They hold that, if a State law forbids any contract to be made, such a contract can then have no obligation; and that, consequently, no State law can impair an obligation that never existed.
Spooner critiques the legal principle that state laws can nullify the obligations of contracts.
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They are every day committing errors, which would be crimes, but for their ignorance of the law.
It would also be making them consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own rights.
Practically speaking, no government knows any limits to its power, except the endurance of the people.
But there is no reason why a judge should have the power of punishing, for contempt, any more than for any other offence.