Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/509

 CH. VI.] of the times. It is well known, that Shays's rebellion in Massachusetts took its origin from this source. The object was to prostrate the regular administration of justice by a system of terror, which should prevent the recovery of debts and taxes.

§ 487. The Federalist speaks on this subject with unusual emphasis. "The loss, which America has sustained from the pestilent effects of paper money on the necessary confidence between man and man, on the necessary confidence in the public councils, on the industry and morals of the people, and on the character of republican government, constitutes an enormous debt against the states, chargeable with this unadvised measure, which must long remain unsatisfied; or rather an accumulation of guilt, which can be expiated no otherwise than by a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of justice of the power, which has been the instrument of it." "Laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation." And the Federalist dwells on the suggestion, that as such laws amount to an aggression on the rights of the citizens of those states, whose citizens are injured by them, they must necessarily form a probable source of hostilities among the states. Connecticut retaliated in an