The offeree, when he drops the
letter containing the counter-promise into the letter-box, does
an overt act, which by general understanding renounces control
over the letter, and puts it into a third hand for the benefit of
the offerer, with liberty to the latter at any moment thereafter
to take it.
The principles governing revocation are wholly different. One to
whom an offer is made has a right to assume that it remains open
according to its terms until he has actual [307] notice to the
contrary. The effect of the communication must be destroyed by a
counter communication. But the making of a contract does not
depend on the state of the parties' minds, it depends on their
overt acts. When the sign of the counter promise is a tangible
object, the contract is completed when the dominion over that
object changes.
[308] LECTURE IX.
CONTRACT.- III. VOID AND VOIDABLE.
THE elements of fact necessary to call a contract into existence,
and the legal consequences of a contract when formed, have been
discussed. It remains to consider successively the cases in which
a contract is said to be void, and those in which it is said to
be voidable,--in which, that is, a contract fails to be made when
it seems to have been, or, having been made, can be rescinded by
one side or the other, and treated as if it had never been.
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