tors, commonly called
the Three-Fourths Act.

The jury found the facts in the form of a special verdict, on which the
court rendered a judgment for the plaintiff below, and the cause was
brought by writ of error before this court. The question which arose
under this plea, as to the validity of the law of New York as being
repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, was argued at
February term, 1824, by Mr. Clay, Mr. D.B. Ogden, and Mr. Haines, for
the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. Webster and Mr. Wheaton, for the
defendant in error, and the cause was continued for advisement until the
present term. It was again argued at the present term, by Mr. Webster
and Mr. Wheaton, against the validity, and by the Attorney-General, Mr.
E. Livingston, Mr. D.B. Ogden, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Sampson, for the
validity.

Mr. Wheaton opened the argument for the defendant in error; he was
followed by the counsel for the plaintiff in error; and Mr. Webster
replied as follows.]

The question arising in this case is not more important, nor so
important even, in its bearing on individual cases of private right, as
in its character of a public political question. The Constitution was
intended to accomplish a great political object. Its design was not so
much to prevent injustice or injury in one case, or in successive single
cases, as it was to make general salutary provisions, which, in their
operation, should give security to all contracts, stability to credit,
uniformity among all the States in those things which materially concern
the foreign commerce of the country, and their own credit, trade, and
intercourse with each other. The real question, is, therefore, a much
broader one than has been argued. It is this: Whether the Constitution
has not, for general political purposes, ordained that bankrupt laws
should be established only by national authority? We contend that such
was the intention of the Constitution; an intention, as we think,
plainly manifested in several of its provisions.

The act of New York, under which this question arises, provides that a
debtor may be discharged from all his debts, upon assigning his property
to trustees for the use of his creditors. When applied to the discharge
of debts contracted before the date of the law, this court has decided
that the act is invalid.[1] The act itself makes no distinction between
past and future debts, but provides for the discharge of both in the
same manner. In the c