Sturges v. Crowninshield
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| Sturges v. Crowninshield | |||||||||||
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| Argued February 8, 1819 Decided February 17, 1819 |
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| Court membership | |||||||||||
| Chief Justice: John Marshall Associate Justices: Bushrod Washington, William Johnson, Henry Brockholst Livingston, Thomas Todd, Gabriel Duvall, Joseph Story |
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| Case opinions | |||||||||||
| Majority by: Marshall Joined by: unanimous |
Sturges v. Crowninshield, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 122 (1819), dealt with the constitutionality of New York creating bankruptcy laws and retroactively applying those laws.
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[edit] First issue
This case decided whether state bankruptcy laws violated the provision in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution giving Congress the power "to establish...uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies through-out the United states". This was a power which Congress had not previously exercised. Were the states restricted from passing bankruptcy laws of their own?[1]
Justice Marshall stated in the opinion:
| “ | The first [issue] is...since the adoption of the constitution of the United States, any state has authority to pass a bankrupt law, or whether the power is exclusively vested in the congress of the United States? | ” |
Justice Marshall's answer to this question was not very clear.
In Ogden v. Saunders, eight years later, Justice Johnson explained why the ruling was so vague:
| “ | The report of the case of Sturges v. Crowninshield needs also some explanation. The Court was, in that case, greatly divided in their views of the doctrine, and the judgment partakes as much of a compromise, as of a legal adjudication. The minority thought it better to yield something than risk the whole. | ” |
In other words, the Republican judges wanted to retain all state bankruptcy laws and the Fedralists wanted to abolish them all. Minority Republicans agreed on the best bargain they could by agreeing to sacrifice the New York law if the rest were not deemed unconstitutional. [2]
[edit] Second issue
In addition, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of ex post facto law or retroactive law in the particular New York bankruptcy law in question. This law covered debts contracted before the law was passed. The retroactive portion of the law was ruled to be unconstitutional by a unanimous court, because it impaired the debtors obligation to a contract.[1]
[edit] External Link
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Bates, Ernest Sutherland (1982). Story of the Supreme Court. Wm. S. Hein Publishing. ISBN 0-8377-0322-0. p. 118
- ^ Bates, p. 119
