A solvent contract to pay money is in reality--in law, and in equity--a bona fide mortgage upon the debtor's property.
Lysander Spooner
The Public Record
Lysander Spooner was an American abolitionist, entrepreneur, lawyer, essayist, natural rights legal theorist, pamphleteer, political philosopher, and writer often associated with the Boston anarchist tradition.
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Such an absurd contract would, in reality, be no legal contract at all.
If this is not asserting the right of congress to abolish altogether men's natural right to make their own contracts, what is it?
It is equivalent to saying that the words of contracts are not to be taken in the sense in which they are used, by the parties themselves, at the time when the contracts are entered into, but only in such different senses as congress may…
And this is equivalent to denying all men's right to make their own contracts, or to acquire any contract rights, which congress may not afterward, at pleasure, alter, or abolish.
All this talk of the court is equivalent to asserting that congress has the right to alter men's contracts at pleasure, after they are made, and make them over into something, or anything, wholly different from what the parties themselves…
It has, therefore, just as much right to cheat debtors, by compelling them to pay more than they agreed to pay, as it has to cheat creditors, by compelling them to accept less than they agreed to accept.
Congress has evidently just as much right to increase the value of the dollar, after a contract has been made, as it has to reduce its value.
Well, if congress has power to alter men's contracts, after they are made, by altering the meaning of the word dollar, and thus reducing the value of the debt, it has a precisely equal power to increase the value of the dollar, and thus…
In other words, the court means to say that, after a contract has been made for the payment of a certain number of dollars, congress has power to alter the meaning of the word dollar, and thus authorize the debtor to pay in something…
In both these cases, the court means distinctly to say that, after the parties to a contract have agreed upon the number of dollars to be paid, congress has power to reduce the value of the dollar, and authorize all debtors to pay the less…
Both these opinions are distinct declarations of the power of congress to alter men's contracts, after they are made, by simply retaining the name, while altering the thing, that is agreed to be paid.