Suppose the order of arrangement in the Constitution had been otherwise than it is, and that the prohibitions to the States had preceded the grants of power to Congress, the two powers, when collated, would then have read thus:  “No State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts; but Congress may establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies.”  Could any man have doubted, in that case, that the meaning was, that the States should not pass laws discharging debts without payment, but that Congress might establish uniform bankrupt acts?  And yet this inversion of the order of the clauses does not alter their sense.  We contend, that Congress alone possesses the power of establishing bankrupt laws; and although we are aware that, in Sturges v.  Crowninshield, the court decided that such an exclusive power could not be inferred from the words of the grant in the seventh section, we yet would respectfully request the bench to reconsider this point.  We think it could not have been intended that both the States and general government should exercise this power; and therefore, that a grant to one implies a prohibition on the other.  But not to press a topic which the court has already had under its consideration, we contend, that, even without reading the clauses of the Constitution in the connection which we have suggested, and which is believed to be the true one, the prohibition in the tenth section, taken by itself, does forbid the enactment of State bankrupt laws, as applied to future as well as present debts.  We argue this from the words of the prohibition, from the association they are found in, and from the objects intended.

1.  The words are general.  The States can pass no law impairing contracts; that is, any contract.  In the nature of things a law may impair a future contract, and therefore such contract is within the protection of the Constitution.  The words being general, it is for the other side to show a limitation; and this, it is submitted, they have wholly failed to do, unless they shall have established the doctrine that the law itself is part of the contract.  It may be added, that the particular expression of the Constitution is worth regarding.  The thing prohibited is called a law, not an act.  A law, in its general acceptation, is a rule prescribed for future conduct, not a legislative interference with existing rights.  The framers of the Constitution would hardly have given the appellation of law to violent invasions of individual right, or individual property, by acts of legislative power.  Although, doubtless, such acts fall within this prohibition, yet they are prohibited also by general principles, and by the constitutions of the States, and therefore further provision against such acts was not so necessary as against other mischiefs.