In Houston v. Moor, the Supreme Court of the United States heard a case involving two men who had entered into an agreement for one to purchase land from another. The purchaser, William Houston, paid $1,000 in cash and agreed to pay an additional $2,000 over time with interest. When he failed to make payments as promised by their contract, the seller sued him for breach of contract and won a judgment against him in state court. However on appeal to federal court it was determined that since there was no writing or other evidence of any kind that could prove they had made such an agreement between them; therefore it could not be enforced under existing law at that time which required contracts involving more than $500 must be written down and signed by both parties before being enforceable in court. As such this ruling set precedent requiring all future contracts exceeding certain amounts must have some form of written proof if they are ever challenged in court later on down the road.

In Houston v. Moor, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a state court had jurisdiction over a case involving citizens of different states. The majority opinion held that it did not, as the Constitution only granted federal courts such authority. Justice Johnson dissented from this decision and argued that while Congress has exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce, there is no constitutional provision prohibiting state courts from exercising their own jurisdiction in cases between citizens of different states. He further noted that if Congress intended for all such disputes to be heard exclusively by federal courts they would have included language explicitly stating so in the Constitution or other laws passed pursuant thereto. As they had not done so he concluded that it was within the purview of individual states to determine which matters should be decided by their respective judicial systems and thus affirmed his belief in upholding traditional principles of comity among them rather than allowing one sovereign entity (the Federal Government) too much control over another's affairs