Case Name: Legal Tender Cases. Knox v. Lee; Parker v. Davis
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1870-12
Citations: 12 Wall. 457
Docket Number: 
Parties: Legal Tender Cases. Knox v. Lee. Parker v. Davis.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 79
Pages: 457–681

Head Matter:
Legal Tender Cases. Knox v. Lee. Parker v. Davis.
1. A purchase of the property of a loyal citizen of the United States under a confiscation and sale made pursuant to statutes of the late rebel confederacy, passed in'- aid of their rebellion, is void. Texas v. White (7 Wallace, 700), affirmed on this’point.
2. The acts of Congress known as the Legal Tender are constitutional, when applied to contracts made before their passage. Hepburn v. Griswold (8 Wallace, 003), on this point overruled.
3. They are also valid as applicable to contracts made since.
These were two suits; the first, a writ of error to the Circuit Court for the Western District of Texas, the second an appeal from a decree in equity iu the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
The case in the first one, Knox v. Lee, was thus:
Before the rebellion, Mrs. Lee, a loyal citizen of the United States, resident in Pennsylvania, owned a flock of sheep in Texas, which, on the outbreak of the rebellion, she left there in charge of their shepherd. . In March, 1863, the Confederate authorities, under certain statutes which they had passed in aid of the rebellion, confiscated and sold the sheep as the property of an “ alien enemy,” one Knox pur. chasing them at $10.87J apiece, “ Confederate money;” then worth but the third part of a like sum in coin. The rebellion being suppressed, Mrs.-Lee brought trespass below against Knox for damages (laid at $15,000) for taking and-converting the sheep. Knox pleaded in bar the confiscation and sale by the Confederate government; a plea which the court overruled. The case then coming on to be tried, it was proved that the flock consisted of 608 sheep, of which 30,40, or perhaps 50, were bucks, about 140 or 150 wethers, and about 300 ewes; the witnesses varying both as to the number of sheep and the proportion of bucks, wethers, and ewes. It was also proved that in 1860 and 1861 the flock was worth $8 per head for ewes, and about $4 per head for wethers, and about from $20 to $25 per bead for breeding bucks, in specie. The witnesses all testified that the sheep would not bring in March, 1863, the price that they would have brought in 1860 or. 1861, though ouo witness'testified that at the sale one party remarked, that if he could gel a good title to the sheep he would give $10 or $12 a head for them. "Whether he meant specie or Confederate paper was not testified to.
The ordinary money in use in the United States at the time of the sale and purchase being notes of the United States, commonly known as “greenbacks” — notes whose issue was authorized by acts of Congress, and dated February 25th, 1862, July 11th, 1862, and March 3d, 1863, and which the said acts declared should be a legal tender in the payment of all debts — the plaintiffs offered to prove what was the .difference in value between gold and silver and this United States currency known as greenbacks, for the purpose of showing that gold and silver had a greater value than greenbacks, and for the purpose of allowing the jury to estimate the difference between the two, to which evidence the defendant, at the time it was offered, objected, on the ground that the United States currency was,made a legal tender by law, and that there was .no difference in value in law between the two. The court sustained the objection, and excluded all evidence as to the difference in value between specie and legal tender notes of the Uuited States, and no evidence was allowed to go to the jury on this poiut.
After having ruled as above, the court, on its own motion, at the conclusion of its charge, said as follows:
“In assessing damages, the jury will-recollect that whatever amount they may give by their verdict.can bo discharged by the payment of such amount in legal tender notes of the United States.”
The jury found, June, 1867, for the plaintiff, $7368, and the defendant brought the case here, complaining, first, of the overruling of his plea, and second, of .the above-quoted sentence in the charge; which he alleged had led the jury improperly to increase the damages.
There had been a previous trial, when, so far as the record showed, without any instruction of the sort complaine'd of as increasing the damages, the jury found a- verdict for $7376, an amount slightly greater than that given by the second verdict.
Messrs. Paschall, <Sr. and Jr., for the plaintiff in error:
1. The plea was wrongly overruled. The Confederate government was a government de facto. It is easy now to say that it was not a government, but those who were within the scope of its action know that in point of fact it was a fearful reality. It had courts. It declared war; and long waged it. A title under its confiscations must therefore stand. Mauran v. The Insurance Company covers our case.
2. If this point is well taken, the court need not consider our objection to the last sentence of the charge. But if it is uot well taken, our objection to it remains. Our objection is this: that in view of the facts that were proved before the jury, what the judge said to the jury at the conclusion of his charge, was equivalent to saying—
“The proof, as to the value of the sheep at the time of conversion, has been of their specie value. You will assess that value and add' to it the known premium which it requires to buy that much gold with paper.”
Thus, in fact, while he recognized the principle that greenbacks might discharge the claim, he yet left the jury to infer that they can only be forced upon the creditor at the rate which they would bring in gold. This instruction was wrong, because, practically, it made á distinction between coiu and paper tenders, in regard to a debt accruing after the passage of all the legal tender acts. Hepburn v. Griswold, does not require this. There the cause of action accrued prior to the passage of any of the legal tender acts; here it accrued subsequently to them all. Indeed, in Hepburn v. Griswold the court say that the decision is not meant to control cases where the cause of action arises subsequently to the passage of the legal tender acts. Parties under that condition of things contract in reference to them.
Mr. Wills, contra:
1. Though the rebel government must, in some cases, be regarded as a government de facto, it is going too far to say that a purchase, by a rebel resident, of the property of banished loyal 'citizens, under its laws “ in aid of the rebellion,” can stand. Such- a purchaser takes with full notice of his questionable title; Texas v. White is in point.
2. The argument of the opposing counsel proceeds upon a misapprehension of what the court meant in its charge, lie would make it directly in the face of its ruling a lew moments before. That it was so is not to be easily inferred. The charge must be interpreted reasonably. In the ruling, the court refused to receive evidence to show that greenbacks and coin had different values. The plaintiff had offered evidence of the difference between the two. Objection was made, by the defendant, and the poiut was ruled against the plaintiff. Nothing was more natural, therefore, than that the court in charging the jury should advert to its rulings on the point — a very important one to be considered' by the jury in making up its verdict — made at the defendant’s instance, and to tell the jury to recollect it. That is what the court did do. The charge therefore means just the opposite of what counsel on the other side suppose. -It means that greenbacks would discharge the debt, and that in considering the evidence given of the worth in gold of the sheep, the jury was not to add a premium for paper. This direction involves the question whether an obligation arising after the passage of the legal tender laws can be dis charged in greenbacks; and the court charged that it could be. ' This may or may not have been within the ideas entertained bjT the court in Hepburn v. Griswold, but it certainly was favorable to the defendant. He cannot complain, and we -do not.
That in point of fact there is no ground for the allegation that the jury were misled, or the damages exaggerated, appears by a short calculation. It was proved that the flock consisted of 608 sheep, of which number 30, 40, or perhaps 50, were-bucks; about 140 or 150 wethers, and about 300 ewes. Add all these numbers, taking the highest estimates, 50, 15D, and 300, and we have only 500 sheep accounted for; leaving 108 to be accounted for and valued, according to the different values of the different kinds of sheep. Now there was direct evidence fixing the average value of all the sheep per- head in specie, in 1860 and 1861. Besides, it is well known that in Texas, as iu California, coin is the standard of value in business, except when the contrary is stated. The depreciation of value at the sale, arising from the apprehended defect of title, which me event has shown to have been well grounded, must not be disregarded in arriving at the value of the sheep at that time. Accepting, therefore, this estimate of their average value, with a good title, the 608 sheep, at $10 per head, would be worth $6080 in specie. Adding four and one-third years’ interest — that is, from March, 1863, till Juue, 1867 — at 8 per cent, (the rate in Texas), say 33J per cent. = $2026.66§, and we have the aggregate amount of $8106.66f, an amount larger than the verdict complained of, saying nothing, according to the ruling of the judge, about the difference between the value of the sheep, when estimated in gold and silver and when estimated in legal tender notes of the United States.
