To the correct decision of this case, it seemed indispensable that the court should give a comprehensive, precise, and _universal_ definition of "the obligation of contracts"; one by which it might forever after be known what was, and what was not, that "obligation of contracts," which the State governments were forbidden to "impair" by "_any law_" whatever. The cause was heard at two terms, that of 1824, and that of 1827. It was argued by Webster, Wheaton, Wirt, Clay, Livingston, Ogden, Jones, Sampson, and Haines; nine in all. Their arguments were so voluminous that they could not be reported at length. Only summaries of them are given. But these summaries occupy thirty-eight pages in the reports. The judges, at that time, were seven, _viz._, Marshall, Washington, Johnson, Duvall, Story, Thompson, and Trimble. The judges gave five different opinions; occupying one hundred pages of the reports. But no one definition of "the obligation of contracts" could be agreed on; _not even by a majority_. Here, then, sixteen lawyers and judges--many of them among the most eminent the country has ever had--were called upon to give their opinions upon a question of the highest importance to all men's natural rights, to all the interests of civilized society, and to the very existence of civilization itself; a question, upon the answer to which depended the real validity, or invalidity, of every contract that ever was made, or ever will be made, between man and man. And yet, by their disagreements, they all virtually acknowledged that they did not know what "the obligation of contracts" was! But this was not all. Although they could not agree as to what "the obligation of contracts" was, they did all agree that it could be nothing which the State lawmakers could not prohibit and abolish, _by laws passed before the contracts were made_. That is to say, they all agreed that the State lawmakers had absolute power to prohibit all contracts whatsoever, for buying and selling, borrowing and lending, giving and receiving, property; and that, whenever they did prohibit any particular contract, or class of contracts, _all such contracts, thereafter made, could have no "obligation"_! They said this, be it noted, not of contracts that were naturally and intrinsically criminal and void, but of contracts that were naturally and intrinsically as just, and lawful, and useful, and necessary, as any that men ever enter into; and that had as perfect a natural, intrinsic, inherent "obligation," as any of those contracts, by which the traffic of society is carried on, or by which men ever buy and sell, borrow and lend, give and receive, property, of and to each other.