Case Name: LEGAL TENDER CASE. JUILLIARD v. GREENMAN
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1884-03-03
Citations: 110 U.S. 421
Docket Number: 
Parties: LEGAL TENDER CASE. JUILLIARD v. GREENMAN.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 110
Pages: 421–470

Head Matter:
LEGAL TENDER CASE. JUILLIARD v. GREENMAN.
IN ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OE THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OE NEW YORK.
Submitted January 22d, 1884. —
Decided March 3d, 1884.
Constitutional Law — Legal Tender Notes — Statutes.
Congress has the constitutional power to make the treasury notes of the United States a legal tender in payment of private debts, in time of peace as well as in time of war.
Under the act of May 31st, 1878, ch. 146, which enacts that when any United States legal tender notes may be redeemed or received into the Treasury, and shall belong to the United States, they'shall be reissued and paid out again, and kept in circulation, notes so reissued are a legal tender.
Juilliard, a citizen of New York, brought an action against Greenman, a citizen of Connecticut, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, alleging that the plaintiff sold and delivered to the defendant, at his special instance and request, one hundred bales of cotton, of the value and for the agreed price of $5,122.90; and that the defendant agreed to pay that sum in cash on the delivery of the cotton, and had not paid the same or any part thereof, except that he had paid the sum of $22.90 on account, and was now justly indebted to the plaintiff therefor in the sum of $5,100; and demanding judgment for this sum with interest and costs.
The defendant in his answer admitted the citizenship of the parties, the purchase and delivery of the cotton, and the agreement to pay therefor, as alleged; and averred that, after the delivery of the cotton, he offered and tendered to the plaintiff, in full payment, $22.50 in gold coin of the United States, forty cents in silver coin of the United States, and two United States notes, one of the denomination of $5,000, and the other of the denomination of $100, of the description known as United States legal tender notes, purporting by recital thereon to be legal tender, at tbeir respective face values, for all debts, public and private,, except duties On imports and interest on the public debt, arid which, after having been presented for payment, .and redeemed and paid in gold coin, since January 1st, 1879, at the United States sub-treasury in New York, had been reissued and kept in circulation under and in pursuance of the act of Congress of May 31st, 1878, ch. 146; that at the time of offering and tendering these notes and coin to the plaintiff, the sum of $5,122.90 was the entire amount due and owing in payment for the cotton, but the plaintiff'decliiled to receive the notes in payment of $5,100 thereof; and that the defendant had ever since remained, and still was, ready and willing to pay to the .plaintiff the sum of $5jl00 in these notes, and brought these notes into' court,- ready to be paid to the plaintiff, if he would accept them.
1 • The plaintiff demurred to the answer, upon the grounds that the-defence, consisting of new matter, was insufficient in law upon its face, and that the facts stated in the answer did not constitute any, defence to the cause of action alleged.
The Circuit Court overruled the.demurrer and gave judgment for the defendant, and the plaintiff sued out this writ of error.
Mr. George F. Bdm- zeds and Mr. William Allen Butler for plaintiff in error.
The question presented by the assignment of errors are: 1st. Tliat. the act of May 31st, 1878, entitled “an act to prevent the further retirement of United States legal tender notes,” cannot be construed as giving to the United States notes required by the act to be issued, paid out, and kept in circulation, the incident or quality of legal tender; and 2d, That if said act must be so construed, then it is, to that extent, unconstitutional and void.
T. — The questions above stated, involving the construction and validity of the act of May 31st, 1878, are open questions in this court not controlled by the decision in the legal tender cases, which related solely to the legal tender clauses of the acts of 1862 and 1863, and upheld them solely in view of the public exigency in reference to which they were enacted. The legal tender clauses of the acts of February-25th, 1862, July 11th, 1862, and March 3d, 1863, applied only to the United States notes authorized-by those acts to be issued by the Secretary of the Treasury as therein provided, and to be reissued by him from time to time as the exigencies of the public service might require. These clauses were enacted by Congress, were approved- by the Executive, and were upheld by this court in the Legal Tender cases, 12 Wall. 457, as war measures, exceptional in their character, not authorized by .any. .express grant of power to Congress contained in the Constitution, but as* not prohibited by its terms, and as justified in view of the great public exigencies which required their adoption. When the act of 1862, which first made treasury notes a legal tender, was under consideration, the committee of the House in charge of the bill consulted the Secretary of the Treasury, who replied: .
“ It is not unknown to them that I have felt, nor do' I wish to conceal that I now feel, great aversion to making anything but ■coin a legal tender in payment of debts. It has been my anxious .wish to avoid the necessity of such legislation. - It is, however, at present, impossible, in consequence of the large expenditures entailed by the war, and the suspension of the banks, to procure sufficient coin for disbursements ; and it has, therefore, become indispensably necessary that we should resort to the issue of United States notes. . . . The committee, doubtless, feel • the necessity of accompanying this measure by‘legislation .necessary to secure the highest credit as well as the largest currency of these notes. This security can be found, in my judgment, by proper provisions for funding them in interest-bearing bonds by well-guarded legislation authorizing banking associations with circulation based on the bonds in which the notes are funded ; and by a judicious system of adequate taxation.”
The- proposed legal tender clauses of the bill, provoked protracted and earnest debate in. the House of Representatives^ They were vigorously opposed, on the ground of unconstitutionality as ’ well as impolicy, by leading representatives of both political parties.. The provision for making the notes á legal tender was pressed, by all its advocates as. a war measure of imperative necessity; as a means of national self-preservation, justified and required by tbe end to be attained. Tte bill finally passed the House under pressure of impending ruin to the credit of the government, by a vote of 93 to 59. It then passed the Senate, with amendments, after a motion to strike out the legal tender clause had failed, by a vote of 17 to 22, and, as the result of conference, was again passed by the House of Representatives, February 25th, 1862, and on the same day was approved by President Lincoln.