Moreover, on the first trial, where no such.instruction as is here complained of was given, the verdict was for a greater amount than on the second.
The case in the second suit, Parker v. Davis, arose on a bill iu equity by Davis, to compel the specific performance of a contract by Parker to convey a lot of land to Davis upon the payment of a given sum of mouej’. This contract was dated and the suit brought upon it before the passage of any of the acts of Congress already referred to, as authorizing the issue of government notes, and making them a legal tender in payment of all “debts.” The Supreme Court of Massachusetts in February, 1867 (after the passage of the acts), decreed that Dayis should pay into court a certain sum of money, and that Parker should thereupon execute a deed to him of the land in question.
In pursuance of that decree Davis paid into court the sum named, in notes of the United States, known as “greenbacks.” Parker refused to execute the deed required' by the decree, upon the ground that he was entitled to have the- sum paid into court in coin, and that the paymetft i'nt'o court of greenbacks was not a compliance • with the order of the court. Whereupon the court, upon hearing of the parties, changed the decree, and ordered that Parker should execute the deed-required by his contract upon payment into court by Davis of a specific sum in notes of the United States. From that decree the.case was brought here under the well-known 25th section of the Judiciary Act.
Mr. JB. F. Thomas, for the plaintiff in error, contended:
1. That the consideration or sum of money to be paid for the conveyance of the land, did not constitute a debt within the meaning of the acts of Congress, known as the legal tender laws.
2. That if a debt, it was contracted before the passage of the legal tender laws, and not affected by them; a point determined in Hepburn v. Griswold.
Mr. Benjamin F: Butler, contra, contended:
1. That Parker having refused to perform his contract, there was no debt due him' from Davis until he performed the .judgment of' the court by the execution of the deed mentioned in the decree; that then, and not till then, he had a claim upon or a debt due from Davis. Thus the case was not within Hepburn v. Griswold.
2. That the court below has decided that it was equitable that Parker should execute his deed in performance of his contract, upon receiving- a given sum in United States Treasury notes; that it would not be doubted that it was competent for that court to do this, that is to say, to create an obligation upon Davis only sub modo, or, according to its-terms, which were, to pay into court a certain amount in a specific currency (notes); that the order, therefore, created only that specific liability. If this was so, then the determination of the court below (the counsel contended) was not within the jurisdiction of this court to review, no law or statute of the United States being involved.
The cases being thus before the court, Mr. Clarkson Nott Potter, by whom the case of Hepburn v. Griswold, and the gold question, had been argued, stated to the court that he had been informed that it was asserted that these or some other cases before the court, involved the question of the power of Congress to make Treasury notes a legal tender between private individuals in discharge of pre-existing debts; and he asked the court, in pase they should find that this question was involved in the decision of. any of the cases, and should determine to reconsider it, to allow-him to be heard upon it.
Subsequently, a majority of the court (four-judges dissenting) made an order:
“That Mr. Potter and the.Attorney-General be heard in these cases upon the following questions:
“1. 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?’'
And the argument was had on the 18th of April, 1871.
Mr. Potter, in support of the negative:
That no power has been expressly conferred upon Con gress by the Constitution to make the Treasury notes of the government a legal .tender between private individuals in discharge of pre-existing debts, must be admitted.
Can such a power, then, be implied from the authority •given Congress “to coin money and regulate the value thereof?” Or can it be regarded as one of the measures “ necessary and proper ” to carry into effect either the power to “ borrow money,” to “ regulate commerce,” to “raise and support armies,” to “provide and maintain a navy,” to “ suppress insurrection,” to “ repel invasion,” or any other of the powers delegated to Congress ?
I. This power is not embraced in the authority given Congress to “ coin money.”
Money is used in the Constitution in two senses. • Tu the second subdivision of the section relating to the powers of Congress, the Constitution speaks of the power “to borrow money;” and there the .word must be used in the larger sense of strict monej-, or of anything received instead. But in the fifth subdivision of that section, which gives Congress power “ to coin money and regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coins,” it must be evident that Congress referred only to metallic money.
From time immemorial, in all countries, in all ages of the world, the precious metals have been the medium of exchanges, and the strict moneys. The value of these metals has been designated by a stamp upon them indicating their fineness and weight; that is, indicating the value at which the coins were rated. "When the coins have possessed the value indicated, they have passed from hand to hand as of that value. When'they have been found not to possess that value, they have, except within very narrow limits, failed to so pass. .
. It is true that, at certain periods in the history of some of the States, the skins of the beaver passing by tale; strings .of shells, known as wampum, passing by measure; and packages of tobacco of defined weights were, in the absence of the precious metals, used as money, and were made the medium of exchanges. But none of these was a “ legal tender” as money, or ever- had anything but a local and limited circulation, or ever was used as a substitute for money, after mono}7 was introduced. While-in all ages of the world, in all countries, the precious metals, when stamped with a désignated value, have been known as moneys; and (with representatives of such -moneys) have always been the great and universal medium of exchanges.
Not only has “money” meant metallic money, but, upon looking at the public history of the times (which this court has established as a proper guide to the construction of the Constitution), we find that in the history of the country there was no period in which “ money” was more distinctly understood and meant to be hard money than at the period' when the Constitution was framed and adopted. “Its framers had just passed through all the horrors of an unredeemed' paper currency.” “ The history of that currency had been, within the view of those who staked their property on the public faith, always freely given and grossly violated.” “ The mischiefs of the various experiments that had been made were fresh in the public mind, aud had excited general disgust.” With the bills of the government unredeemed— indeed, become at last so hopelessly beyond redemption as-to be entirely given up as worthless, — the country had returned for circulation to a specie currency, to absolute-money having an intrinsic value; and neither had nor wished any oth'er currency.
But the context as well as the word itself shows that the power is confined to metals. This grant is not a grant to' create money; but simply “to coin money” — a power that can be exercised only on money that admits of being coined;, that is, a bare power to “ strike coin,” which w7as the phrase-used in the Articles of Confederation as the equivalent of “ to coin money.” It was from those Articles that the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof was transferred to the existing Constitution. And that this provision only gave Congress power to strike coin and regulate its alloy and value, was declared at the time, and undisputed. The Federalist, No. 48, tells us :
“The right of coining money, which is here taken from the States, was left in their hands by the Confederation, as a concurrent right with that of Congress, under an exception in favor of the exclusive right of Congress to regulate the alloy and value. In this instance, also, the now provision is an improvement on the old. Whilst the alloy and value depended on the general authority, a right of coinage in tho particular States could have no other effect than to multiply expensive mints, and diversify the forms and .iveights of the circulating pieces.”
Indeed, the very next clause of the Constitution (subdivision 6) which gives Congress power to punish the “counterfeiting of'the securities and current coin of the United States,” expressly distinguishes between the coins and the. obligations of the government.
If, however, Congress could take the power of' stamping leather, or paper, under this clause, and the leather or the paper so stamped could be considered as “ coined money,” the value whereof could be regulated by Congress, even that would not support the legal tender provision of the Treasury notes. With such a power, Congress might, indeed, stamp a lump of leather, or a ream of paper, so that they should circulate as current money; that, however, would not make these notes such stamped paper, nor current money.
