[3] The main issue of the case was whether or not the New York law violated the Obligation of Contracts Clause of the Constitution.

Marshall was joined in his dissent by Associate Justices Gabriel Duvall and Joseph Story.

Thus, if Ogden owes Saunders a certain amount in legal tender coin, it is not within the authority of the state, under the US Constitution, to alter that obligation so that, for example, Ogden may simply hand over his property to Saunders in settlement of the debt.

Marshall took this opportunity to set forth his general principles of constitutional interpretation:[5] To say that the intention of the instrument must prevail; that this intention must be collected from its words; that its words are to be understood in that sense in which they are generally used by those for whom the instrument was intended; that its provisions are neither to be restricted into insignificance, nor extended to objects not comprehended in them, nor contemplated by its framers; — is to repeat what has been already said more at large, and is all that can be necessary.In his Ogden dissent, Marshall also adopted a definition of the word "law" that would later be denounced by the individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner.

Law has been defined by a writer, whose definitions especially have been the theme of almost universal panegyric, "To be a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a State.