Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/526

494 powers, great learning would have saved the cause, if any ability could have saved it." The case was decided, February 17, eight days after the argument; and as Judge Johnson said later in Ogden v. SaunderSy the Court "was greatly divided in their views of the doc- trine, and the judgment partakes as much of a com- promise as of a legal adjudication." The opinion, rendered by Marshall, confined itself to holding that the New York bankruptcy law in question was invalid as impairing the obligation of contract, in so far as it attempted to discharge a contract or debt entered into prior to the passage of the law. Owing to the some- what indefinite phraseology of the opinion, a very gen- eral misunderstanding spread throughout the country ; and it was understood both by business men and by the Bar that the Court had decided that the State had no jK)wer to pass any form of bankrupt or insolvent law. Many of the newspapers of the country published the statement that the Court had decided that a State might, by law, release the body of a debtor, but could not cancel or discharge the debt.^ The decision, so construed, "took the States and the profession by sur- prise." * " This opinion has given much alarm to many persons; it is highly interesting to everyone," said NUes Register. "It will probably make some great revolutions in property, and raise up many from penury whose * eyes have been blinded by the dirt of the coach wheels of those who ruined them', and cause others to descend to the condition that becomes honest men, by compelling a payment of their debts. The decision powerfully shows the necessity of a general bankrupt

^ See for instance New Bruntwick (N. J.) Fredonian^ Feb. 25, 1819.

' Reverdy Johnson, arguing in Cook v. Moffat, 5 How. 345, in 1848; NUm Regu- ter, Feb. 27, 1819 ; New York Evening Post, Feb. 20, 23, 1819 ; Baltimore Federal Republican, dted in Independent Chronicle (Boston), March 6, 1819; CoUtmbian Centinel (Boston), March 6, 1819; Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Oasiette, Biardi 81* 1819. See also Connecticut Courant, March 23, 1819.