Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1868-12-13
nan a fraud upon the people"
THE LEGAL TENDER QUESTI,

E4E-U u ASNa
At the last term Of the United
States Supreme Court, cases from
California, Oregon, Nevada, Ken
lucky, New York and District of
Columbia raising the question as TO
the cnnstitutionuiity of the legal
tender act were placed on the dock
ct. At the hearing of these cases
at that time the Attorney General,
Mr.. Stanbery, suggesting to the
Court that the government was in
terested in the question, a reargu-
ment of the cases was ordered for
the present term so far as concerned
the point of the constitutional pow
or Of Congress to make the notes Of
the United States legal tender in
payment of private debts, with
leave to the Attorney General to be
heard, and the first Tuesday of the
term was fixed for the argument.
On Tuesday, December 8, 1868,
all the judges being on the bench,
the argument was opened by Hon.
B. r. Curtis, of Massachusetts, in
favor Of the constitutionality of the
law.
We append the concluding por
ton of Mr.. Curtis argument:
The obligation of contract, in the
sense in which those words are used not
only in the constitution of the United
States, but in the Jurisprudence from
which its trainers borrowed them, is that
duty Of performing it which is recognized
and enforced by law. (Curran VS.. Ar
kansas, Is Howard, 3l9, Names An
cient Law, 3l3) 1t has been adjudgsd
both in this court and in England and
elsewhere, that tender in what was
lawful money at the time the tender was
made, is sufficient, though its actual
value is not the same as that Of the
lawful money in use when the con-
tract was made Q Crach, 20;
Peters, GA; Davies's Reports, As; l
WashingtOn's Virginia Reports, 90: Ba-
cons Arrangement, Tender B, 2) And
it is not consistent with the fact to assert
that the obligation of the contract is
affected, because the law-making power
has enabled the debtor to pay his-debt in
money of less intrinsic value than the
currency Of the date of the contract.
When a tender is made of what the law
deems money, the obligation Of the con.
tract is not affected. This distinction is
recognized by the Constitution. 1t does
not stop with a prohibition on the States
to pass laws affecting the obligation Of
contract; it prohibits them from making
anything but gold or silver coin a tender
in payment of debts The first of these
prohibitions might have restrained the
States from so legislating as to legaliZe
tenders of deprecated currency for debts
previously contracted; that is, they could
not substantially alter the law so as to
impair the legal remedy for existing con-
tracts. But when this express restric-
ton comes to be applied to the act Of
Congress now IN question, 1t proves TO
have go force OK application to any con
tracts made after the date Of the law, and
has no power or efficacy whatever, unless
it can be found in or deducted from
the constitution, as a special restriction
on the powers of Congress of the same
limited character as the corresponding
restrictions on the powers of the United
States, the practical result of which
would be that Congress may not make
treasury notes lawful money for the pay
ment Of debts contracted before the pas
sage Of the law. But even in this re
stricted sense, it is not an implication
from the constitution that Congress can
not pass laws to attach to treasury notes
the quality Of lawful money. In the
Wheeling bridge case U3 Howard 5lS)
the court held the bridge to be violation
of the contract between Virginia and
Kentucky; bat an act Of Congress, passed
under It's power to regulate commerce L.
gahzed the bridge, aud the act was yield
"a TO as constitutional. The reasoning
by the power to impair the obligation of