After noticing the acts of 1863 and 1864, counsel next referred to the legislation of 1865 and 1866, as showing no authority to issue new legal tender notes, and as indicating a purpose of gradually retiring those outstanding, and to the legislation of 1868 as showing an intent to stop the reduction and to permit reissues in place of mutilated notes. They cited Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71; Bronson v. Rodes, 7 Wall. 229 ; Butler v. Horwitz, 7 Wall. 258; Thompson v. Riggs, 5 Wall. 663 ; Willard v. Tayloe, 8 Wall. 557, and Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall, 533; in which the court held that the tax on State bank circulation was constitutional. Shortly after this Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wall. 603, was decided. The discussion of the questions involved in that case embraced the whole subject of the power'of Congress under the Constitution to pass the Legal Tender Acts. The court as constituted at the time of the argument and of the announcement of the decision, under the operation of the act of July 23, 1866, was composed of a chief justice and six associate justices. The opinion of the court, delivered by Chief Justice Chase, Associate Justices Nelson, Clifford, and Field concurring, affd also Mr. Justice Grier, ■who was a member of the court when the cause Avas decided in' conference (November 27th, 1869), and when the opinion was directed to be read (January 29th, 1870), Atas adverse to the constitutionality of the legal tender clauses'8 Wall. 604. Associate-Justices Miller, SAvayne and Davis dissented.
After the announcement of this decision a motion was made to this court by the Attorney-General to reconsider the question of the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Acts. The constitution of the court had, in the interval between the decision of Hepburn v. Griswold and the application for a reargumfent, been changed by the act of April 10th, 1869,16 Stat. 44, increasing the number of associate judges to nine, which took effect on the first Monday of December, 1869, and a-motion for a reconsideration of the question was made before the court as thus reconstituted. Subsequently a majority of the court (four judges dissenting) made an order that counsel for the parties denying the validity of the legal tender clauses, and the Attorney-General, be heard upon the following questions: D Is the Act of Congress, known as the Legal Tender Act, constitutional as to contracts made before its passage ? 2. Is it valid as applicable to transactions since its passage % On April 18th, 1871, argument was accordingly again heard upon the above-stated questions, not in the' case of Hepburn iT. Griswold, but in two cases pending in the court involving the question of the power of Congress to make Treasury notes a legal tender between private persons in the discharge of pre-existing debts, one of which involved the question of the application of the legal tender clause in respect to contracts made after its passage. On May 1st, 1871, the decision of the court was announced, adjudging both of the above questions in the affirmative, 11 Wall. 682; 12 Wall. 528; thereby overruling the case of Hepburn v. Griswold, and sustaining the constitutionality and validity of the legal tender clauses of the acts of 1862 and 1863, both as to contracts made before and after their passage. The action of Congress in .the passage of the first Legal Tender Act was, as already exhibited, placed distinctly upon the ground of the existing imperative needs of the government, and the legal' tender clause was urged and adopted as a war measure. The action of the Executive'department rested on the same ground. Its uniformly declared policy, as already shown, Avhenever the question arose requiring Executive action, was to treat the legal tender quality of the Treasury notes as a temporary expedient, neeéssary as a means of averting national destruction, but otherwise unjustifiable. The’Judicial department went no further in the decision last above cited. Of the ten eminent members of this court, before whom the question was argued, five deny the existence in Congress of any constitutional power to give to Treasury notes a legal tender quality for the payment of .debts, and five aslert and sanction the power as. exercised in 1862 and 1863 by the passage of the so-called Legal Tender Acts in those years of the Avar.
In the retrospect and review of this sharp conflict of judicial opinion, in which the voices of the members of this court are equal, it is noteworthy that the learned judges,and jurists who condemned, the acts of 1862 and 1863, did so upon grounds which wholly prohibited Congress from ever exercising the power exerted by those avowedly war measures.
' In a large majority of the States represented in the Thirty-seventh Congress (1861-1863) the question of the Constitutionality of the legal tender clauses of the acts of 1862 and 1866 had arisen in various cases of private contract, and had been passed upon in many instances after much deliberation and research, by the judges of the courts of last resort. These courts, by yotes of the majority.of the members composing them, and in some instances with the concurrence of all the judges, had declined to introduce into the transactions of the péople and the affairs of the country any-such embarrassment as might result from decisions of State courts, that a currency, created in view of a great national emergency, and which for •several years had practically constituted the money of the country, was unauthorized and invalid. In only two States, New Jersey and Kentucky, were final decisions rendered adverse to the validity of the legal tender provisions of the acts. See 20 N. J. Eq. 421; 2 Duvall, Ky. 26.
II. — The course of Congressional legislation, since the decision of the Legal Tender Cases, culminating in the act of May 31st, 1878,20 Stat. 87, which compels a post-redemption issue of the so-called “ Legal Tender notes;” raises for the first time the question of the power of Congress to direct the issue of United States notes as currency, with the quality of legal tender, in time of peace, and in the absence of any public exigency: The following is the text of the act:
“An act to forbid the further retirement of United States legal tender notes.
“ JBe it enact ad'by the Senate and Souse of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury, or other officer under him, to cancel or retire any more of the United States legal tender notes, and when any of said notes may be redeemed or be received into the treasury, under any iaw, from any source whatever, and shall belong to the United States, they shall not be retired, canceled or destroyed ; but they shall be reissued and paid out again, and kept in circulation ; Provided, That nothing heiein shall pro-' Mbit the cancellation and destruction of mutilated notes and the issue of other notes of like denomination in their stead, as now provided by law.
“ All acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith are hereby repealed.” ' - •
Approved May 31st, 1882.
On January 1st, 1879, the resumption of specie' payments began, and all the United States notes then and since presented for redemption in coin, in the manner provided by the resumption act, have been paid. Under the construction given by the Treasury Department to section 3579 of the Revised Statutes coupled with the act of May 31st, 1878, all the United States notes returned into the Treasury as worn and mutilated notes, as well as those redeemed in coin, are treated in the report of the Treasurer of the United States as “redeemed,” and during each year since the passage of the Act of May 31st, 1878, there have been issued and paid out by the Treasury Department, the precise amount in United States notes which have been so “ redeemed,” but not in notes of the same denominations. This course can only be justified by holding that Congress has the power to direct the reissue of redeemed treasury notes, and to continue their legal tender quality at its own will'-and pleasure.
