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Article: Contract Clause
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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CONTRACT CLAUSE
CONTRACT CLAUSE.
Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution provides that no state shall pass any law "impairing the Obligation of Contracts." Broad interpretation of this clause by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall made it the basic constitutional instrument for the protection of private property in the nineteenth century
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a primary link between law and economic growth and a basic source of national authority over the states. The framers and ratifiers of the Constitution paid little attention to this clause, and what they said about it at the constitutional and ratifying conventions suggests that the clause was intended to supplement the ...