ally show that the same restriction
might be imposed also on the other part.

We have already endeavored to maintain, that one great political object
intended by the Constitution would be defeated, if this construction
were allowed to prevail. As an object of political regulation, it was
not important to prevent the States from passing bankrupt laws
applicable to present debts, while the power was left to them in regard
to future debts; nor was it at all important, in a political point of
view, to prohibit tender laws as to future debts, while it was yet left
to the States to pass laws for the discharge of such debts, which, after
all, are little different in principle from tender laws. Look at the law
before the court in this view. It provides, that, if the debtor will
surrender, offer, or tender to trustees, for the benefit of his
creditors, all his estate and effects, he shall be discharged from all
his debts. If it had authorized a tender of any thing but money to any
one creditor, though it were of a value equal to the debt, and thereupon
provided for a discharge, it would have been clearly invalid. Yet it is
maintained to be good, merely because it is made for all creditors, and
seeks a discharge from all debts; although the thing tendered may not be
equivalent to a shilling in the pound of those debts. This shows, again,
very clearly, how the Constitution has failed of its purpose, if, having
in terms prohibited all tender laws, and taken so much pains to
establish a uniform medium of payment, it has yet left the States the
power of discharging debts, as they may see fit, without any payment at
all.

To recapitulate what has been said, we maintain, first, that the
Constitution, by its grants to Congress and its prohibitions on the
States, has sought to establish one uniform standard of value, or medium
of payment. Second, that, by like means, it has endeavored to provide
for one uniform mode of discharging debts, when they are to be
discharged without payment. Third, that these objects are connected, and
that the first loses much of its importance, if the last, also, be not
accomplished. Fourth, that, reading the grant to Congress and the
prohibition on the States together, the inference is strong that the
Constitution intended to confer an exclusive power to pass bankrupt laws
on Congress. Fifth, that the prohibition in the tenth section reaches to
all contracts, existing or future, in the same way that the oth