The Portland Gazette

IMPORTANT DECISION.

The Supreme Court of the United States have unanimously decided, that those provisions in the Insolvent Laws of individual States, which exempt the property of debtors, subsequently acquired, from attachment for debts contracted previous to their declared insolvency, are void, inasmuch as they are violations of that article of the constitution which prohibits the passage of any law in any State impairing the obligation of contracts-but that a State may pass a law exempting the bodies of debtors from arrest.-It seems as yet uncertain what has been the extent of the first part of this decision; whether it is intended to relate only to those contracts made before the passage of an insolvent law, or to include those also, made afterwards. Upon a hasty consideration of the subject, we should be inclined to believe it was meant to apply only to the former, as it would seem, were the contract made during the existence of such a law, all the disabilities created by it must have been contemplated by the parties, and no further legal enforcement of the contract expected by them than would be consistent with these restrictions.-This decision, in whatever light it may be viewed, must very seriously affect the rights of a large class of citizens in those States where insolvent laws have existed or do exist, as many of those who were once insolvent, have since, probably, acquired considerable property. It is accordingly said to have occasioned a great degree of solicitude among them.