Treasury notes have, as substance, no appreciable value. They are not declared to be, and do not purport to be, of any value as substance. They are not stamped with any intrinsic value. They are not, so far as they possess value, things at all, but only things in action. The material holds the evidence of the promise ; but it is the promise, and. the promise alone, which is, and which purports to be, of value. One dash of the pen across the signature of the Treasurer of the United States at their foot, and the note is not a Treasury note; not a thing in action; nota matter which bears the government stamp of value; not ten dollars at all, but á worthless rag of paper, once used to hold a promise, now Cancelled. If, therefore, “.money,”'in the phrase “to coin money,” could be considered as embracing other substances beside those precious metals, alone in use throughout all the world as coiu, none_the less would it remain that to utter promises to pay money would not be “coining,” or “to coin money.”
I cannot find that before the passage of this legal-tender act it had ever been supposed by any court, or by any judge of any court, or by any commentator or statesman, that this power “to coin money” had referenc'd to anything but a metallic 'currency. Indeed, of all the judges who have given opinions, as well in the support of as against the legality of this, law, I find hardly any who do not concede that to “coin money” was a grant of power relating to the coining of the-precious metals. Nevertheless, although the power to coin money has not sufficed to support the right to make these Treasury notes a legal tender, the power to. “regulate the value thereof,” that is, of coined fnoney, has been taken as one of the most effective arguments to sun-port this law.
If, under this power to regulate the value of coined moneys, Congress may debase the coinage; if it may put upon the coined moneys any other than their true intrinsic value; if it may declare that one-half or three-fourths of á dollar, when stamped by it as a dollar, shall be takeh to be equal to a whole dollar, and may thus impair the obligation of ■contracts and transfer one man’s property to another; .why, it is asked, under the constitutional power to borrow money, and other delegated powers, and the powers necessary and proper to enable it to exercise the delegated powers, may ■Congress not do a like thing to produce a better result with these Treasury notes ? 'To this I answer:
II. This power cannot be implied from, the power to regulate the value'of money.
For, lsi. Congress has no power given it to regulate the value of the money it borrows, but only of the money it coins, and of foreign coins. The analogy claimed would exist if the Constitution gave Congress power to borrow money and regulate the value thereof. But that it does not give.
And, 2d. Congress has no power to even materially debase the coin. A power to i’egulate is not a power to destroy.
X quite agree that “a uniform course of action involving the right to the exercise of an important power for half a century, and. this almost without question, is no unsatisfactory evidence that the power is rightfully exercised.”* But a careful review of the legislation of Congress on this subject, will show not only that Congress has not (as the Court of Appeals in New York, and' the other tribunals which have affirmed the validity of this law have assumed) exercised plenary power over the subject of currency and the legal tender laws, but that, on the cohtraiy, the legislation of Congress from first to last has been strictly confined to designating the value of coined money, and to discriminating with reference to its real value.
Let us review the legislation on coinage. From the establishment of the government to the passage of the act authorizing '.Treasury notes, the legal tender coin has been three times debased, and three times only. Once, in Juno, 1834, when the gold coinage was reduced about 6 per cent, in value; once, in 1851,.when^the three-cent pieces were first coined; and once,.in 1853, when the fraction'al silver coinage was reduced some 6 per cent, in value. But the pieces of these latter coinages were restricted as legal tender within such very narrow limits, and for such fractional and special uses, that, practically, these laws did not operate as debasements of the coin at all.
From the first issue of coin by this government to this time, the unit of calculation and of coinage, the silver dollar, has remained the same. It remains still of the same intrinsic value as when first coined; whatever changes have been made, have been made to bring the other coin into more actual aiid júst relation to it.
When the subject of coinage was first considered by the Confederation, it was proposed to have a emit of account and of coinage-much smaller than the dollar, and to employ tlie decimal system. Jefferson, while recommending the adoption of. the decimal system, suggested a coin equal to the then existing Spanish milled dollar, as the unit of value. Ilis recommendation was adopted, and the dollar has ever since remained the same.
The first coinage was under the act of April 2,1792, and that act provided^ 11) that the coinage should be of both gold and. .silver, and that the relative value of the two metals should be as fifteen to one, that is, that 1 ounce, of gold should be taken as the equal in value of 15 ounces of silver. By that act (§ 9) “ dollars or units,” ás they were styled, were each to contain 371^ grains of pure silver, and to weigh 416 grains according to the then standard, which was, for silver, (§ 13), 1485 parts pure or “fine”'to 179 parts alloy; and eagles (§ 9), “ each to be of the value of 10 dollars or units,” and to contain 247f grains of pure gold, and to weigh 270 grains, according to the then standard for gold-, which was (§ 12) 11 parts pure to 1 part alloy.
Both of these precious metals were, after that, coined as money; both became lawful money, and therefore, ex necessitate, a tender in payment of debts due in money, even if not so declared by law; just as coals of the specified kind; are a lawful tender in discharge of a contract for coal, and1 cotton, of a contract calling for cotton. But in the lapse of years,' the relation in value existing and established by Congress'in this act of 1792, between the two precious metals, was lost. Owing to-the increased produce of silver, and perhaps to the Increased demand by the commerce of the world for gold, their relative value had so materially altered that, by 1823, the Secretary of the Treasury called the attention of Congress to the fact that gold had relatively appreciated in value, so that their true relation was then as 16 to 1, and to the evils resulting from the erroneous standard maintained. For as soon as gold had advanced or silver declined in relative value sov that they really bore to each other the relation of 16 to 1 in value, instead of 15 to 1, as they were valued by the law, every person who' could secure an ounco, of our gold coinage for 15 ounees.of silver secured what was intrinsically worth 16 silver ounces; that is, made a profit of about 6 per cent. It followed, of course, that all the gold was taken up as fast as coined and sent out-of the country to be recoined, and .that the country retained, instead, only silver, and the gold coins.of those countries-whose gold coinage bore a true relation to the existing value of gold and silver.'1 In fact, our gold coin went regularly directly from the mint' as fast, as coined to the foreign packet; and; out of some $12,000,000 of gold which liad been coined, it ivas computed there was hardly a gold piece to he found in- the whole United States. As was said in Congress “ Hitherto, like the tracks' to the lion’s den, the.coins have gone all one way-r-toJEurope; and not one solitary'eagle has ever made good its cisatlantic flight.” This evil led at last to the introduction into Congress of a bill to regulate the value of the gold coinage of the country, by adjusting the rate for gold coin to its true relation to the existing and continuing silver coin. The debate upon the bill, shows.how anxious Congress-was to get at thp true relative value of the two precious-metals, and to fix the coinage accordingly. Opinions as to the relative values of gold and silver ranged,from 15.60' to 1, to 16 tú 1. The majority of those best cjnalified from their pursuits to understand the subject, including the Ne.w York banks, regarded the true ratio to be as 15.62 to 1, although for the previous few years it had averaged 15.80 to.1.' But Congress, at the instance of the friends of metallic nio-ney, determined to adopt 16 to 1 as the relative value; partly because that seemed, to be the ratio which had proved practically the' most correct in the nations which had adopted it; partly because the variation from the true relation was, if any, so small it might safely be disregarded;' and partly because it was believed that the relative appreciation of gold which had been so long going on-would continue, arid that the slight over-valuation of it, if any there was, would be thus in time corrected.* By that act (§ 1) the eagle was reduced from 247§ grains of pure gold, as required by § 9 of the said act of 1792, to 232 grains of pure gold, or about six per cent, in intrinsic value. But, so far from Congress assuming any power to materially depreciate the coinage or impair the rights of creditors, the power of Congress to make depreciated coin a legal tender was expressly disclaimed in, the debate. And the statesman at whose instance, and by whose will, this bill was mainly carried through was, of all men who ever, had part in the government of this country, the last to be quoted on the side of the. power of Congress to make promissory notes a legal tender in payment of private debts, — Thomas Hart Benton.
