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 contemplated a statute without considering that paramount constitutional provisions might control or qualify that statute, or abrogate it altogether, is unreasonable and inadmissible.  “This contract,” says one of the authorities relied on, “is to be construed as if the law were specially recited in it.”  Let it be so for the sake of argument.  But it is also to be construed as if the prohibitory clause of the Constitution were recited in it, and this brings us back again to the precise point from which we departed.