Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Thorington_v._Smith
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 07:13:12+00:00

Document:
One day after date, we, or either of us, promise to pay Jack Thorington, or bearer, ten thousand dollars, for value received in real estate, sold and delivered by said Thorington to us this day, as per his deed to us of this date: this note, part of the same transaction, is hereby declared as a lien or mortgage on said real estate situate and adjoining the city of Montgomery.
It was also insisted that the land purchased was worth no more than $3000 in lawful money; that the contract price was $45,000; that this price, by the agreement of the parties, was to be paid in Confederate notes; that $35,000 were actually paid in those notes; and that the note given for the remaining $10,000 was to be discharged in the same manner; and it was asserted on this state of facts, that the vendor was entitled to no relief in a court of the United States.
The court below, admitting the evidence to prove that the note was in fact made for payment in Confederate States treasury notes, and sustaining, apparently, the view of the purchasers that the contract was illegal because to be paid in such notes, dismissed the bill.
1. There is no reason to suppose that the contract was entered into for the purpose of giving currency to the Confederate notes, and thus aiding the rebellion. And the question is not whether the issuing of these notes was illegal, but whether an agreement to receive them in payment of property, made the contract between the parties illegal. If there was no illegal design, the contract was not immoral.  The contract, therefore, was legal.
The note now here on its face is clear and distinct. The promise to pay 'ten thousand dollars' has a well-under-stood, well-defined meaning. Whether made in Massachusetts or Alabama the rules applicable to its construction are the same. The issue presented by the answer is, that this contract did not represent the truth; that, in point of fact, the agreement was for a payment in an illegal currency of a mere nominal value. It is difficult to conceive of a more palpable contradiction of the legal effect of a contract than the admission of evidence to sustain this defence.
2. This question, as applicable to the condition of things set up in the answer, was considered in Roane v. Green,  the court holding that it was not competent to prove by parol, on such a note, that Confederate treasury notes was the payment agreed on. In fact, as these notes were never made a legal tender by the rebel government nothing but coin would, even under it, be a discharge of the debt.
3. The parol evidence offered, if competent, is insufficient. There was but one witness, and he misdescribes the note in one feature of it, the time namely that it had to run: a most important feature in view of the changes in values at the time when the note was given.
4. Another point not raised below, perhaps, but to which, if the court should think that the contract can be enforced, but not payment demanded in our now recognized currency, we would direct attention, is this. Confederate money is now wholly worthless. Payment in it is no payment at all. What, then, is the measure of damages? The peculiar circumstances of this case perhaps take it out of the rule announced in Thompson v. Riggs,  that the value of the money at the time the note was payable is the criterion. The value of gold as marked by these treasury notes, fluctuated daily and hourly, and was different in different parts of the State. While it was 20, 30, or 40 to 1, these treasury notes had an exchangeable power of 2, 3, or 4 to 1 in the different species of property. It may well be that the vendor should have agreed that if the note was paid at maturity, it might be extinguished in these notes; but it by no means follows that in default of payment he was willing to be compensated by the value of these notes in gold.
^1 Orchard v. Hughes, 1 Wallace, 75.
^2 Baugh v. Ramsey, 4 Monroe, 155; Pack v. Thomas, 13 Smeedes & Marshall, 11; Williams v. Beazley, 3 J. J. Marshall, 577; Morris v. Edwards, 1 Ohio, 189.

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