' The-court will thus see that while Congress did indeed reduce the"standard and value of gold coinage, so that $100 of the new gold coins were hardly equal in intrinsic value to $94 of the former gold coinage, yet that in fact Congress did absolutely nothing to impair the obligation of contracts or to destroy the rights of the creditor. .For, from the beginning, the debtor had the right to pay in the coinage of either of the precious metals. At first these, were of equal value, and payment in either was indifferent. Gradually the gold ar> predated or the silver depreciated, and then, of course, me debtor, as he had the option, paid in silver; so that, in 1834, the debtor who owed $1000, and had $940 of the then gold coinage, could exchange his gold for $1000 in silver coin, and discharge with these his debt of $1000.
Therefore, although Congress did reduce the value of the gold coinage in 1834, the debtor, after 1834, could no more pay his $1000 with money of less intrinsic value than he could before. True,-he could take $940 in gold of the old coinage, and get with it $1000 in gold of the new, with which to pay his debt. But so, before the law, he could take this same $940 of gold coinage, and purchase $1000 of the then, and still, equivalent silver coinage, with which to pay the debt. Indeed, that law, so far from taking T'5 of the debt from the creditor and giving it to the' debtor, as at first appears, actually gave the debtor no new privilege, and deprived the creditor of no property. It remained optional with the debtor,_ after the law as before, to pay in the gold pieces of the old coinage. True, it became possible, after the law, for the debtor to pay in the new gold coinage; but it had been optional-with him-before-the law to pay in the constant'- silver coinage equivalent in value to the new gold coinage. The.law was,' in fact, but an,adjustment and recognition of the true relation, between the values of the two •metals, the selection of which had always remained optional to debtors, and, so far from being an attempt by Congress to regulate money without reference to or differing from its intrinsic value, it was, on the contrary, a most careful and 'earnest effort to bring the recognizable value of its money more closely to its intrinsic value.
Following this-act of June'28, 1834, Congress passed an act on the same day, conforming the value at which foreign, coins were to be rated to their true intrinsic value.
In 1837, Congress fixed the standard of both gold and silver coin at T90ths fine; that is 9 parts of pure metal tol of alloy. By this change the gross- weight of the dollar was reduced to 4I2J grains (§ 9), but the fineness was correspondingly increased, and the dollar therefore continued to contain T95ths of 4121- = 371 fa grains o.f pure silver,-as provided for the dollar when first coined, and to remain therefore of the same intrinsic value as before. And .the (/ross weight of the eagle was, by the same act, somewhat, increased, but it eon tinued to contain, however (§ 10), 232 grains of pure gold, as provided by the act of 1834.
This change in the gross weight of the silver coinage has led to the idea it was then debased, the corresponding increase in its fineness having been overlooked.
Let us refer to later changes in the silver coinage? For nearly twenty years after the passage of these laws of 1834, the relations between the precious metals remained undisturbed, so that no action by Congress was required. But the unlooked-for discoveries of gold in California disturbed again, and in a reverse direction, the relation between the two metals, and thereafter silver advanced and gold declined in relative values; -.so that, by 1863, silver attained a marked premium over the gold coined since the act of 183,4, and a scarcity in silver coin had been felt. Congress, however, did not thereupon generally depreciate the silver coinage. It was, indeed, urged upon Congress to appreciate the gold coinage. Instead, however, of doing this, thinking, probably, that this gold harvest was to be of short duration, and its disturbance of the relation, then so long subsisting betwmen the two metals, not likely to continue; and striving to meet the evil of small notes issued by every kind of corporation and of paper tokens for change, then pressiug —Congress did depreciate the silver coin,for parts of dollars only, about 6 per cent, (so that two half-dollars or four quarter-dollars are no longer equal to one dollar piece). But these depreciated coins were restricted from, being legal tender for any sum greater than $5 in all, although the smaller silver coin of the earlier coinage .remained a tender for any amount.
Prior to this, in 1861, Congress had directed the coinage of three-cent pieces of a fineness and weight which gave them a'value of only 80 cents on the nominal dollar of these pieces (i. e., 33 pieces of three-cent coinage were worth intrinsically only of one silver dollar); but these pieces’ were only made tender to the extent of 30 cents in the ag gregate, and their issue, was very limited and was shortly-stopped, and by the act-of 1853 their intrinsic value was raised to the standard of that of the other fractions of the dollar.
Then as to change in the copper coinage. Congress, also, in 1793 and 1796, reduced the weight and the.intrinsic value of the cent to accord with the increased value of copper, the. planchets for which government had to import. These cents, however, were not made a legal tender.
The interference by government'with the rights'of creditors by regulations of the coin have, therefore, been :
1. By the acts of 1834, a possible, but disputed and doubtful depreciation, if of anything, of less than 1 per cent,
2. By the act of 1851, a depreciation of fractional silver coin (the three.-cent piece) to an extent which could not, in the largest tender, exceed 6 cents; shortly, however, altered, so that it could not exceed in the aggregate 2 cents.
3. By the act of 1853, a depreciation of fractional silver coinage to an extent which.could not. exceed in the largest tender 30 cents.
Now, if these debasements of fractional coin be deemed merely such ; nevertheless, from their minute and fractional nature, they would form no precedent for future, material debasements of the. coinage, or indicate any acquiescence by the people and the courts in an assumption by Congress of the right to put a false or arbitrary value upon its coiued money. JDe minimis yon curat lex. .
' But, indeed, these acts of 1851 and 1853 were practically not at all infringements upon the rights of creditors or debasements of the coinage below its value. As already remarked (page 464), when coins were struck with a value which they did not possess, they have, “ except within very narrow limits,” failed to pass at more than'their true intrinsic'worth. But there are limits within which coins, somewhat depreciated below their true value, will circulate as well as if they had not been depreciated. Those limits are when the payment is so small that the difference between 'he nominal and intrinsic values, does not leave it worth while to regard the difference, or when some particular'convenience about the coin, such as its portability or denomination, overbaUmces the intrinsic depreciation; that is; the peculiar fitness for the fractional purpose required, will, in such cases, actually make good the depreciation, and carry the small coin, for all purposes of use, up to the stamped value.
All will recollect how often, in the days of the Spanish piece for 12J cents, we accepted 12 cents instead, and took Spanish quarters with holes drilled through them equally with perfect coin. Those who have been in England know that the sovereign has so depreciated by wear that a large majority of the coins in circulation in Great Britain are intrinsically worth less than the standard value — 2(L per sovereign it is said — and yet, for all minor payments, they pass from hand to hand by tale equally as of full weight; while in large transactions they are always paid out by weight and not by tale. So.w4tn the depreciated three-cent pieces of 1851; within tbe'very narrow limit at which, they were legal tender, their portability and convenience made up what they wanted in intrinsic silver value.
And so, too> with the depreciated- coinage of 1853. . It was confined, to fractions of a dollar, which were so slightly depreciated, and the eonveniencé of ^hich was such, that the trifling intrinsic loss Was not to be regarded. But the depreciated coins were made a legal tender ouly.to twice the amount of the lowhst tenderable.gold coin, Congress still keeping to its idea of a double money standard, and still holding to its unchanged unit of value, the silver dollar.
