The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1878-09-26

ted and brought before the Supreme
| Court. and at the request of the court
the question Of the constitutionality
of the Legal-Tender acts was to be
fully argued and finally settled by the
court, so that the question should be
forever put at rest.
l have both arguments and the
opinion of the Supreme Court before
me. But / cannot read the whole
opinion, as it would require much
time. will say that hope each
man who feels an interest in this
question will procure and read the
decision. I characterize it as the
most elaborate and strongest green
back document that is now in print,
and of the very highest authority.
however, to the jurisprudence OF the
of the land. In this case the court
held that the Legal-Tender acts were
constitutional as applied both to past
and future contracts.
The court says:
'sBefOre we can hold the Legal
Tender acts unconstitutional we must
be convinced they were not appropri-
ate means, or means conducive to the
execution of any or all Of the powers
OF Congress, or of the Government,
not appropriate in any degree flor we
are not judges of that degree of ap-
propriatiOn), or we must hold they
were prohibited. "-12 Wallace,
United States Supreme Court Reports
page 500.
'The degree of the necessity for
any Congressional enactment, or the
relative degree Of it's appropriateness
is for consideration in Congress-; not
here. When the law is not prohibited
and is really calculated to effect any
of the objects intrusted to the Govern
ment, to undertake here to inquire
into the degree of its necessity would
be to pass the line which circum-
scribes the judicial department and to
tread on legislative ground.-Ibid,
$40.
So you see that the question is not
decided upon the contingency of war,
but the whole matter of the necessity
| Of any constitutional enactment is
left to Congress. The whole of this
decision leaves the right to issue
legal-tender money upon the same
authority in the constitution that
there is for the Government to make
contracts, to require an oath from
officers, to build Presidential man.
sion, a Capitol or any of the depart
ment buildings; to punish robberies
of the mails and postoffices, to prohibit
the circulation of obscene literature,
to provide for taking the statistics of
Territories and of the United States,
respecting age, sex, health. etc.; to
improve rivers and harbors, to estab-
lish buoys and lighthouses, to estab.
| lish a United States Bank. All of
these things have been and are being
done without any express power
lstated in the cons titGtion. The court
says:
The constitution was intended to
frame a government as distinguished
from league or cOmpact-A Govern
ment supreme in some particulars
over States and people. 1t was de-
signed to provide the same currency,
having uniform legal value in all
the States. 1t was for this reason the
power to coin money and regulate its
value was conferred upon the Federal
Government, while the same power
as well as the power to emit bills of
credit was withheld from the States.
The States can no longer declare what
shall be money or regulate its value.
Whatever power there is over the
currency is vested in Congress. If
the power to declare what is money
is not in Congress, it is annihilated."
Ibid, 245.
"And, generally, when one of such
| powers was expressly denied to the
States only, it was for the purpose of
| rendering the Federal power more
complete and exclusive; how sensible
then its trainers must have been
| that emergencies might arise when
the precious metals might prove
inadequate to the necessities of the
Government and the demands of the
Governments and the demands of the
people-when it is remembered that
paper money was almost exclusively
in use in the States as the medium of
exchange, and when the great evil
sought to be remedied was the want
of uniformity in the current value of
money, it might be argued, we say.
that the gift of power to coin money
and regulate the value thereof was
understood as conveying general
power over the currency, and which
had belonged to the States, and which
they surrendered. Ibid $40.
by the obligation of contract to
pay money is to pay that which law
shall recognize as money when the
payment is to be made.
III anything Is settled by this
decision it is this. and we do not
understand it to be controverted. No
one ever doubted that debt of ST.
600. contracted before 1884. could be
paid by 100 eagles coined after that
year, though they contained no more
gold than ninety-four eagles coined
when the contract was made. and this
is not because of the intrinsic value
of the coin, but because of its legal
value. The eagles coined after 1884
were not money until they were
authorized by law. and. had they
been coined before. without law
fixing their legal value. they could no
more have paid a debt than uncoined
bullion. or cotton. or wheat. Every
contract for the payment of money is
necessarily subject TO the constitution