It is true that the constitutional prohibition against laws impairing the obligation of con tracts does not expressly apply to Congress. In the convention, Mr. Gerry, a prominent dele gate from Massachusetts, made a motion that Congress ought to be laid under the like pro hibition, but found no seconder. But in the amendments which were proposed by Congress at its first session, almost as conditions on which many of the States had adopted it and which were quickly ratified, other restraints were laid upon Congress which had the like effect. It was expressly declared that no per son shall be deprived of life, liberty or prop erty without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use with out just compensation, and Congress is bound by these prohibitions. No matter what the emergency, it cannot violate these fundamental principles of personal rights. The court has held that the United States cannot, any more than a State, interfere with private rights ex cept for legitimate governmental purposes, that they are as much bound by their con tracts as are individuals, that if they repudiate their obligations it is as much repudiation, with all the wrong and reproach that term implies, as it would be if the repudiator had been a State, a municipality or a citizen. But strict and earnest as the court has been in enforcing its constitutional prohibition against laws impairing the obligation of contracts, it has been ready to recognize and give full force and effect to the statutes of other nations which imposed no such prohibition on the law-making power.
The Canada Southern Railway Company, under its charter granted by the Dominion of Canada, had issued its bonds at a high rate of interest, and had sold them in New York to citizens of the United States, but getting into difficulties the company devised a scheme of arrangement, which was enacted by the Do minion Parliament, by which the interest on the bonds outstanding was scaled down to a lower rate without the consent of the bond holders, a clear case of impairing the obliga tion of a contract. The bondholders appealed to the Supreme Court, which held that the )Arrangement Act) was valid in Canada, and bound non-assenting bondholders there by force of the scheme; that as it did have that effect in Canada, the courts of the United States should give it the same effect, even as against citizens of the United States whose rights accrued in the United States before its passage; that there was no constitutional prohibition in Canada against the passing of laws impairing the obligation of contracts, and that, under these circumstances, the true spirit of inter national comity required that schemes of this character, legalized at home, should be recog nized in other countries.
The clause of the Constitution giving Con gress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and between the States, has been another fruitful source of business in the Supreme Court in the way of testing the valid ity of State laws. At the outset of steam navi
gation, the State of New York undertook to reward Robert Fulton for his invention and enterprise by an act giving him the monopoly of navigating by fire or steam all the waters within the jurisdiction of the State. Under this act the assignee of Fulton had commenced running a line of boats between certain ports of New Jersey and New York, and obtained from the State courts of New York an injunc tion to restrain the owners of an opposition line of boats, put on between the same ports, from entering the waters of New York State with their boats, But the Supreme Court held, upon appeal, that the New York enactment was in conflict with the power of Congress to regu late commerce, and with its acts in relation to commerce, and upon this ground vacated the injunction and established the right of all ves sels to enter the port of New York under the authority of Congress. It was held that by virtue of the constitutional clause referred to, Congress had exclusive authority to regulate commerce in all its forms in all the navigable waters of the United States, their bays, rivers and harbors, and to make navigation free to all without and restraint or interference from any State legislature. By a long series of deci sions that followed under the commerce clause the court, with inflexible firmness and far reaching sagacity, established the absolute su premacy of the nation over the whole sub ject of commerce, navigation, travel and inter course between the States, which went far to strengthen the power of the Union. At the same time they secured to the citizens of every State the full enjoyment of the privileges and immunities of citizens in all the other States, and also that absolute freedom of internal trade throughout the country which has so vastly promoted the prosperity of the people.
The influence of the court in maintaining the faith of treaties has been powerful and far reaching. By the treaty of peace with Great Britain, in 1783, it was agreed that British creditors should with no lawful impedi ments) in the collection of their claims; and the Constitution said that treaties, like laws, made under its authority, should be the supreme law of the land. Various attempts had been made by several States, before the adoption of the Constitution, to impede or prevent the col lection of such claims. The subject provoked bitter and exciting controversies, but the court, against the contention of John Marshall him self, then at the bar, held that the treaty was supreme, and equal in its effect to the Constitu tion itself, in overruling all State laws upon the subject, and that its words were as strong as the wit of man could devise to override all obstacles directed against the recovery of such debts. Of course, any such law passed by a State after the treaty contrary to its terms would be void.