Now it is submitted that all these exercises of the powers of Congress to “ coin money and regulate the value thereof” were within the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Congress has, indeed, established the value of certain foreign coins at one time and changed it at another; made them a tender,'and deprived them of that quality; and changed from time to time the standard of value of coin struck at its mint. But how has it done this? Without regard to the intrinsic value of the coin struck? By fixing upon it any arbitrary valúe, and making it a tendér at anything but its true value, as all the courts which have supported'the constitutionality of the provision we are considering have assumed? Not at all; but, on the contrary, by uniformJy seeking to conform the stamp upon its coin to its true value, and by scrupulously limiting the departures from intrinsic value for special purposes within limits so narrow that the special usefulness of the coin within those limits has actually made good the trifling-deficiency in weight.
In the same spirit, Coiigress has provided that its coin . shall be a legal tender at its stamped valuation only when of full weight; if of light weight,-only proportionately, according to its weight.
In fine, Congress, under a power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, has done only and exactly what those words in their plain signification imply; has struck metallic coins, and has regulated the value thereof and of foreign coins; and has done this on every occasion with careful regard to their true intrinsic value; manifesting as well by the particular purposes aud narrow limits within which they have departed from intrinsic value, as by their general strict regard for such values, not their belief that they could strike any metal and stamp it with an arbitrary value, but that - they could rightfully regulate -the value of money only by truly declaring the value thereof. Not that they “ possess a magic power to give, by their omnipotent fiat, a precious value to inanimate and valueless things,” but that they possessed only power to regulate the coin stamped, by declaring its value according to the fact — according to the value stamped upon it when of full weight, and of only proportionate value when of light weight.
In the opinions which have been given in various legal tender cases, nothing has seemed to go so far toward supporting the authority of Congress to make treasury notes a legal tender as the assumption that Congress had been left by the Constitution at liberty to impair private rights and the obligation of contracts by debasing the specie coinage, and that it had actually debased that coinage and impaired those rights to the extent of yg, without question or challenge. Had this been the actiou of Congress, it would not indeed have established its power or right to do this. One permitted invasion of an established right does not dp away with the right. That Congress had debased the coinage j’jtli would not establish the right to further debase it; would, at most, indicate that the power to regulate it extended.up to that limit, and would, of itself, furnish no justification for a more general or further invasion. Nevertheless, the assertion, in all the opinions, that government had assumed to debase the coinage to the extent of T’gth, impairing to that degree the recovery of all creditors, and that this action had been submitted to without question, has seemed to me the strongest argument for the power of government to exercise plenary control over coined money. ..Indeed,- it was through inquiry as to how it was possible that creditors could have submitted to so serious an infringement of their rights without contest in the courts that I learned that in fact nothing of the kind really took place.
On the contrary, we see that, so far from “ Congress having claimed and exercised unlimited power over legal tender,” so far from having assumed the power to make even coin a legal tender, without regard to its real intrinsic value, as all the decisions'supporting this law assume, its. legislation shows that for seventy-five years, from the beginning of the government down to the act authorizing these legal tender notes, through all the most pressing exigencies of peace and war, Congress — not only by its direct efforts to regulate the coinage from time to time, according to its intrinsic value, but also by the narrow limitation it imposed on the right of legal tender when diverging slightly from intrinsic value for special and temporary purposes — has shown a determination, as uniform as just, to keep the stamp upon th'e.government coins a true index to their value, and to so regulate these coins as that they should have and express their actual values. Nay, by reference to the debates in Congress, it will be seen that the right of Congress to debase the coin aud make the debased coin legal tender, in such wise as to materially affect the rights of the creditor or debtor, was not only never prPfessed or asserted, but that, so far as the question has arisen, the right has been (jk’ectly repudiated.
So, therefore, the difficulty, judge's, and other persons have had in perceiving why, if Congress, under this power to coin money, could coin any métallic substance and stamp it with an arbitrary value, it would not have equally the power to declare its treasury notes a legal tender without reference to their intrinsic valué — is a difficulty that this court is freed from, and that should never have existed. Indeed,. I look in vain to-day for the production of the declaration, prior to these legal tender days,.of one judge, one statesman, one commentator, that Congress, by the power “to coin money and regulate the value thereof,” possessed the right of striking' even' metals with false and arbitrary values.' The right, therefore, to make a promise to pay — a propáse' not expected to be kept at the time for which it was made, nor at any other certain or definite time — the substitute for the thing promised, audio oblige every creditor to accept this of his debtor instead of the thing promised, is not only not within the provisions of this grant to Congress “to coin money and regulate the value thereof,” but we have seen that no kindred power in fixing the value of even coined moneys has ever been claimed or attempted under that grant.
We are driven, therefore, to seek in other parts of the Constitution this power to make treasury notes a legal tender between private parties at their nominal value for preexisting debts. •
But it has been asserted that the power of thus making the bills of the government legal tender is a power “ necessary and proper” — in the sense in which those words are settled to have been used — to carry into effect some one or more of the powers delegated to Congress by the Coustitu-' tion. I say “ necessary and proper” in the sense in which those woi’ds have been settled to have been used, because I admit that this court has decided that they are not to be construed according to their literal and precise meaning.
Those judges of this court who stated in the dissentient opinion in Hepburn v. Griswold that it was claimed that when an act of Congress is brought to the test of this clause of the Constitution, its necessity must be absolute and its adaptation to the conceded, purpose unquestionable, were stating no claim of mine; and the discussion of that .question, so fully pursued in that opinion, will not be necessary, since I shall adopt for these words the most liberal construction ever asserted by 'this court.
Indeed, whatever differences might exist as to the true construction of this clause of the Constitution, as a lawyer, addressing this supreme tribunal, I am bound to remember that its meaning was long since defined and settled here. In the very first Congress the meaning of this clause, was greatly discussed. There were those who held, with Mr. Jefferson, that it authorized only those means without which the grant would be nugatory. Others took a more liberal view of its meaning. The latter prevailed in Congress. The discussion was then renewed iu the Cabinet. Washington finally followed the opinion of Hamilton, who main tained the more liberal view. Subsequently the discussion was-from time to time renewed in Congress, until finally the meaning of this clause came, in 1819, to be decided by this court, in McCulloch v. Maryland, when Marshall, C. J., speaking for the whole court, gave as the result of their most careful consideration, that precise definition which opposing counsel admit was, by his intrinsic and perfect reasoning, wrought into the texture of our constitutional law? Nevertheless, the utmost that great chief justice, who extended the Federal authority to its farthest limits, then said, was:
“Let the end be legitimate; let’it be within the scope of the Ccrstitution, and all the means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, and which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional.”
We must inquire, therefore, to the exercise of which one of the powers delegated to government “it is necessary and proper,” it is even “ appropriate and plainly adapted,” that treasury notes should be made a legal tender for antecedent debts. Is it appropriate and plainly adapted to the power to borrow money, to regulate commerce, to ráise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, to suppress insurrections or repel invasions, or even to any of these powers united? For it is true that Congress had occasion to exercise every one of these powers at the time when these notes were issued.
III. The. exercise of this legal tender power was not necessary, nor appropriate and plainly adapted to carrying into execution any of the powers expressly delegated.
No one can read the opinions of any of the courts which have held this law to be constitutional without finding their decisions distinctly put upon the importance of this provision to enable government to borrow money and carry on the war, and to maintain its very existence. But it is sub mitted, especially after the experience of the past nine years, that no snch necessity existed, and that no such advantage was gained by the provision. On the contrary, at no time before since the establishment of the government-was the national'wealth so great;_at no. time were private debts, in. proportion to the means of the country, so reduced. The panic and suspension of 1857 had led to very general liquidation. The agitations of the succeeding years had tended to check men in forming new engagements, or entering upon speculative undertakings. At no time had so few new schemes for capitalists been proposed; had so few bubble ■corporations been projected; had so little general speculation .prevailed. At no time were our traders so little extended, or had- our people so few debts (excluding debts maturing at the end of long terms of years).fl The banks and the government had already suspended specie payments for months before the issue of these notes. The entire business of the country was being done in unredeemed bank paper and treasury notes, which were not a legal tender in payment of debts, but which, nevertheless, circulated everywhere, and never fell at the great centres of trade to any considerable depreciation. Finally, the government determined upon an issue of legal tender notes.
