ng in the State where it is made at the time
of entering into it. This is meant, or nothing very clearly intelligible
is meant, by saying the law is part of the contract.

There is no authority in adjudged cases for the plaintiff in error but
the State decisions which have been cited, and, as has already been
stated, they all rest on this reason, that the law is part of the
contract.

Against this we contend,--

1st. That, if the proposition were true, the consequence would not
follow.

2d. That the proposition itself cannot be maintained.

1. If it were true that the law is to be considered as part of the
contract, the consequence contended for would not follow; because, if
this statute be part of the contract, so is every other legal or
constitutional provision existing at the time which affects the
contract, or which is capable of affecting it; and especially this very
article of the Constitution of the United States is part of the
contract. The plaintiff in error argues in a complete circle. He
supposes the parties to have had reference to it because it was a
binding law, and yet he proves it to be a binding law only upon the
ground that such reference was made to it. We come before the court
alleging the law to be void, as unconstitutional; they stop the inquiry
by opposing to us the law itself. Is this logical? Is it not precisely
_objectio ejus, cujus dissolutio petitur_? If one bring a bill to set
aside a judgment, is that judgment itself a good plea in bar to the
bill? We propose to inquire if this law is of force to control our
contract, or whether, by the Constitution of the United States, such
force be not denied to it. The plaintiff in error stops us by saying
that it does control the contract, and so arrives shortly at the end of
the debate. Is it not obvious, that, supposing the act of New York to be
a part of the contract, the question still remains as undecided as ever.
What is that act? Is it a law, or is it a nullity? a thing of force, or
a thing of no force? Suppose the parties to have contemplated this act,
what did they contemplate? its words only, or its legal effect? its
words, or the force which the Constitution of the United States allows
to it? If the parties contemplated any law, they contemplated all the
law that bore on their contract, the aggregate of all the statute and
constitutional provisions. To suppose that they had in view one statute
without regarding others, or that they con