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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.[1] The very judges, who profess 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.
Moreover, a written instrument must, in law and reason, not only be signed, but must also be delivered to the party (or to some one 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 to 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.
V.
As further evidence of the general sense of mankind, as to the practical necessity there is that all men's important contracts especially those of a permanent nature, should be both written and signed, the following facts are pertinent.
- ↑ The very men who drafted it, never signed it in any way to bind themselves by it, as a contract. And not one of them probably ever would have signed it in any way to bind himself by it, as a contract.