III. — The act of May 31st, 1878, taken in • connection with the uhrepealed provisions of the Resumption Act requiring the redemption in coin on and after January 1st, 1879, of all the United States legal tender notes then outstanding, can be upheld as a constitutional exercise of power only by construing it to require a new issue of such notes, after redemption, as a circulating medium, without the quality of legal tender. The Resumption Act, passed January 14th, 1875, required all the United States legal tender notes outstanding January 1st, 1879, to be redeemed in coin on presentation on and after that date. It' repealed all “ provisions of law inconsistent ” with its own provisions. The only “provisions of laws” relating to the United States legal .tender notes which were in force January 14th, 1875, were sections 3571, 3579, 3582 and 3588 of the Revised Statutes. All previous laws had been repealed. The Revised Statutes contain and express the whole statute law of the United States as it was on December 31st, 1873. United States v. Bowen, 100 U. S. 508; Arthur v. Dodge, 101 Id. 34; Victor v. Arthur, 104 Id. 428. The provisions of the Resumption Act applied to the same United States legal tender notes to which the above cited sections of the Revised Statutes applied. It directed the same notes to be redeemed in coin, and contained no saving clause as to any future use of . the notes after redemption. The redemption of the government paper in coin' meant the retirement and extinguishment of so much of the debt as it represented The act of 1878 is the sole authority for the use by the Treasury of this redeemed debt. There is no provision in that act that the notes shall when again issued be a legal tender for any purpose. Yiewed as evidences of debt they constituted a part of the debt of the United States for payment of which in money Congress had made provision by the Resumption Act. Yiewed as currency, aside from the quality of legal tender they Avere none the less evidences of debt, with this additional function imposed upon them, and .continued subject to the provisions of that act. The repeal by the Resumption Act of all the statutes which created or continued the legal tender element of the' treasury note currency (including section 3579 of the Revised Statutes), was as absolute as the’ provision for the redemption of that currency, and the fact of redemption, in respect to every note redeemed, executed the law, and Avorked pro tanto a. discharge of the debt with all its incidents. The act of 1878 did not attempt to continue the existing debt because it contemplated the redemption of the notes given for the debt. It described them according to their well-known and statutory designation as “legal tender notes,” and it directed their use after redemption as obligations of the government and as a circulating medium, but without any reenactment of the legal tender provisions which applied to the notes before their redemption. The general repealing clause of the act, “ All acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith are repealed,” does not revive the legal-tender clause, because (1) there is no conflict between an act authorizing treasury notes to be used as a circulating medium, and another act prohibiting their use as a legal tender, and (2) the act itself, by applying its provisions to “ redeemed ” notes, must be deemed to be consistent with and not in conflict with the Resumption Act.
It must, therefore, be concluded that Congress did not intend by the Act of May 31st, 1878, to give to the new issue of the paid-off United States notes which it required the legal tender element. The act may be well construed as authorizing a circulation of United States notes, Avithout the quality of legal tender, because this quality is not essential or necessary to the notes as a circulating medium. The power to issue notes in the form of the present “ greenback ” is unquestioned. Like bank notes, they are “ bills of credit.” While the Federal Convention struck out from the clause in the draft of the Constitution as reported, giving Congress the power “ to borroAV money and emit Mils on the credit of the United States,” the power to emit bills, the debate clearly sIioavs that the thing aimed at Avas not the issuing of bills, but their issue as a legal tender. Madison Papers, vol. 3, p. 1343-1346, and note to p. 1346.
IV. — If the act of May 31st, 1878, Avas intended to direct the keeping in circulation of the United States notes therein described, with the legal tender quality, it was to that extent unconstitutional and void, and should be so declared by this court. Accepting as final the results of the previous discussion, Ave confine ourselves to maintaining that the Constitution vests no power in Congress, either by express grant, or as the. result of any one or all the powers Avhich it confers, to create at will, and in the absence of any national exigency, a legal tender paper currency, to exist for an indefinite period, and to be an enforced substitute for coin in the payment of public and private debts; The existence of a public exigency is the sole basis on which the power of Congress to pass legal tender laws has been maintained. The Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457. The question of the constitutionality of an act of Congress, as well as the question of its construction, must be considered in the light of the history of the time when it was enacted. . And whenever the' power sought to be exercised depends, or must be predicated, upon a given state of facts, the existence of the power is a judicial question 'to be' determined upon the facts. -The growth of t the assumption of admiralty jurisdiction by the United1 States is a striking instance of this.. Waring v. Clarke, 5 How. 441. Taney, C. J., in the Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 12 How. 443-456 ; The Belfast, 7 Wall. 624; The Magnolia, 20 How. 296; Insurance Company v. Dunham, 11 Wall. 1; The Lottawanna, 20 Wall. 201. The same doctrine is maintained in the Slaughter-house Cases, 16 Wall. 36. Without multiplying citations, a general reference may suffice to the numerous cases in which the constitutionality of acts of. Congress. passed during the civil w;ar,.and the validity of proceedings taken under them, have been considered and decided by this court in view of the- facts on -which they were based. Miller v. United States, 11 Wall. 268; Tyler v. Defrees, Id. 331. Civil Rights Cases—Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303; West Virginia v. Rives, Id. 313. Ex parte Virginia, Id. 339; Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370.
The exercise of jurisdiction by a court or a' legislature assumes the existence -of the jurisdiction in the tribunal or body exercising it. When the jurisdiction actually exists, its exercise cannot be attacked collaterally; but where it is dependent on a given state of facts, and these do not exist, the judgment or the statute is absolutely void, and- may be assailed collaterally.
In the absence of public exigency,, legal tender legislation is not a means appropriate to any legitimate end of government. While, .as to all express and enumerated’‘powers vested in Congress by the- Constitution, it has been often held that it is" the province of Congress to judge as to the extent to which they are to be exercised, Wheeling-Bridge Case, 18 How. 421; The Clinton Bridge, 10 Wall. 454; South Carolina v. Georgia, 93 U. S. 4, at page 12; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, the rule is otherwise where the power is not given by express terms, but is claimed to be implied as a necessary or proper. means to some legitimate end within the scope .of the Constitution. The question whether' the end is legitimate and within the purview of the Constitution, and whether the means are appropriate and not prohibited by but consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, is a judicial question, to be determined by this court, and has been so determined whenever occasion required, from the case of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, to the present day. This is necessarily involved in the often quoted and universally accepted dictum of Chief-Justice Marshall, in McCulloch v. State of Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, p. 421.
