Section IV

0:00Section 4

0:30The Theory of Money and Credit

1:00Men who could not write either made their mark or signed their contracts by stamping their seals upon wax affixed to the parchment on which their contracts were written, hence the custom of affixing seals that has continued to this time. The law holds and reason declares that if a written instrument is not signed, the presumption must be that the party to be bound by it did not choose to sign it or to bind himself by it. Law and Reason both give him until the last moment in which to decide whether he will sign it or not. Neither Law nor Reason requires or expects a man to agree to an instrument until it is written, for until it is written he cannot know its precise legal meaning, and when it is written and he has had the opportunity to satisfy himself of its precise legal meaning, he is then expected to decide, and not before, whether he will agree to it or not.

1:56And if he do not then sign it, his reason is supposed to be that he does not choose to enter into such a contract. The fact that the instrument was written for him to sign, or with the hope that he would sign it, goes for nothing. Where would be the end of fraud and litigation if one party could bring into court a written instrument without any signature and claim to have it enforced upon the ground that it was written for another man to sign, that this other man had promised to sign it? that he ought to have signed it, that he had had the opportunity to sign it if he would, but that he had refused or neglected to do so, yet that is the most that could ever be said of the Constitution. The very judges who professed to derive all their authority from the Constitution from an instrument that nobody ever signed would spurn any other instrument not signed that should be brought before them for adjudication.

2:51Moreover, a written instrument must, in law and reason, not only be signed, but must also be delivered to the party or to someone for him in whose favor it is made, before it can bind the party making it. The signing is of no effect unless the instrument be also delivered. And a party is at perfect liberty to refuse to deliver a written instrument after he has signed it. He is as free to refuse to deliver it as he is to refuse to sign it. The Constitution was not only never signed by anybody, but it was never delivered by anybody or to anybody's agent or attorney. It can therefore be of no more validity as a contract than can any other instrument that was never signed or delivered.