The Sanctity of Contracts in English Law - College of Social ...

68 A Comparison and Conclusionscontracts, a power which comes home to every man,touches the interest of all and controls the conductof every individual in those things which he supposesto be proper for his own exclusive management, hadbeen used to such an excess by the State legislaturesas to break in upon the ordinary intercourse of societyand destroy all confidence between man and man.The mischief had become so great, so alarming as notonly to impair commercial intercourse, and threatenthe existence of credit, but to sap the morals of thepeople, and destroy the sanctity of private faith."Too much was unquestionably made of the clauseby describing its effect as being to enshrine the freedomof contract in the Constitution. Its context andimmediate surroundings were ignored as was alsoits original express purpose as stated by Chief JusticeMarshall. It was intended to restrict State activitiesin absolving debtors from paying their debts, not toproclaim for future guidance a general principle offreedom of contracts.Similarly the Supreme Court in 1905 2 seems tohave deduced from the " Due Process " clauses of theFifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitutiona prohibition against State legislative interferencewith freedom of contract. The point in issue waswhether a State-enacted maximum-hours law wasunconstitutional. There is no express provision inthe Constitution saying that a State shall not havepower to regulate hours of labour. The Fifth andFourteenth amendments, however, provide that no2 In Lockner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).