever enter into; and that had as perfect a natural, intrinsic, inherent "obligation," as any of those contracts, by which the traffic of society is carried on, or by which men ever buy and sell, borrow and lend, give and receive, property, of and to each other.
Not one of these sixteen lawyers and judges took the ground that the constitution, in forbidding any State to "pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts," intended to protect, against the arbitrary legislation of the States, the only true, real, and natural "obligation of contracts," or the right of the people to enter into all really just, and naturally obligatory contracts.
Is it possible to conceive of a more shameful exhibition, or confession, of the servility, the baseness, or the utter degradation, of both bar and bench, than their refusal to say one word in favor of justice, liberty, men's natural rights, or the natural, and only real, "obligation" of their contracts?
And yet, from that day to this—a period of sixty years, save one—neither bar nor bench, so far as I know, have ever uttered one syllable in vindication of men's natural right to make their own contracts, or to have the only true, real, natural, inherent, intrinsic "obligation" of their contracts respected by lawmakers or courts.
Can any further proof be needed that all ideas of justice and men's natural rights are absolutely banished from the minds of lawmakers, and from so-called courts of justice? Or that absolute and irresponsible lawmaking has usurped their place?
Or can any further proof be needed, of the utter worthlessness of all the constitutions, which these lawmakers and judges swear to support, and profess to be governed by?