The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-02
CONTRACTS IN CONFEDERA TIE
MONEY.

gard to the responsibilities incurred under
contracts made during the progress of the
Rebellion which stipulated for the payment
of dollars that were mutually understood to
mean dollars of Confederate money. The
most important questions involved in these
disputes were definitely settled yesterday by
the opinion of the Supreme Court of the
United States in the case of Thorington VS..
Smith & Hartley, which was delivered by
Chief Justice Chase and as it was deemed
necessary to give a definition of the legal
status of the Confederate Government this
opinion possesses national interest and inn
portance.
The leading points in issue were: 1. Can
contract for the payment of Confederate
money, made during the Rebellion by parties
residing within the Confederate States, be
enforced in the United States courts 2.
Can evidence be adduced to prove that
written contract requiring the payment of
dollars meant anything else than lawful
dollars The principle has heretofore been
enunciated that none of the stipulations of
contracts made to aid the Rebellion can be
enforced in American courts, and it is now
seems to have relied upon such an extension
of this principle as would have led to the con-
clusion that, inasmuch as the Confederate
notes were issued for the reasonable
purpose of aiding an insurrection or war
against the United States, any transac-
tions based on the use of such currency
were necessarily void and imperative. The
Court, however, holds that inasmuch as an
ordinary business transaction did not involve
any act of hostility to the Government, it
must be Judged by it's merits; and that, as
the parties living within the lines of the Re-
bellion were compelled to use the currency
forced into general circulation in their midst,
the business transactions arising from and
based on this necessity deserve legal recogni-
tion and protection.
An elaborate discussion of the condition of
affairs in the Southern States during the
dominance of JEFF. Davis results in the con-
clusion that Confederate currency must be
regarded in courts of law in the same light
as if it had been issued by bona tide govern
ment temporarily occupying part of the
territory of the United States and that con-
tracts requiring the payment of Confederate
currency Should be refused in the courts of
the United States, after the restoration of
peace, to the extent of their just obligation"
The Confederate government is judicially
defined to be a temporary government of
paramount force, similar in it's legal bear
ings to the government established at Cas-
tine, in Maine, when it fell into the posses
sion of the British forces during the War of
1912, or the government established at Tam
pico, Mexico, when it fell into the possession
of American troops during the Mexican war.
The doctrine is announced that, while this
supremacy of the Confederate government
did not justify acts of hostility to the United
States, sit made civil obedience to its autho-
rity not only a necessity but duty. With
out such obedience, civil order was impossi-
ble and that therefore, citizens in agreeing
to buy or sell for given sum of Confederate
money committed an act which was not in
itself unlawful, and which cannot be treated
as a nulliy by the courts of the reconstructed
Union.
The second question at issue was decided
in similar spirit. 1t was decided that evil
dence could be properly offered to prove the
meaning of the word ''dollars, " used by the
parties to this contract. This cannot be done
under all circumstances, for the Judge held
that "a contract to pay dollars made between
citizens of any State of the Union maintain
ing its constitutional relations with the Gov
ernment, is contract to pay lawful
money of the United States, and can
not be modified or explained by pGgOI
evidence' But due allowance must be
made for the peculiar circumstances exist
ing in the South. AS the word dollar had
acquired meaning which, while neither legal
nor correct, was none the less actual, it is
contended that the ends of substantial JUS
tice can be attained by the production of evi-
dence to prove what this meaning was. Judge
Chase holds that Confederate money had no in
trinsic value, and that it never can have, but
that it nevertheless possessed "a sufficiently
definite relation to gold and silver, the univer-
sal measures of value, SO that it was always
easy to ascertain how much gold and silver
was the real equivalent of sum expressed
in this currency" The point to be aimed al
in estimating the liabilities of an unfulflled
contract, in which the parties agreed to make
payment in Confederate money, is to ascer
tain the actual value of these notes at the time
and place of the contract, in lawful money o.
the United States, and to render judgment
bond on such valuation.
Parties in the South who are inclined tC
act Justly will have no cause to complain o
this decision. 1t will prevent men from pro
fting by events over which they had no con
troll, and it will give to obligations enterel