The security, of the notes was not increased by the legal tender clause. Had they been issued without the clause they would have- been equally secure. Without it, they still had', as fully as-with it, whatever security the credit and faith of the government could give them. So, too, without that clause, they would have been equally as available and valuable as now, in all payments for taxes, public lands, or other dues to the government. The only value that clause did give the notes was the power it gave debtors to discharge pre-existing debts with them, equally as with real dollars. I say preexisting debts, because, as to subsequently contracted debts, the dealings of the country would have been in these notes, whether or not they had been made a legal tender. The country was, at the time of their issue, carrying on its dealings in the unredeemed paper money of the banks, styled “currency,” in which’ ail ordinary transactions were measured, and payments made. This currency had not at that time depreciated more than 3 per cent, below the specie standard; and yet treasury notes, as soon as issued, at once fell to the same depreciated value. Their legal tender character never seems at any time to have imtde them better, than the bills of any other solvent but suspended debtors not containing that clause.
It has indeed been urged that general insolvency and ruin would have followed, had not debtors been' authorized to meet their demands with these notes. But what really would haye been the effect had these notes not been made a legal tender for pre-existing debts ? Necessarily they would have been as well secured and as useful for payments of taxes and public dues as now. They would have been as valuable as now, for the purchasing of goods, and service, and labor. True, the debtor could not have discharged his debts of long standing in them; but what of that? In .great part, the debts of the country consisted of commercial paper, even then payable in what was styled “currency.” As to the debts of the country not already specially payable in “ currency,” the great bulk of the residue matured within a short time, so that, had the debtors not been able to have benefited by the slight depreciation in treasury notes which took place during such times, it would have caused no widespread disaster. For they would in no event have had to pay more than they.received, nor was there, after these notes were, issued, any such depreciation of property, even reckoned at its specie value, as would have made such payments generally disastrous. Specie payments have been suspended by the banks and the treasury in 1837, and 1857, and 1861, without producing any great ruin. Irredeemable paper circulated after the suspension of the banks in 1857 and 1861, .as well as before. Indeed, the crisis was before the suspension of the banks, not. afterwards.
Neither the bills of the old Confederation nor those issued by the government in 1812 were ever made a legal.'tender at’ all, and yet circulated generally. So in England during all' the great Napoleonic wars, the notes of the bank were never m,ade a legal tender. They are by law a tender, everywhere .except at the counter of the bank so long as the bank pays specie. In 1797, however, the government authorized the bank to suspend specie payments. The law provided that the bank might suspend specie payments; that if sued on its notes (§ 1) it might apply to the courts and have proceedings against it stayed on such terms as might be just; and (§ 7) that payments voluntarily received in the notes should be regarded as payments of cash. But the notes were not made, a legal tender-except for government dues and taxes. Nevertheless, they answered every.purpose of our notes.
So those United States notes that were not a tender always rated equally high with those which were; and as-matter of fact, capable of being proved by price currents of the day after the decision in Hepburn v. Griswold, that treasury notes were not constitutional as a discharge for pre-existing debts, they at once advanced in market value as compared with gq]d.
But, were it conceded that the qualify of legal tender gave to these notes a material advantage which the, would not have possessed without it, how can it be said that this provision was “ necessary and proper” or “appropriate and plainly adapted” to the exercise of any of the powers expressly delegated to Congress?
It should be borne in mind that (except in the single aspect>of a regulation of commerce, to which Tahalí presently refer) this legal tender provision has been maintained as necessary .or proper to the exercise of the’ delegated powers, and has been asserted to be appropriate and plainly adapted to their exercise, in no other way than that by this measure the government was made stronger. The effect of this provision is to take the property ..of the creditor and transfer it to the debtor to the extent to which these notes ,may be depreciated below their nominal value. To which one of the delegated powers is such a wrong “ appropriate and plainly adapted?” To all, as much as to one. For clearly this power has no relation whatever to the power to raise armies and maintain navies; to suppress insurrections; to borrow money; unless it is tho relation which results from the .mere fact that government was made stronger and more efficient by it. In no other sense is it appropriate, or adapted, or auxiliary at all to the exercise of any or of all the delegated powers.
I concede that if this provision of legal tender be a “ proper ancillary means,” to use the words of Strong, «L, in the Pennsylvania cases, for executing tho delegated powers singly or together, it is enough. Any means which is appropriate, and plainly adapted to carrying into effect two or more or all of the delegated powers, is not on that account less to bo implied than if it tas such relation to one only of the delegated powers. But tho question remains, is the power sought to be implied appropriate, and plainly adapted to tho exercise of delegated powers ? To be appropriate, to be at all adapted to the exercise of powers, it must have some direct relation to such powers; some particular fitness for the exercise of those powers. As Mr. Clay felicitously said:
“The principal and incidental ought to be congenial with each other, and partake of a common nature. The incidental power ought to bo strictly subordinate, and limited to the end proposed to bo attained by the specific power.”
Referring to the first great debate on the powers of Congress under this clause, and remembering that one portion of the men contemporaneous with the Constitution agreed, with Mr. Jefferson, that the means to be authorized under this clause must be means without which the grant would be nugatory, it is instructive to note how even those who favored a more liberal construction of this clause regarded it.
That eminent Federalist, Mr. Sedgwick, declared the means, authorized by this clause, “ must be a known and usual means in the exercise of the delegated powers to effect their end, as expressed in the Constitution.”
Or, as Mr. Ames said, “ must be fairly relative and necessarily incident to the delegated powers.”
Or, as Mr. Giles said, “ a subaltern authority necessarily connected with the exercise of the delegated powers.”
According to óthers, it was to be “ embraced in as a detail of the enumerated power, and to' be inseparable from it.”
And in their opinions on the constitutionality of the United States Bank, both Hamilton, Madison, and Randolph united in defining a constitutional means as a natural means of executing the delegated power.
As Hamilton himself said, “The criterion of what is constitutional, and what is not so, is.the end to which the measure relates as a means. If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the means have an obvious relation to that end; it may be deemed within the provisions of the national authority.”
As Mr. Madison elsewhere said, the constitutional means must be “a direct and. incidental auxiliary;” must be “incidental to the nature of the specified power.”
As Marshall, C.J., said, in Gibbon v. Ogden, the auxiliary power must be'clearly incidental to the powers expressly given, to be implied.
As Story, J., said, in Martin v. Hunter, “The powers actually granted to the Federal government must be expressly given, or given by necessary implication.”
But this provisiou of legal tender has nó relation, no fitness, no adaptation- to the exercise of any one or more of the express powers conferred by the Constitution; none whatever. It is as much auxiliary to one as to the other; nay, as much auxiliary to every, conceivable power of government granted or forbidden, requiring revenue, as to either or to all the delegated powers. Its aid is derived from the fact, and the single fact, that thereby government was made stronger. But it is an abuse of language to so construe a grant of particular powers as to treat anything by which the grautee is made stronger in the exercise of the particular power as an incident of such power, and therefore to be implied. Surely,-a grant to a man- to run a ferry or to sail a privateer, or to establish and maintain a fort and trading post, would not give hirii the right to rob on the highway; to cheat his creditors; or to sell to other persons the right to cheat their creditors as an incident to. such a grant. And yet ..such' powérs Would make him stronger;, would make him better able to run his ferry; to sail his privateer; to defend his fort. They would be auxiliary in the sense that they made him stronger to do the authorized work. They would, indeed, if he was not able otherwise to' execute his grant, be a necessity for its execution. But not a granted necessity; not .a granted auxiliary;' not to be implied, asa means to the authorized powérs.
