WATKINS v. WORTHINGTON— 2 BLAND. 511

the place of the creditor in any respect whatever. A Court of
equity cannot interpose to enlarge the effect of a legal contract,
nor can it be called upon to cut down its then .subsisting legal op-
eration. Because, even as in the case of an attaint, according to
the law of England, by which the debtor is civilly dead, and all
his property forfeited, the law implies from such a contract, that
the creditor can charge his debtor's person in execution: and even
in circumstances from which there appears to be no ray of hope of
getting anything by it, the creditor has a right to take his chance
of that; the Court has no right to judge for him what he can make
out of the imprisonment of his debtor, operating by way of duress
upon the feelings and affections of third persons; or as it is ex-
pressed in an ancient English statute, " until he have made agree-
ment, or his friends for him." Because it is the contract of the
parties, and the Court has no right to apply the terms, ''wilful,
malicious, and oppressive,'- to what the law under those circum-
stances allows. Such are the doctrines of the, English Court of
Chancery, by which it appears, that no hardships or sufferings,
however * extreme, are permitted to shake or impugn the
sacred obligation of contracts as between debtor and credi- 536
tor. Stat. A.cton Burnel, 11 Ed. 1; Kitty's Rep. L43; Holditch v.
Mist, 1 P. Will 695; Wright v. Siiiipson, 6 Yen. 714; Folliot v. Og-
den, I H. Elm. 123; Wright v. Nutt, 1 H. Blac. 136; Kempe v. An-
till, 2 Bro. C. C. 11; Wright v. Nutt. 3 Bro. C. C. 320; Ex parte
Kendall, 17 Ves. 520; 12 Westminster Review, 369.

These rigid and inflexible principles of the English Code have
always been considered as forming a part of the law of Maryland;
and have been approved and affirmed by the highest authority of
our country. The case of the British subject, whose whole property
in this country, where the debt had been contracted, had been
seized, and confiscated with a reservation in favor of his just cred-
itors, presented au apparently irresistible claim on the part of the
debtor for relief, so far as to compel the creditor to seek satisfac-
tion, in the first instance, from the confiscated estate of his debtor;
yet after the most mature consideration it was finally held in Eng-
land, that even such a case would not warrant a Court of justice
in giving such relief to the debtor as would, in effect, impair the
obligation of the contract. Wright v. Simpson, 6 Ves. 714.

By the Constitution of the United States, it is declared, that
" no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts."
Art. 1, s. 10. Of the history or causes of this restriction upon the
legislative power of the States, it is unnecessary here to say any-
thing; nor is it necessary to speak of the kind of legislative enact-
ments to which it properly applies. It is sufficient, as regards the
subject under consideration, that the people, or sovereign author-
ity of this country, has deemed the obligation of contracts, at least
as between, individuals, creditor and debtor, as a matter so impor-