Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/502

486 delineate its tendency and character, I will take leave to remark upon some extraordinary circumstances in relation to it. We all know the severe scrutiny to which the Constitution was exposed—some from their own knowledge, others from different sources. We know with what jealousy, with what watchfulness, with what scrupulous care, its minutest provisions were examined, discussed, resisted, and supported, by those who opposed and those who advocated its ratification. But of this highly consequential provision, this provision which carries so great a portion of all that is valuable in state legislation to the feet of the federal judiciary, no complaints were heard, no explanation asked, no remonstrances made. If they were, they have escaped my researches. It is most mysterious, if the Constitution was then understood as it now is, that this was so. An explanation of it has been given—how correct I know not.

The difficulties which existed between us and Great Britain, relative to the execution of the treaty of peace, are known to all. Upon the avowed ground of retaliation for the refusal of England to comply with the stipulation on her part, laws were passed, between the years 1783 and 1788, by the states of Virginia, South Carolina, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Georgia, delaying execution, liberating the body from imprisonment on the delivery of property, and admitting executions to be discharged in paper money. Although those laws were general in their terms, applicable as well to natives as to foreigners, their chief operation was upon the British creditors; and such was the leading design of their enactment. England remonstrated against them as infractions of the stipulations in the treaty, that creditors, on either side, should meet with no impediments to the recovery of the full value, in sterling money, of all debts previously contracted, and attempted to justify the glaring violations of the treaty, on her part, on that ground. An animated discussion took place between the federal government and Great Britain, and between the former and the states in question, upon the subject of the laws referred to, their character and effect. It was during this time that the Constitution was formed and ratified. It is supposed that the difficulties, thus thrown in the way of adjustment with England, through the acts of the state governments, suggested the insertion in the Constitution of the provision in question, and that it was under a belief that its chief application would be to the evil then felt, that so little notice was taken of the subject.

If it be true that such was its object, and such its supposed effect, it adds another and a solemn proof to that which all experience has testified, of the danger of adapting general provisions for the redress of particular and partial evils. But whatever the motive that led to its insertion, or the cause that induced so little observation on its tendency, the fact of its extensive operation is known and acknowledged. The prohibition is not confined to express contracts, but includes such as are implied by law, from the nature of the transaction. Any one conversant with the usual range of state legislation, will at once see how small a portion of it exempt, under this provision, from the supervision of the seven judges of the Supreme Court. The practice under it has been in accordance with what should have been anticipated.

There are few states in the Union, upon whose acts the seal of condemnation has not, from time to time, been placed by the Supreme Court. The sovereign authorities of Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky, and Ohio, have, in turn, been rebuked and silenced, by the