512 WATKINS v. WORTHINGTON.— 2 BLAND.

tant and so sacred as to be guarded by an express provision of
constitutional law, unalterable even by the government itself.
Now if, as It is thus declared, the legislative department cannot,
by any of its Acts, impair the obligation of contracts, it surely
could not be allowed, that the judicial department should effect
the same thing by means of any judgment or decree. The judicial
department applies to particular cases only such rules as the Legis-
lature may lay down; but the Legislature is prohibited from laying-
down any such rules, and therefore no such rules can be applied
by the judicial department.

Hence, any principles, such as these now under consideration,
the effect of which is to impair the obligation of a contract, which
* the Legislature is prohibited from declaring to be rules of
537 law, the judiciary cannot assume and apply as such. These
principles of this Court, by which a creditor is prevented from ob-
taining satisfaction from the estate of his deceased debtor, in cer-
tain cases, where others have been bound for the payment of the
same debt, it is evident, do, in effect, deprive the creditor of at
least a part, and very often of the whole of his security; they do
most manifestly, in a material and essential manner, impair the ob-
ligation of the contract; and are, therefore, in direct hostility with
the general principles of our Code as taken from that of England,
and with the spirit, if not the very letter of this provision of the
Constitution of the United States.

But according to these principles the creditor, it is obvious,
from the very nature of things, may not merely have his security
materially cut down and grievously impaired, but altogether de-
stroyed. The explanation whether the deceased is principal or
surety, and the proof of insolvency is almost always the occasion of
embarrassment and delay. Notwithstanding which it is declared
that the claims having been then barred by the Statute of Limita-
tion, as against others, forms of itself no ground for letting the
creditor in to obtain any satisfaction from the estate of the de-
ceased. And if it should not be barred by limitation, still the at-
tempt to recover satisfaction from the other joint debtors may fail,
from a variety of causes, against which no diligence of the creditor
can guard. The other debtors may be in desperate and rapidly
sinking circumstances although then not reputed to be insolvent.
They may be residents of other States, or remote places, from which
it may be difficult or impossible to obtain correct information as to
their pecuniary condition; or they may be dead, and their repre-
sentatives so numerous and dispersed as that the creditor may find
it impracticable within any reasonable time, to procure any kind
of proof of their insolvent condition.

Upon the whole, I have been long satisfied that these principles
of this Court in relation to the distribution of the real assets of
deceased debtors operate hardly, injuriously, and perniciously