Adams, Cunningham and Company v. Calvin Jones was a case heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1838. The dispute involved an unpaid debt of $1,000 that Adams, Cunningham and Company had loaned to Calvin Jones for his purchase of slaves. When Jones failed to pay back the debt as agreed upon in their contract, Adams, Cunningham and Company sued him for payment plus interest at 10 percent per annum from December 1st 1835 until paid off. The court found that although there were no written documents or witnesses present when the agreement between both parties was made verbally on November 30th 1834; it could be inferred from other evidence presented during trial that such an agreement did exist between them prior to December 1st 1835 which would make it legally binding under common law principles of contract formation. Therefore they ruled in favor of Adams, Cunningham and Company awarding them damages with interest as requested by their complaint against Calvin Jones for nonpayment of his outstanding debt obligation according to their verbal agreement made on November 30th 1834

In Adams, Cunningham and Company v. Calvin Jones, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a contract between two parties could be enforced if it had been made without consideration. The majority opinion held that the contract should not be enforced because there was no consideration given by either party in exchange for its performance. However, Justice McLean dissented from this decision and argued that contracts can still be enforceable even when they are made without any form of consideration being exchanged. He reasoned that such agreements were binding on both parties as long as they were entered into with mutual consent and good faith intentions to perform their respective obligations under the agreement. Furthermore, he stated that public policy favored enforcing these types of contracts since it would encourage people to enter into them more freely than if there was always an expectation of some kind of compensation or benefit in return for entering into an agreement with another person or entity.