Just so, this power of legal tender, if it was of ¿my practical importance to government, which I deny, was in no otherwise an aid to the delegated power of raising armies, maintaining navies, and regulating commerce, than that it made the .government stronger; not that.war could not.be made, armies raised, or commerce regulated without it, for •these and all other powers of government had been exercised without it; - not that it had any relation to the exercise of any of those powers as a means, but solely because it made government generally stronger.
Test this idea, that because by this sale of indulgences to one man to wrong auother, government was made better able to execute its delegated powers; and that, therefore, this power was ancillary or auxiliary to 'those powers. The Constitution gave Congress power to establish post-offices and post-roads; and this’grant has been taken as authorizing the establishment of new offices and new routes, the conveyance of the.mails, the puirfshmeut of offences against them, arid even as authorizing government to assert a monopoly of that business; ¿nd all these powers have an appropriateness, and a plain adaptation to the power expressly granted. But let us suppose government should sell liceuses to rifle every tenth letter, or licenses to take half, or a fourth, or a tenth of all the valuables inclosed in the letters directed to particular offices. ■ Will any one pretend that such a power would be authorized? And yet government would be stronger for it, richer for it, better able to carry the-mails for it; that is, better able because of this authority to execute the powers'delegated to it. Nay, it might even be.that without such extraordinary resource it might not be able to.carry the mails at all. But who will pretend that such a necessity would any the less make such an assumption of power unauthorized and outrageous?
I understand one member of this’ bench to have maintained in another tribunal' that even a substantive power might be implied as an incident to the execution of a delegated power. Ido.not so understand the law. 1 had understood the direct reverse of this to have been asserted by those' who framed the Constitution, both before and after its adoption, in all the great discussions upon the power of Congress; and by the men-who favored liberal as well as those-who .favored'strict construction; and to have been established in McCulloch v. State of Maryland, where the Chief Justice gave it as the unanimous opinion of-the court that “a great substantive and independent power cannot be implied as incidental to other powers, or used as a means of executing them.”
But, however this may be, whether another substantive power can, or cannot, be proper1 y implied as au incident to' the execution of an enumerated power, the substantive power, in order to be implied, must at least, have the same fitness and adaptability to the power to which it is implied as incidental as is required of other means.
Jt has, however, been asserted that Congress is to judge of what meaus are appropriate and adapted to th-e end, and that whether a particular measure be or be not such a means .is for Congress alone to determine. But it was to decide whether the action of Congress was within the authority of the Constitution that this supreme tribunal was established. The Constitution delegated to Congress certain specified powers. It delegated also the necessary and proper means to carry those powers into effect. Whether a particular authority be'delegated either expressly or as a means to carry into effect the delegated powers, may, and should indeed, in the first place, be inquired into by the legislature. But the power of this court to revise these determinations of the legislature was uniformly asserted, as well during the Convention which framed the Constitution, as throughout 'the discussion by which it was commended to the people, and by the wisest, men of every political view after tlie Constitution was adopted, and has been established by the repeated decisions of this court.
“If,” said Hamilton, “it be claimed that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers', and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered that it is not to be supposed that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and the peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by judges, as a fundamental law. It must, therefore, belong to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. • The intention of the people ought to be preferred to the intention of their agents.”
“Whatever meaning,” said Mr. Madison, “the clause of the Constitution conferring on Congress the power of using all necessary and proper means to carry into effect the • enumerated powers may have, none could be admitted that would give an unlimited discretion to Congress.”
“ To what purpose,” said Marshall*, C. J., speaking for this court in Madison v. Marbury, “ are limitations committed to writing, if these limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained. Tlie distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed;” but all powers under the discretion of a choice of means are left open to them. And in that case the court held .the law of Congress unconstitutional.
So in McCulloch v. Maryland, he said:
“ Should Congress in tho execution of its powers adopt measures which aro prohibited by the Constitution, or should Con? gross, under the pretext of executing its powers, pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not intrusted to the government, it would become tho painful duty of this tribunal', should a case requiring such a decision come before it, to say that such an act was not the law" of tho land.”
The utility of a measure can never be any proper test of ■its constitutionality. As Hamilton declared in that,great' argument upon chartering the first United States Bank, which successfully maintained the Federal power, and upon which all subsequent arguments on that side of the question have' been based — because, as Marshall, C. J., said, it exhausted the arguments upon that side — “the degree in which a measure is necessary can never be a test of .the legal right to adopt it. That must be a matter of opinion, and can only be a test of expediency. The relation between the means and the end, between the nature of a means employed toward the execution of the power and the objectjoi‘that power, must be the criterion of unconstitutionality; not the'lnore or less of necessity or utility.”
I concede that if a means be appropriate, and plainly adapted to the exercise of an enumerated power, and not prohibited, then, whether it maybe useful or not, is for Congress alone to judge. I agree, too, that engagements by Congress to purchase arms, which may prove to be worse than useless, to buy ships which may not be 'needed, and the like, are engagements within the constitutional powers of Congress; and that this court may not inquire into the propriety of their judgment in such regards. But what brings these measures within the constitutional powers of' Congress, except that they are appropriate, plainly adapted means, to the end of enabling Congress to make war, to. maintain navies, or to. executing other powers expressly delegated to Congress — and are therefore authorized ? And, being authorized, whether useful or useless, whether Congress judged-wisely or unwisely in selecting them, is not open to review.
As Marshall, C. J., said in McCulloch v. Maryland, in discussing the constitutionality of the'United States-Bank, “Were its nécessity less apparent, none can deny its being an appropriate measure; arid if it is, the degree of its necessity is to be discussed in another place.”
But where a means has no fitness, no adaptation, except that it maltes government stronger — except that it is in that w'ay useful — then, if it can be considered as therefore an authorized means — one that may be implied, which I dispute — the constitutional power of Congress to exercise that means must, in that event, depend upon that utility alone-; and of that utility this court is, in such event, the ultimate judge.
If it be insisted that this court was never meant to judge of such utilities — that this is the province of the legislative, and not of the judicial brauch of the government — my answer is, that the absurdity grows out of selecting as'an appropriate means, or incident, or auxiliary to the.delegated powers, that which has no fitness, no adaptation to such powers, except merely that it makes government stronger. For if any means that increases the strength of government ’ may be taken as therefore to be implied as a constitutional means, to be, for that mere quality, fit — which I deny — then .it remains that since this court is the ultimate judge of fitness, it must be, according to that assumption, the ultimate judge of whether the measures in question did, indeed, make government stronger.
IY. This power cannot be assumed as a necessary inherent sovereign right.
It is claimed that the right to declare what shall be a legal tender for' private debts is a necessary right inherent in every sovereignty.- That, within the scope of their respective authorities, the Federal and State governments are sovereign ; and that, consequently, this power must be lodged with one or the other authority, and that, siuce it is prohibited to the States, and not prohibited to Congress, it must therefore • be taken to dwell with Congress.