“ Let tbe end be legitimate — let' it be within the scope of the Constitution — and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted, to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional.”
On the basis of the proposition thus formulated this court, in the case last cited, involving the question of the power of Con-' gress to incorporate a bank, proceeded to inquire and to decide, in -the particular case before it, whether in fact a bank was an appropriate means adapted to a legitimate end of the government, and hot prohibited by the Constitution.
In the present case the question turns chiefly upon the same point. If the creation in any way, and by any means, of a permanent legal tender paper currency as a practical substitute for coin, is a legitimate end of our constitutional government in its ordinary administration, irrespective of any existing-and pressing exigency, then the action of Congress in directing the printing and issuing of treasury notes and in providing by general terms that th¿y shall be lawful money, and a legal tender in payment of debts, public and private, and that they shall never be - retired or cancelled, but as fastas they return into the Treasury shall be again paid out and kept in circulation, are appropriate means to such an end, and it needs only for Congress to remove the existing limit of the issue and increase the amount in order to flood the country with a volume of paper, utterly destructive of any other debt-paying medium.
But if, on the contrary, such ivas not the intent of the Constitution, and the power to make bills of credit a legal tender is only to be implied in the presence of some existing and apparent necessity, then the fact of the existence of such necessity as the basis of the existence of the power is a question for judicial determination. Congress being clothed only with delegated powers, and the power in question not being expressly delegated, but derived from the general scope of those expressly delegated, and to be used as a means to an end, the inquiry whether the end sought to be attained is a legitimate one, must properly be pursued in the judicial department of the government. Otherwise the assertion and exercise by Congress of any implied power, irrespective of facts or circumstances, would destroy all limitations, and give to the implied powers a greater force than the express powers themselves.
- It is not necessary to claim that the power upheld in reference to the acts of 1862 and 1863 is exclusively a war power. .The definition woifld probably be sufficiently accurate, although not necessarily complete. It is safe, however, to call it, as sanctioned by this court, an extraordinary power. And it is safe to say that it can be attributed to Congress only when shown to be a means appropriate to a legitimate end. of the government. As such a means adapted to secure the most important ends, including the preservation of the imperilled union of the States, this court upheld it, in view of the extraordinary circumstances under which it was exerted. However derived, or however defined, the power itself was exhausted when the occasion which evoked it ceased. The forced loans of 1862 and 1863, in the form of legal tender notes, wer- vital forces in the struggle for the national supremacy. They formed a part of the public debt of the United States, the validity of which is solemnly established by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Their legal ten der quality and their character of* currency were due solely to the war. To the war was due not only the exercise of the power to give this quality and character, but the power itself.
The Resumption Act directed the forced loans authorized by the acts of 1862 and 1863, and continued by the Revised Statutes of 1874, to be redeemed and paid oh demand on and after January 1st, 1879.
The Resumption Act also fixed the limit of time beyond which the currency which evidenced the loans should, not be irredeemable. After January 1st, 1879, it was redeemable in coin, and this quality of redeemability thenceforth inhered in every United States note described in the Resumption Act. It was not taken away by the act of May 31st, 1878, and could not be taken away, because the promise to pay the sum expressed in the treasury notes had been made by the Resumption Act a promise to pay in coin. Nothing short of a repeal of the Resumption Act, and a repudiation of the obligation which it created, could change the character of the promise. After the Resumption Act was approved, every note outstanding was as much a promise to pay in coin, on demand, on and after January 1st, 1879, the sum specified, as if those words had been printed on its face.
■ It has never been possible to divorce the question of the con.stitutional power'to coin the public credit into money, and make it an instrument of discharging debts, from the history of legal tender paper money and its consequences. Nor is it possible now.
Facts have nowhere shown themselves to be more stubborn than in this discussion. The strange anomaly is presented, that while the mischiefs of the existing legal tender currency are established beyond contradiction by the voice of history, the teachings of experience, the recorded testimony of its authors, and the repeated decisions of the court, we now find it domesticated among us as an integral part of our national economy, under legislation rvhich, unless arrested by this court, will warrant its perpetual continuance as a part of the ordinary administration of the government.
It is matter of undisputed fact that, as • to the legal tender- quality, no public exigency required or -justified the passage of the act of May 121st, 1878.
It is equally plain that, as to the legal tender quality, in the absence of a public exigency, no aid is derived to the act of May 31st, 1878, from any of the powers granted by the Constitution to Congress.
It cannot be claimed, as to the legal tender quality, that the prohibition to retire- the United States notes when redeemed, and the direction to issue them- after redemption, irrespective of any need of the government, was a legitimate exercise of the power “ to borrow money.” The use of the legal tender element was wholly unnecessary as a means of borrowing, and, in fact, the whole public debt was provided for by the funding measures, and the Resumption Act had explicitly directed that portion of it which was represented by the legal tender notes to -be redeemed in coin. The legal tender quality was, therefore, not required as an incident or aid of the borrowing power. The credit of the government was a sufficient guaranty for the debt.
Nor can the issue of currency attempted by the act be brought -within the power “ to coin money and regulate the value thereof.” Whatever may have been claimed under this provision as to the original issue, it can have no application here. The promise of the outstanding unredeemed legal tender notes on May 31st, 1878, as enlarged by the Resumption Act, had become a promise to pay on demand, in coin, the sum specified by the notes respectively, and this obligation was not interfered with by the act in question.
The act of May 31st, 1878, is, of course, unsupported by any of the pówers given to Congress to “ declare war,” or to “ raise and support armies ” and “ a navy,” nor can public emergency of any kind be pleaded as an excuse for its enactment. The plea of the Secretary of the Treasury that the continuance of-the legal tender would be a safeguard against future emergencies, was an admission that no present emergency existed which required its continuance or creation.
The claim for the exercise of the povrer attempted by the act of May 31st, 1878, on the ground that it was intended to supply a currency for the people, simply revives the question whether making the “legal tender” and “lawful money” qualities an attribute of such a currency is within the scope of the powers of Congress. If we are right in claiming that these qualities are wholly independent of the proper elements of .United States notes, when issued under ordinary - conditions, then the power to issue such notes does not imply or carry with it the power to connect these qualities with the notes, save in the exigency which creates the power.
