Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/25/370/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 20:16:59+00:00

Document:
The states have a right to regulate or abolish, imprisonment for debt as a part of the remedy for enforcing the performance of contracts.
"until he shall be lawfully discharged, without committing any manner of escape or escapes during the time of restraint, then this obligation, to be void, or else to remain in full force and virtue,"
held that a discharge, under the insolvent laws of the state, obtained from the proper court in pursuance of a resolution of the legislature and discharging the party from all his debts &c. "and from all imprisonment, arrest, and restraint of his person therefor" was a lawful discharge, and that his going at large under it was no breach of the condition of the bond.
"The condition of the above obligation is such that if the above bounden Nathan Haile, now a prisoner in the state's jail in Providence, within the County of Providence, at the suit of Mason and Bates, do, and shall from henceforth continue to be a true prisoner in the custody, guard, and safekeeping of Andrew Waterman, keeper of said prison, and in the custody, guard, and safekeeping of his deputy, officers, and servants, or some one of them, within the limits of said prison until he shall be lawfully discharged, without committing any manner of escape or escapes during the time of restraint, then this obligation to be void, or else to remain in full force and virtue. "
"On the petition of Nathan Haile, praying, for the reasons therein stated, that the benefit of an act entitled, 'An act for the relief of insolvent debtors,' passed in the year 1756, be extended to him, voted that said petition be continued till the next session of this assembly and that in the meantime all proceedings against him, the said Haile, on account of his debts be stayed, and that the said Haile be liberated from his present confinement in the jail in the County of Providence on his giving sufficient bond to the sheriff of said county conditioned to return to jail in case said petition is not granted."
and the same is hereby granted."
"that he should be and thereby was fully discharged of and from all debts, duties, contracts, and demands of every name, nature, and kind outstanding against him debts due to the state aforesaid, and to the United States, excepted, and from all imprisonment, arrest, and restraint of his person therefor."
To the pleas so pleaded the plaintiff demurred; there was a joinder in demurrer, and, on the argument of the cause, the opinions of the judges of the court below were opposed upon the question whether the defendant was entitled to judgment on the ground that the matters set forth on his part in his pleas were sufficient to bar the action or whether the plaintiff was entitled to judgment upon the demurrers and joinders. The question was thereupon certified to this Court for final decision.
plaintiff's declaration and to which there are demurrers, and joinders in demurrer, the defendant is entitled to judgment on the ground that the matters set forth therein on the part of the defendant are sufficient to bar the action, or whether the plaintiff is entitled, upon said demurrers and joinders, to judgment. Upon which question the court was divided in opinion."
"The condition of the above obligation is such that if the above bounden Nathan Haile, now a prisoner in the state's jail in Providence within the County of Providence, at the suit of said Mason and Bates do and shall from henceforth continue to be a true prisoner in the custody, guard, and safekeeping of Andrew Waterman, keeper of said prison, and in the custody, guard, and safekeeping of his deputy, officers, and servants or some one of them within the limits of said prison until he shall be lawfully discharged without committing any manner of escape or escapes during the time of restraint, then this obligation to be void, or else to remain in full force and virtue."
1756, be extended to him, voted that said petition be continued until the next session of this assembly and that in the meantime all proceedings against the said Haile on account of his debts be stayed, and that the said Haile be liberated from his present imprisonment in the jail in the County of Providence on his giving sufficient bond to the sheriff of the county conditioned to return to jail in case said petition is not granted."
"On the petition of Nathan Haile of Foster praying, for the reasons therein stated, that the benefit of an act passed in June, 1756, for the relief of insolvent debtors may be extended to him, voted that the prayer of the said petition be and the same is hereby granted."
By the granting of the prayer of the petition, the condition of the second bond given to the sheriff was complied with, and the bond became extinguished.
"that he should be and thereby was fully discharged of and from all debts, contracts, and demands of every name, nature, and kind outstanding against him, debts due to the state aforesaid or to the United States excepted, and from all imprisonment, arrest, and restraint of his person therefor."
of proceeding in cases of insolvency and in conformity to the laws of Rhode Island by which the defendant was discharged from all his contracts and from imprisonment.
as an enlargement of the prison limits, and a mere modification of the imprisonment according to the provisions of the laws of Rhode Island.
"may be a punishment for not performing his contract, or may be allowed as a mean for inducing him to perform it. But a state may refuse to inflict this punishment, or may withhold it altogether, and leave the contract in full force. Imprisonment is no part of the contract, and simply to release the prisoner, does not impair its obligation."
escape, and of course, no breach of the condition of the bond in question.
It must accordingly be certified to the circuit court that the matters set forth in the defendants amended pleas are sufficient to bar the plaintiff's action.
