t 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.

2. The most conclusive argument, perhaps, arises from the connection in
which the clause stands. The words of the prohibition, so far as it
applies to civil rights, or rights of property, are, that "no State
shall coin money, emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and
silver coin a tender in the payment of debts, or pass any law impairing
the obligation of contracts." The prohibition of attainders, and _ex
post facto_ laws, refers entirely to criminal proceedings, and therefore
should be considered as standing by itself; but the other parts of the
prohibition are connected by the subject-matter, and ought, therefore,
to be construed together. Taking the words thus together, according to
their natural connection, how is it possible to give a more limited
construction to the term "contracts," in the last branch of the
sentence, than to the word "debts," in that immediately preceding? Can a
State make any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of future
debts? This nobody pretends. But what ground is there for a distinction?
No State shall make any thing but gold and silver a tender in the
payment of debts, nor pass any law impairing the obligation