The government of the United States has no power of inherent sovereignty, but only such sovereign powers as were delegated to it by a written Constitution, which carefully and expressly declared that all powers not delegated by that instrument were reserved to the States and people. So that it would MIoav that' the power to create a legal paper currency, if it exist at all, must exist by force oh a delegation, and not by force of inherent sovereignty. On this principle it was that the Supreme Court held the old war legal tenders to be valid, as a measure incidental to the delegated war powers. The ■ absence, therefore, of an express prohibition against Congress making anything but gold and silver a legal tender, as was made in respect of the States, furnishes no evidence that such a power was intended to be left with Congress. For the States without the prohibition would have had the inherent sovereign power that belonged to perfect political autonomies. This idea is illustrated by the analogous provision that no State shall pass any ■ law impairing the obligation of a contract, and by the historic fact that it has always been held and admitted that Congress has no power to pass any law impairing the obligation of a contract otherwise than in the exertion of some power expressly conferred, the effect of which would be to accomplish that result; as the power to pass uniform bankruptcy laws, one of the incidents of which would be to impair the obligation of a contract.
Mr. Benjamin F. Butler, Mr. Thomas H. Talbot, and Mr. James McKeen for defendant in error.

Opinion:
Me. Justice Geay
delivered the opinion of the court.
The amount which the plaintiff seeks to recover, and which,, if the tender pleaded is insufficient in law, he is entitled to recover, is $5,100. There can, therefore, be no doubt of the jurisdiction of this court to revise the judgment of the Circuit Court. Act of February 16th, 1875, ch. 77, § 3; 18 Stat. 315.
The notes of the United States, tendered in payment of the defendant's debt to the plaintiff, were originally issued under the acts of. Congress of February 25th, 1862, ch. 33, July 11th, 1862, ch.' 142; and March 3d, 1863, ch. 73, passed during the war of the rebellion, and enacting that these notes should " be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States," except for duties on imports and interest on the public debt. 12 Stat. 345, 532, 709.
The provisions of the earlier acts, of Congress, so far as it is necessary, for the understanding-of the recent statutes, to quote them, are re-enacted in the following provisions of the Revised Statutes:
"Sect. 3579. When any United States notes are returned to the Treasury, they may be reissued, from time to time, as the exigencies of the public interest may require.
"Sect. 3580. When any United States notes returned to the Treasury are so-mutilated or otherwise injured as to be unfit for use, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to replace the same with others of the same character and amounts.
" Sect. '3581. Mutilated United States notes, when replaced according to law, and all other notes which by law are required to be taken up and not reissued, when taken up shall be destroyed in such manner and under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe.
."Sect. 3582. The' authority given to the Secretary of the Treasury to make any reduction of the currency, by retiring and cancelling United States notes, is suspended."
' "Sect. 3588. United States notes shall be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States, except for duties on imports and interest on .the public debt."
The act of January 14th, 1875, ch. 15, " to provide for the re sumption, of specie payments," enacted: that on and after January 1st, 1879, " the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem in coin the United States legal tender notes then outstanding, on their presentation for redemption at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of the United States in the City of New York, in sums of not less than fifty-dollars," and authorized him to use for that purpose any surplus revenues in the Treasury and the proceeds of the sales of certain bonds of the United States. 18 Stat. 296.
The act of May 31st, 1878, ch. 146, under which the notes in question were reissued, is entitled " An act to forbid the further retirement of United States legal tender notes," and enacts as follows:
" From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury or other officer under him to cancel or retire any more of the United States legal tender notes. And when any of said notes may be redeemed or be received into the Treasury under any law from any source whatever and shall belong to the United States, they shall not be retired, cancelled or destroyed, but they shall be reissued and paid out again and kept in circulation : Provided,' That nothing herein shall prohibit the cancellation and destruction of mutilated notes and the issue of other notes of like denomination in their stead, as now provided by law. All acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith are hereby repealed." 20 Stat. 87.
The manifest intention of this act is that the notes which it directs, after having been redeemed, to be reissued and kept in circulation, shall retain their original' quality of being a legal tender.
The single question, therefore, to be considered, and upon the answer to which the judgment to be rendered between these parties depends, is whether notes of the United States, issued in time of war, under acts of Congress declaring them to be a legal tender in payment of private debts, and afterwards in time of peace redeemed and paid in gold coin at the TreaSr ury, and then reissued under the act of 1878, can, under the Constitution of the United States,.be a legal tender in payment of such debts.
Upon full consideration of the case, the court is unanimously of opinion that it cannot be distinguished in principle from the. cases heretofore determined, reported under the names of the Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457; Dooley v. Smith, 13 Wall. 604; Railroad Company v. Johnson, 15 Wall. 195; and Maryland v. Railroad Company, 22 Wall. 105 ; and all the judges, except Mr. Justice Field, who adheres to the views expressed in his dissenting opinions in those cases, are of opinion that they were rightly decided.
The elaborate printed briefs submitted by counsel in this case, and the opinions delivered in the Legal Tender Cases, and in the earlier case of Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wall. 603, which those cases overruled, forcibly present the arguments on either side of the question of the power of Congress to make the notes of the United States a legal tender in payment of private debts. Without undertaking to deal with all those arguments, the court has thought it fit that the grounds of its judgment in the case at bar should be fully stated.
No question of the scope and extent of the- implied powers of Congress under the Constitution, can be satisfactorily discussed without repeating much of the reasoning of Chief Justice Marshall in the great judgment in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, by which the power of Congress to incorporate a bank was demonstrated and affirmed, notwithstanding the Constitution does not enumerate, among the powers granted, that of establishing a bank or creating a corporation.
-The people of the United States by the Constitution established a national government, with sovereign powers, legislative, executive and judicial. " The.government of the Union," said Chief Justice Marshall, " though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action;" "and its laws, when made in pursuance of the Constitution, form the supreme law of the land." "Among the enumerated powers of government, we find the great powers to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to.regulate commerce; to declare and conduct a war; and'to raise and support armies and navies. The sword and the purse, all-, the external relations,, and no inconsiderable portion of the industry of the nation, are entrusted to its, government." 4 Wheat. 405, 406, 407.
