of
contracts. Now, by what reasoning is it made out that the debts here
spoken of are any debts, either existing or future, but that the
contracts spoken of are subsisting contracts only? Such a distinction
seems to us wholly arbitrary. We see no ground for it. Suppose the
article, where it uses the word _debts_, had used the word _contracts_.
The sense would have been the same then that it now is; but the identity
of terms would have made the nature of the distinction now contended for
somewhat more obvious. Thus altered, the clause would read, that no
State should make any thing but gold and silver a tender in discharge of
_contracts_, nor pass any law impairing the obligation of _contracts_;
yet the first of these expressions would have been held to apply to all
contracts, and the last to subsisting contracts only. This shows the
consequence of what is now contended for in a strong light. It is
certain that the substitution of the word _contracts_ for _debts_ would
not alter the sense; and an argument that could not be sustained, if
such substitution were made, cannot be sustained now. We maintain,
therefore, that, if tender laws may not be made for future debts,
neither can bankrupt laws be made for future contracts. All the
arguments used here may be applied with equal force to tender laws for
future debts. It may be said, for instance, that, when it speaks of
_debts_, the Constitution means existing debts, and not mere
possibilities of future debt; that the object was to preserve vested
rights; and that if a man, after a tender law had passed, had contracted
a debt, the manner in which that tender law authorized that debt to be
discharged became part of the contract, and that the whole debt, or
whole obligation, was thus qualified by the pre-existing law, and was no
more than a contract to deliver so much paper money, or whatever other
article might be made a tender, as the original bargain expressed.
Arguments of this sort will not be found wanting in favor of tender
laws, if the court yield to similar arguments in favor of bankrupt laws.

These several prohibitions of the Constitution stand in the same
paragraph; they have the same purpose, and were introduced for the same
object; they are expressed in words of similar import, in grammar, and
in sense; they are subject to the same construction, and we think no
reason has yet been given for imposing an important restriction on one
part of them, which does not equ