It has never been my habit to deliver dissenting opinions in cases where it has been my misfortune to differ from those which have been pronounced by a majority of this Court. Nor should I do so upon the present occasion, did I not believe, that the opinion just delivered is at variance with the fundamental principles upon which the cases of Sturges v. Crowninshield, and Ogden v. Saunders have been decided. A regard for my own consistency, and that too upon a great constitutional question, compels me to record the reasons upon which my dissent is founded.
to the said jail in case his petition should not be granted, and, by a subsequent act passed in the following year, he was discharged from his debts upon a surrender previously made of all his estate for the benefit of his creditors. The plea admits that the defendant did depart from the limits of the jail, and justifies the alleged escape under the above acts of the legislature. The opinion considers those acts as constitutional and decides that the defendant was lawfully discharged within the terms of his bond.
The case of Sturges v. Crowninshield arose upon a contract for the payment of money from which the debtor was discharged under a subsequent state insolvent law, and this discharge was plead in bar of the action upon the contract. This Court decided the plea to be insufficient upon the ground that the law upon which it was founded impaired the obligation of the contract, which was entered into previous to his discharge. The obligation of the contract upon which the present suit was brought is not to pay money, but to continue a true prisoner within the limits of the jail in which he was then confined. A subsequent act of the legislature discharges him from his confinement and authorizes him to go at large, of which law he availed himself, and under which the justifies the alleged breach of the condition of his bond.
A contract, we are informed by the above case, is an agreement by one or more persons to do or not to do a particular thing, and the law which compels a performance of such contract constitutes its obligation. The thing to be done in that case was to pay money, and in this it is to continue a true prisoner, and at the time it was concluded, the existing law of Rhode Island required him to perform this engagement. A discharge from his debts in the former case, by a subsequent law of the state, impaired that obligation, but this obligation, it is said, is not impaired by a subsequent law which discharges him from confinement as well as from all his debts. If the principle which governs the two cases can be reconciled with each other, the course of reasoning by which it is to be effected is quite too subtle for my mind to comprehend it.
the debtor forms no part of the contract, and consequently that a law which discharges his person from confinement does not impair its obligation. This I admit, and the principle was strictly applicable to a contract for the payment of money. But can it possibly apply to a case where the restraint of the person is the sole object of the contract, and continuing within the limits of the prison the thing contracted to be done?
I admit the right of a state to put an end to imprisonment for debt altogether, and even to discharge insolvent debtors from their debts, by the enactment of a bankrupt law for that purpose. I am compelled by the case of Sturges v. Crowninshield to make this latter admission, and I voluntarily make the former. But what I insist upon is that if the law in either case is made to operate retroactively upon contracts, to do what the law discharges the party from doing, it impairs the obligation of the contract, and is so far invalid.
I will now briefly consider the reasons which are assigned for distinguishing this case from that of Sturges v. Crowninshield.
It is said that the bond in this case is not in point of law a contract, since there is but one voluntary party to it, and a contract cannot exist unless there be at least two parties to it. My answer is that the law of Rhode Island which authorized the giving of the bond made the creditor the other party, as much so as creditors and legatees are made parties to a bond, which the law requires an executor to give. If this answer be not considered as satisfactory, I will add another, which is that the creditor has adopted it as his contract by putting it in suit.
Again it is said that the acts which discharged this defendant from his imprisonment, and even from the debt altogether, are not retrospective in their operation and are not so considered in the state where they were passed.
How they are considered in that state is more than this Court can judicially know, and consequently that circumstance cannot here form the basis of a judicial determination.
was a temporary law, and expired nearly half a century ago. It was then, in the year 1815, as if it had never existed. An act in this year to revive it, either as a general law or for the purpose of benefiting a particular individual, is the enactment of a new law, which derives all its force from the will of the legislature which enacts it, and not from that of the legislature to which the expired law owed its temporary existence. Is it possible that argument or authorities can be required to prove this proposition? Would the argument upon which the contrary proposition is founded have been adopted in the case of Sturges v. Crowninshield, if the discharge had been under an act passed subsequent to the contract, which revived an old expired insolvent or bankrupt law? And am I to understand, that contracts for the payment of money, as well as for the restraint of the person of the debtor, may now be discharged in the State of Rhode Island at any time, by an act to revive the act of 1756 in favor of debtors for whose benefit it may be revived? If this be the effect of the present decision (and I confess I cannot perceive how it can be otherwise), the decision in the case of Sturges v. Crowninshield will avail nothing in that state, or in any other of the states in whose code an old deceased insolvent law can be found, which, in the days of its existence, authorized a legislative discharge of a debtor from his debts, or from his prison bounds bond.
that opinion to be wrong, as to vindicate my own consistency.
Certificate that the matters set forth in the defendant's pleas are sufficient to bar the plaintiff's action.

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