While the law recognizes that commercial prosperity requires that every one of full age and reasonable discretion should have almost unlimited freedom in entering into contracts, and that all engagements thus freely and fairly entered into should be held sacred and enforceable in law, and all equitable rights growing out of such engagements should be given full effect; yet there are limitations upon this right to contract which the security of society and the protection of individual rights render it imperative that the law making power should impose, and that courts should render effective.
It is true that public policy is uncertain and fluctuating-changing with the enlarged demands of commerce and the usages of trade and that even in morals, the test is not uniform, the innocent wager of the ancient common law, becoming the gambling contract of to-day; and the illegal sale of property to which no title exists, becoming, in turn, the reliance of both producer and manufacturer; the latter indeed purchasing futures in cotton and in grain, that he may enter into contract for the delivery of the product at fixed and remunerative prices, thus creating for the producer a present market for future delivery.
But it still stands true, that whatever contract conflicts with the moral sentiment of the times, or contravenes any established existing interest of society, social, commercial or political, is void, as against public policy. By this test must all Contracts, Trade Agreements and Strikes, and all Corporate or Partnership Trusts and Combinations be judged. It is the purpose of this work to bring them all to this judgment.
Law offices of DUDLEY, MICHENER & RAY, 40 Wall St., New York, March 1st, 1892. (