The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1892-12-23
A CREATURE OF LAW.
The Supreme Court Says Whatever
Power There is Over the Cur
renCy is Vested In Congress
II the Power to Declare What is Money
is Not In Congress, it is Ami.
hilated.
Congress Has a Fnll Constitutional
Right to Authorize the Issue of
Legal Tender Money.


In the case of Knox VS.. Lee in the
supreme court in 1871, after deciding
that congress had a full constitutional
right to authorize the issue of legal
tender money, the court said:
"Here we might stop; but we will
notice briefly an argument presented
in support of the position that the unit
of money value must possess intrinsic
value. The argument is derived from
assimilatng the constitutional provis-
ion respecting standard Of weights
and measures to that comforting the
power to coin money and regulate its
value. 1t is said there can be no uni
form standard of weights without
weight, or of measure without length
or space, and we are asked how any
thing can be male standard Of value
which has itself no value.
1t is hardly correct to speak of n
standard of value. The constitution
does not speak Of it. 1t contemplates
a standard for that which has gravity
OF extension, but value is an idle
thing. The coinage acts fix its unit
as dollar. but the gold or silver
thing we call n dollar is in no sense u
standard of a dollar. 1t is represen.
tative of it. There might never have
been q piece of money Of the denomi-
nation of a dollar, There never was Il
pound sterling coined until 1915, if
we except few coins struck IN the
reign Of Henry VIII, almost immedia-
tely debased, yet it has been the unit
of British currency for many genera
tons
The court further said:
"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.
"The constitution does not ordain
what metals shall be coined. or PIES
cribe that the legal value of the met
ais, when coined, shall correspond at
all with their intrinsic value on the
market, Nor does it even affirm that
congress may declare anything To be
a legal tender for the payment Of
debts Confessedly the power to re
gulate the value of money coined, and
of foreign Gains, is not exhausted by
tho first regulation. More than once
in our history has the regulation been
changed without any denial of the
power of congress to change it and it
seems to have been left to congress to
determine alike what shall be coined,
Its purity, and how far its statutory
valne as money, shall correspond,
from time to time, with the market
value of the same meal as bullion.
mo one ever doubted that a debt Of
OIL, 900, contracted before 1884, could
be paid by one hundred eagles coined
after that year, though they contained
no more gold than ninety-four eagles
such as were coined when the contract
was made. and this, not because OF
the intrinsic value of the coin, but be
cause of its legal value. The eagles
coined after 1884 were not money un.
til they were authorized by law, and
had they been coined before without q
law fixing their legal value, they could
have no more paid debt than un,
coined bullion or cotton or wheat"
In view of the fact that full bench
ofthe supreme court in 1884 reatirmeC
this decision, one would think that in
trinsic value idiots would be afraid II
go before the public with such foolish
statements as God made money"