This is saying that the obligation of a contract to pay money is not an obligation to pay what both the law and the parties recognize as money, at the time when the contract is made, but only such substitute as congress shall afterwards prescribe, "when the payment is to be made.
Spooner argues that contract obligations should not be subject to arbitrary changes by Congress after the fact.
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More from Lysander Spooner
Yet the codes of the most celebrated kings are very small, and were little more than compilations of immemorial customs.
That the legislation of the king was of no authority over a jury, is further proved by the oath taken by the kings at their coronation.
What else than ignorance of the law is it that excuses persons under the years of discretion, and men of imbecile minds?
And yet these reasons, which are really no reasons at all, are the only ones, so far as I know, that have ever been offered for this absurd and brutal doctrine.