A constitution, establishing a frame of government, declaring fundamental principles, and creating a national sovereignty, and intended to endure for ages and to be adapted to the .various crises of human affairs, is not to be interpreted with the strict: ness of a private contract. The Constitution of the United States, by apt w;ords of designation or general description, marks the outlines of the powers granted to the national-legislature; but it does not undertake, with the precision and detail of a code of laws, to enumerate the -subdivisions of those powers, or to specify all the means by which they may be carried into execution. Chief Justice Marshall, after dwelling upon this view, as required by the very nature of the Constitution, • by the language in which 'it is framed, by the limitations upon the general powers of Congress introduced in the ninth section of the first article, and by the omission to use any restrictive term which might prevent its receiving a fair and just interpretation, added these emphatic words: " In considering this question, then, we must never forget that it is a cmstituiion we are expounding." 4 Wheat; 107. See also page 415.
The breadth and comprehensiveness of the words of the Constitution are nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in regard to the powers over the subjects of revenue, finance, and currency, of which there is no other express grant than may be found in these few brief clauses
" The Congress shall have power
"To lay and.collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States but all duties, imposts and excises' shall be uniform throughout the United States ; . . '
" To borrow money on the credit of the United States ;
" To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes ; "
" To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures."
The section which contains the grant of these and other-principal legislative powers concludes by declaring that the Congress shall have power
" To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."
By the settled construction and the only reasonable interpretation of this clause, the words "necessary and proper" are not limited to such measures as are absolutely and indispensably necessary, without which the powers granted must fail of execution ; but they include all appropriate means which are conducive or adapted to the end to be accomplished, and which in the judgment of Congress will most advantageously effect it.
That clause of the Constitution which declares that "the Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States," either embodies a grant of power to pay the debts of the United States, or presupposes and assumes that power as inherent in the United States as a sovereign government. But, in which ever aspect it be considered, neither this nor any other clause of the Constitution makes any mention of priority or preference of the United States as a creditor over other creditors of an individual debtor. Yet this court, in the early case of United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358, held that, under the power to pay the debts of the United States, Congress had the power to enact that debts due to the United States should have that priority of payment out of the estate of an insolvent debtor, which the law of England gave to debts due .the Crown.
In delivering judgment in that case, Chief Justice Marshall expounded the clause giving Congress power to make all necessary and proper laws, as follows: " In construing this clause, it would be incorrect, and would produce endless difficulties, if the opinion should be maintained that no law was authorized which, was not indispensably necessary to give effect to a specified power. Where various systems might be adopted for that purpose, it might be said with respect to each, that it was not nécessary, because the end might be obtained by other means. Congress must p'ossess the choice of means, and must be empowered to use any means which are in fact conducive to the exercise of a power granted by the Constitution. The government is to pay the debt of the Union, and must be authorized to use the means which appear to itself the most eligiblé to effect that object." 2 Cranch, 396.
In McCulloch v. Maryland, he more fully developed the same view, concluding thus: "We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the government are limited, and that its limits are 'not to be transcended. But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must allow to the national legislature that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional." 4 Wheat. 421.
The rule of interpretation thus laid down has been constantly adhered to and acted on by this court, and was accepted- as expressing the true test by all the judges who took part in the former discussions of the power of Congress to make the treasury notes of the United States a legal tender in payment of private debts.
The other judgments delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, contain nothing adverse to the power of Congress to issue legal-tender notes.
By the Articles of Confederation of 1 WI, the United States in Congress assembled' were authorized " to borrow money or emit bills on the credit of the United States; " but it was declared that "each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the' United States in Congress assembled." Art. 2; art. 9, § 5; 1 Stat. 4, 7; Yet, upon the question whether, under those articles, Congress, by virtue of the power to emit bills on the credit of the United States, had the power to make bills so emitted a legal tender, Chief Justice Marshall spoke very guardedly, saying : " Congress emitted bills of credit to a large amount, and did not, perhaps could not, make them a legal tender. This power resided in the States " Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet. 410, 435. But in the Constitution, as he had before observed in McCulloch v. Maryland, "there is no phrase which, like the Articles of Confederation, excludes incidental or implied powers ; and which requires that everything granted shall be expressly and minutely described. Even the Tenth Amendment, which was framed for the purpose of quieting the excessive jealousies which had béen excited, omits the word ' expressly,' and declares only that the powers ' not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people; ' thus leaving the question, whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest has been delegated to the one government or prohibited to the other, to depend on a fair construction of the whole instrument. The men who drew, and adopted this amendment had experienced the embarrassments resulting from the insertion of this word in the Articles of Confederation, and probably omitted it to avoid those embarrassments." 4 Wheat. 406, 407.
The sentence soñietimes quoted from his opinion in' Sturges v. Crowninshield had exclusive relation to the restrictions imposed by the Constitution on the powers of the States, and especial reference to' the effect of- the clause- prohibiting the States from passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts, as will clearly appear by quoting the whole paragraph: " Was this general prohibition intended to prevent paper money ? We are not allowed to say so, because it is expressly provided that no State shall ' emit bills of credit; ' neither could these words be intended to restrain the States from enabling debtors to discharge their debts by the tender of property of no real value to the creditor, because for that subject also particular pro vision is made. Nothing but gold and silver coin can be made a tender in payment of debts." 4 Wheat. 122, 204.
