Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/262

 254 which he subjects himself. (6.) That the law of the contract remains the same every where, and will be the same in every tribunal. But the remedy necessarily varies, and with it the effect of the constitutional pledge, which can only have relation to the laws of distributive justice, known to the policy of each state severally. These and other auxiliary grounds, which were illustrated by a great variety of arguments, which scarcely admit of abridgment, were deemed satisfactory to the majority of the court.

§ 1383. The minority of the judges maintained their opinions upon the following grounds: (1.) That the words of the clause in the constitution, taken in their natural and obvious sense, admit of a prospective, as well as of a retrospective operation. (2.) That an act of the legislature does not enter into the contract, and become one of the conditions stipulated by the parties; nor does it act externally on the agreement, unless it have the full force of law. (3.) That contracts derive their obligation from the act of the parties, and not from the grant of the government. And the right of the government to regulate the manner, in which they shall be formed, or to prohibit such as may be against the policy of the state, is entirely consistent with their inviolability, after they have been formed. (4.) That the obligation of a contract is not identified with the means, which government may furnish to enforce it. And that a prohibition to pass any law impairing it does not imply a prohibition to vary the remedy. Nor does a power to vary the remedy imply a power to impair the obligation derived from the act of the parties. (5.) That the history of the times justified this interpretation of the clause. The power of changing the relative situation of debtor and creditor, and of interfering with contracts,