It has asserted the arbitrary power of congress to abolish all men's right to make their own contracts, by asserting its power to alter the meaning of all contracts, after they are made, so as to make them widely, or wholly, different from what the parties had made them.
Spooner argues that Congress can alter contracts post facto, undermining their original terms.
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When two men meet one upon the highway, or in the wilderness, have they a right to dispose of his life, liberty, or property at their pleasure, simply because they are the more numerous party?
It would also be making them consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own rights.
The answer is, that they are as reliable for that purpose as are the majority; they are as much presumed to have associated, and are as likely to have associated, for that object, as are the majority; and they have as much interest in such…
There is no more absurdity in giving a jury a veto upon the laws, than there is in giving a veto to each of these other tribunals.