Such reports as have come down to us of the debates in the Convention that framed the Constitution afford no proof of any general concurrence of opinion upon the subject before us. The adoption of the motion to strike out the words u and emit bills " from the clause' " to borrow money and emit bills on the credit of the United States" is quite inconclusive. The philippic delivered before the Assembly of Maryland by Mr. Martin, one of the delegates from that State, who voted against the motion, and who declined to sign the Constitution, can hardly be accepted as satisfactory evidence of the reasons or the motives of the majority of the Convention. See 1 Elliot's Debates, 345, 370,376. Some of the members of the Convention, indeed, as appears by Mr. Madison's minutes of the debates, expressed-the strongest opposition to paper money. And Mr. Madison has disclosed the grounds of his own action, by recording that " this vote in the affirmative by Virginia was occasioned by the acquiescence of Mr. Madison, who became, satisfied that striking out the words would not disable the government from the use of public notes, so far as they could be safe and proper; and would- only cut off the pretext for a paper currency, and particularly for making the bills a tender, either for public or private debts." But he has not explained why he thought that striking out the words " and emit bills " would leave the power to emit bills, and deny the power to make them a tender in payment of debts. And it cannot be known how many of the other delegates, by whose vote the motion was adopted, intended neither to proclaim nor to deny the power to emit paper money, and were influenced by the argument of Mr. Gorham, who " was for striking out, without inserting any prohibition," and who said: " If the words stand, they may suggest and lead to the emission." " The power, so far as it will be necessary or safe, will be involved in that of borrowing." 5 Elhot's Debates, 434, 435, and note. And after the first clause of the tenth section of the first article had been reported in the form in which it now stands, forbidding the States to make anything but gold or silver coin a tender in payment of debts, or to pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, when Mr. Gerry, as reported by Mr. Madison, " entered into observations inculcating the importance of public faith, and the propriety of the restraint put on the States from impairing the obligation of contracts, alleging that Congress ought to be laid under the like prohibitions, " and made a motion to that effect, he was not seconded. Ib. 546. As an illustration of the danger .of giving too much weight, upon such a question, to the debates and the votes in the- Convention, it may also be observed that propositions to authorize. Congress to grant charters of incorporation for national objects were strongly opposed, especially as regarded banks, • and defeated. Ib. 440, 543, 544. The power of Congress to emit bills of credit, as well as to incorporate national banks, is now clearly established by decisions to which we shall presently refer.
The words "to borrow money," as used in the Constitution,to designate a power vestéd in the national government, for the safety and welfare of the whole people, are not to re'ceive that limited .and restricted interpretation and meaning which they would have in a penal statute, or in an authority conferred, by law or' by contract, upon trustees or agents for private purposes.
The power " to borrow money on the credit of the United States " is the power to raise money for the public use on a pledge of the public credit, and may be exercised to meet either present or anticipated expenses and liabilities of'the government. It includes the power to issue, in return for the money borrowed, the obligations of the United- States in any appropriate form, of stock, bonds, bills or notes; and in whatever form they are issued, being instruments of the national government, they are exempt from taxation by the governments of the several States. Weston v. Charleston City Council, 2 Pet. 449 ; Banks v. Mayor, 7 Wall. 16; Bank v. Supervisors, 7 Wall. 16. Congress has authority to issue these obligations in a form adapted to circulation from hand to hand in the ordinary transactions of commerce and business. In order to promote and facilitate such circulation, to adapt them to use as currency, and to make them more current in the market, it may provide for their redemption in coin or bonds, and may make them receivable in payment of debts to the government. So much is settled beyond doubt, and was asserted or distinctly admitted by the judges who dissented from the decision in the Legal -Tender Oases, as well as by those who concurred, in that decision. Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 548 ; Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wall. 616, 636 ; Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 543, 544, 560, 582, 610, 613, 637.
It is equally well settled that Congress has the power to. incorporate national banks, with the capacity, for their own profit as well as for the use of the government in its money transactions, of issuing bills which under ordinary circumstances pass from hand to hand as money at their nominal value, and which, when so current, the law has always recognized as a good tender in payment of money debts, Unless specifically objected to a.t the time of the tender. United States Bank v. Bank of Georgia, 10 Wheat. 333, 347; Ward v. Smith, 7 Wall. 447, 451. The power..of Congress to charter a bank was maintained in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, and in Osborn v. United States Bank, 9 Wheat. 738, chiefly upon the ground that it was an appropriate means for carrying on the money transactions of the government. But Chief Justice Marshall said: " The currency which it circulates, by means of its trade with individuals, is believed to make- it a more fit instrument for the purposes of government than it could otherwise be ; and if this be true, the capacity to carry on this trade is a faculty indispensable to the character and objects of the institution." 9 Wheat. 864. And. Mr. Justice Johnson, who concurred with the rest of the court in upholding the poAver to incorporate a bank, gave the further reason that it tended to give effect to "that power over the currency of the country, which the framers of the Constitution evidently intended to give to Congress alone." Ib. 873.
The constitutional authority of Congress to provide a currency for the- whole country is now firmly established. In Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 548, Chief Justice Chase, in delivering the opinion of the court, said: "It cannot be doubted that under the Constitution the poAver to provide a circulation of coin is given to Congress. And it. is settled by the uniform practice of the government, and by repeated decisions, that Congress may constitutionally authorize' the emission of bills of credit." Congress, having undertaken to supply a national currency,, consisting of coin, of treasury notes of the United States, and of the bills of national banks, is authorized to impose on all State banks, or national banks, or private bankers, paying out the notes of individuals or of Staté banks, a tax of ten per cent, upon the amount of such notes so paid out. Veazie Bank v. Fenno, above cited; National Bank v. United States, 101 U. S. 1. The reason for this conclusion was stated by Chief Justice Chase, and repeated by the present Chief Justice, in these words: " Having thus, in the exercise of undisputed constitutional powers, undertaken to provide a Currency for the whole country, it cannot be' questioned that Congress may, constitutionally, secure the benefit of it to the people by appropriate legislation. To this end, Congress has denied the quality of' legal tender to foreign coins, and has provided by law against the imposition of counterfeit and base coin on the community. To the. same end, Congress may .restrain, by suitable enactments, the circulation as money of any notes not issued under its own authority.. Without this power, indeed, its attempts to secure a sound and uniform currency for the country must be futile." 8 Wall; 549 ; 101 U. S. 6.
By the Constitution of the United States,' the several States are prohibited from coining money, emitting bills of credit, or making anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. But no intention can be inferred from this to deny to Congress either of these powers. Most of the powers granted to Congress are described in the eighth section of the first article ; the limitations' intended to be set to its powers, so.as to exclude certain things which might otherwise be taken to be included in the general grant, are defined in the ninth section'; the tenth section is addressed to the States only. This section prohibits the States from doing some things which the United States are expressly prohibited from doing, as well as from doing some things which the United States are expressly authorized; to do, and from doing some things which are neither expressly granted nor expressly denied to the United States. Congress and the States equally are expressly prohibited from passing any bill of attainder or ex post facto law, or granting any title of nobility. The States are forbidden, while the President and Senate are expressly authorized, to make treaties. The States are forbidden, but Congress is, expressly authorized, to coin money. The States are prohibited from emitting bills of credit; but Congress, which is neither expressly authorized nor .expressly forbidden to do so, has, as we have already seen, been held to have the power. of emitting bills of credit, and of njaking every provision for their circulation as currency, short of giving'them the quality of legal tender for private debts — even by those who have denied its authority to give them this quality.
It appears to'us to follow, as a logical and necessary consequence, that Congress has the power to issue the obligations of the United States in such form, and to impress upon them sueh qualities as currency for the purchase of merchandise and the payment of debts, as accord with the usage of sovereign governments. The power, as incident to the power of borrowing money and issuing'bills or notes of the government for money-borrowed, of impressing upon those bills or notes the quality of being a legal tender for' the payment of private debts, was a power universally understood to belong to sovereignty, in Europe and America, at the time of the framing and adoption of the Constitution of. the-United- States. The governments of, Europe, acting through the monarch or the legislature, according to the distribution of powers under their respective constitutions, had and have as sovereign a power of issuing paper money as of stamping coin. This, power has been distinctly recognized > in an important modern case,, ably argued and fully considered, in which the Emperor of Austria, as King-of Hungary, obtained from. the. English Court of Chancery an injunction against the issue in England, without his license, of notes purporting'to be public paper money of Hungary. Austria v. Day, 2 Giff. 628, and 3 D. F. & J; 217 The power of' issuing chills-of credit, and' making them, at the discretion of the legislature, a tendér in ' payment , of private debts, had long been'exercised in this coun try by the several Colonies and States; and during the Revolutionary "War the States, upon the recommendation of the Congress of the Confederation, had made the bills issued by Congress a legal tender. . See Craig v. Missouri, 4 Pet. 435, 453; Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Pet. 257, 313, 334-336; Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 557, 558, 622; Phillips on American .Paper Currency, passim. The exercise of this power not being prohibited to Congress by the Constitution, it is included in the power expressly granted to borrow money on the credit of the United States.
This position is fortified by the fact that Congress is vested with the exclusive exercise of the analogous power of coining money and regulating the value of domestic and foreign coin, and also with the paramount power of regulating foreign and interstate commerce. Under the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, and to issue circulating notes for the money borrowed, its power to define the quality and force of those notes as currency is as broad as the like power over a metallic currency under the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof. Under the two powers, taken together, Congress is authorized to establish a national currency, either in coin or in paper, and to make that currency lawful money for all purposes, as regards the national government or private individuals.
The power of making the notes of the United States a legal tender in payment of private debts, being included in the power to borrow money and to provide a national currency, is not defeated or restricted by the fact that its exercise may affect the value of private contracts. If, upon a just and fair interpretation of the whole Constitution, a particular power or authority appears to be vested in Congress, it is no constitutional objection to its existence, or to its exercise, that the property or the contracts of individuals may be incidentally affected. The decisions of this court, already cited, afford several examples of this.
Upon the issue of stock, bonds, bills or notes of the United States, the States are deprived of their power of taxation to the extent of the property invested by individuals in' such obliga tions, and the burden of State taxation upon other private property is correspondingly increased. The ten per cent, tax, imposed by Congress on notes of State banks and of private bankers, not only lessens the value of such notes, but tends to drive them, and all State banks of issue, out of existence. The priority given to debts due to the United States over the private debts of an insolvent debtor diminishes the value of these debts, and the amount which their holders may receive out of the debtor's estate.
. So, under the power to coin money and to' regulate its yalue, Congress may (as it did with regard to gold by the act of June 28th, 1834, ch. 95, and with regard to silver by the act of February 28th, 1878, ch. 20) issue coins of the same denominations as those already current by law,- but of less intrinsic value than those, by reason of containing a less weight of the precious metals, and thereby enable debtors to discharge their debts by the payment of coins of the less real value. A. contract to pay a certain sum in money, without any stipulation as to the kind of money in which it shall be paid, may always be satisfied by. payment of that sum in any currency which is lawful money at the place and time at which payment is to be made. 1 Hale P. C. 192-194; Bac. Ab. Tender, B. 2; Pothier, Contract of Sale, No. 416 ; Pardessus, Droit Commercial, Nos. 204, 205; Searight v. Calbraith, 4 Dall. 324. As observed by Mr. Justice Strong, in delivering the opinion of the court in the Legal Tender Gases, " Every contract for the payment of money, simply, is necessarily subject to the constitutional power of the government over the currency, whatever that pow.er may be, and the obligation of the parties is, therefore, assumed with reference to that power." 12 Wall. 549.
Congress, as the legislature of a sovereign nation, being expressly-empowered by the Constitution "to lay and collect taxes, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States," arid " to borrow money on the credit, of the United States," and " to coin money and regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin; " and being clearly-authorized, as incidental to the exercise of those great powers, to emit bills of credit, to charter national banks, and to provide a national currency for the whole people, in the form of coin, treasury notes, and national bank bills ; and the power to make the notes of the- government a legal tender in payment of private debts being one of the powers belonging to sovereignty in other civilized nations, and not expressly withheld from Congress by the Constitution; we are- irresistibly impelled to the conclusion that the impressing upon the treasury notes of the United States the quality of being a legal tender in payment of private debts is an appropriate means, conducive and plainly adapted to the execution of the undoubted powers of Congress, consistent with the letter'and spirit of the Constitution, and therefore, within the meaning of that instrument, " necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by this Constitution in the- government of the United States."
Such being our conclusion in matter of law, the question whether at any particular time, in war or in peace, the exigency is such, by reason Of unusual and pressing demands on the resources of the government, or of the inadequacy of the supply of gold and silver coin to furnish the currency needed for the uses of the government .and of the people, that, it is, as matter of fact, wise and expedient to resort to this means, is a political question, to be determined by Congress when the question of exigency arises, and not a judicial • question, to he afterwards passed upon by the courts. To quote once mop from the judgment in McCulloch v. Maryland: "Where the law is not prohibited, and is really calculated to effect any óf the objects entrusted to the government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department, and to tread on legislative ground.". 4 Wheat. 423.
It follows that the act of May 31st, 1878, ch.,146, is constitutional and valid; and that the Circuit Court rightly held that the tender in treasury notes, reissued and kept in circulation under that act, was a tender of lawful money in payment of the defendant's debt to the plaintiff.
Judgment affirmed.