But upon what principle is it a necessary sovereign right? True, it is. a right which has been exercised by absolute sovereigns. So has every other form of power and plunder. -But that does not make it a necessary right in a limited constitutional government established to maintáin justice. It is by no means clear that this right exists in England. Blackstone says that
41 The coining of money is the act of the sovereign power, that its valué may be known on inspection. Every nation fixes on it its-own impression, that the weight and standard, wherein consist the intrinsic value, may be known by inspection only. . . . Of this sterling metal all the coin of tbo kingdom must be made; but the King’s prerogative seemeth not to extend to'the debasing or enhancing the value of the coin below or above the sterling value.”
To the same effect speaks my'Lord Coke :
“The law doth givo-tho King mines of gold and silver thereof to make money, and not any other metal, because thereof money cannot bo made, and hereof there is great reason ; for the value of money being in effect the value of alb contracts, is in effect the value of every man.”
It was, indeed, one of the glories of.Queen Elizabeth, that she restored her moneys to their true value.' “ Religio refof mata. Pax fúndala. Monda ad suun i valorem reduela,” is the inscription on her monument.
In truth, there seems to have been a general misapprehension as to the action of England. Although base moneys were formerly issued, I find none authorized in England for nearly three hundred years past.-
It is a mistake to suppose that the framers of this government, or the people who ratified their work, intended that ail powers of government should be vested either in the Federal or the State governments. On the contrary,, this was an artificial government-; not the result of gradual growth, but formed by the union of independent State's; not formed for the benefit of any family, or ruler, or person, but formed to secure certain ends for those who thus united. "What those ends were, the framers of -the government took care to declare. Far from requiring that the new government should possess all the powers usual to sovereigns, they expressly forbade some most sovereign powers, aud refused to grant others. From that day it was the boast of the people that -their Federal government was the freest and most limited government that had ever existed. That -while "it possessed' powers necessary for'protection against foreign and domestic attack, it contained none by which individual rights could be destroyed without process of law or just compensation.
It is true the powers to make ex post facto laws, pass bills, of attainder, confer titles of nobility, are expressly forbidden to both State and Federal governments. But they were for bidden to both, because otherwise — States by virtue of their original authority, the Federal government by virtue of its expressly enumerated powers — each within its province might- lawfully exercise these powers; and this at the time of the adoption of the Constitution was fully discussed and understood. Indeed, the friends of the Constitution were very generally called upon to show that the restrictions upon the Federal power were not to be taken as implying the grant of powers not expressed. Accordingly it was .everywhere shown that the restrictions upon the Federal government contained in the Constitution were necessary as exceptions to powers particularly granted in the Constitution. A very precise statement was made in the Virginia convention by Mr. Edmund Randolph of the particular grant upon which each restriction on the Federal power was a limitation.
It is true, also, the power of legal tender, though restricted by the States to gold and silver, wTas not forbidden to the Federal government; but neither was it granted.
As Hamilton said in the Federalist :
“ Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? "Why, for instance, should it bo said that the liberty of the’ press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?’1
And Mr. Marshall asked, in the Virginia convention, “ if gentlemen were serious when they asserted that if the State governments had power to interfere w’ith the militia it was by implication ? The-State governments,” he said, “ did not derive their powers from the General government, but each government derived its powers from the people, and each was to act according to the powers giveu it. Would any gentleman deny this? Could any man say so? Could any man say that this power was not retained by the States, as they had not gioen it away % For,” says he, “ does not a power remain till it is given away ?”
Indeed, where a particular power is neither expressly granted nor fairly to be considered as a means of executing the granted powers, it cannot, because of its necessity or of its importance, be implied, since those ^sovereign pqwers which the framers of the government thought necessary were expressly enumerated.
.•“A distinction,” as Mr. Madisoii said, “is to be kept ip view between a power necessary and proper for the government or Union and a power necessary for executing the enumerated powers.” In the latter case, the powers included iu the express powers were not expressed, but to be drawu from the nature, of each. In the former, the powers composing the government were expressly enumerated. This constituted the peculiar nature of the government; no-power, therefore, not enumerated could-be inferred from the general nature of the government Had the power-of making treaties, for example, been omitted, however necessary it might have been, the defect could only have been Iameuted, or supplied by an amendment of'the Constitution. •
So Judge Story, in his Commentaries, lays it down :
“ On the other hand, a rule of equal importance is, not to enlarge the construction of a given power beyond the fair scope of its terms, merely because the restriction is inconvenient, impolitic, and even mischievous. If it be mischievous, the power of redressing the evil lies with the people by an exercise of the power of amendment. If they do not choose to apply the remedy, it may fairly be presumed that the mischief is less than what would arise from a further extension of the power, or that it is the least of two evils. Nor should it be -ever lost sight of that the government of the United States is one of limited and enumerated powers; and that a departure from the true import- and sense of its powers is, pro tanto, the establishment of a new Constitution. It is doing for the people what they have not chosen to do for themselves. It is usurping the functions of a legislator and deserting those of an expounder of the law. Arguments - drawn from impolicy or inconvenience ought here to be of-no weight. The only sound principle is to declare, Hta lex seripta est,’ to follow and obey.”
So Mr. Webster said, in reply to Hayne:
“ The people, sir, erected this government! They gave jt a Constitution, and in that Constitution they have enumerated the powers which they have bestowed on it. They have made it a limited government. They have defined its authority.”
And so distinctly was this recognized as to draw from Chief Justice Marshall, in McCulloch v. Maryland, the sharp reproof:
“ This government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle that it can exercise only the powers granted to it would seem too apparent to have required to be enforced by all those arguments which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge. That principle is now universally admitted.”
And so this court, in other cases, declared that
“ The people had a right to prohibit to the States the exercise of any po'wers which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of'the general compact; to makq the powers of the State government, in given eases, subordinate to those of the nation, or to reserve to themselves those sovereign authorities which they might not choose to delegate to either.
“The sovereignty of the States is surrendered, in many instances, where the surrender can only operate to the benefit of the people, and where, perhaps, no other power is conferred on Congress than a conservative power to maintain the principles established in the Constitution. The maintenance of these principles, in their purity, is certainly among the groat duties .of the government. One of the instruments by which this duty .may be peaceably performed is the judicial department.”
So far, however, from the power of making the promises ' of the government a legal substitute for the thing promised having been regarded as a necessity of government when this government was established, it seems to me impossible to review the history of the times without being convinced that this power was not only not regarded as a necessity, but rather as an evil to be forbidden.
. "V. The history of the Constitution and of the country indicates that this power was'not intended, to be exercised at all, but was reserved, to the people.
Looking-to the history of the Constitution, how natural and probable it'is that the power, in respect to legal tender, now claimed by the Federal government, was not intended to be granted to it. The union of the Confederation was established for the same purpose as the present Union. It was equally to be' “ perpetual.” By the Articles of Confederation, the Confederation had the identical powers given it in respect of money which the Constitution gives to our-Federal government. And yet when, during the sore needs of the Revolution, -it did issue treasury notes, and wished to make them legal tender, it found itself powerless to do so.* The States, however,'generally made, their bills a tender; and with the result, Judge Story says, of prostrating all private credit and all -private morals, “ entailing the most enormous evils on the country, and introducing a system of fraud, chicanery, and profligacy which destroyed all private confidence, and all industry andenterprise.”f
Indeed, the framers of the Constitution had themselves experienced the mischief of these experiments, which were in the Convention declared “ to have excited the disgust of all the respectable part of America.” [The learned counsel here referred to the action of the Convention which framed' .the Constitution in striking out the clause authorizing the emission of bills on the credit of the United States, and in adopting the clause restricting the States from, issuing bills of credit; and especially Mr. Madison’s remark as to the first matter, that it would “cut off the pretext for making them a tender;” to the declaration of the Federalist (No. ■44), and to the debates of the State conventions held to ratify the Constitution. lie also quoted the opinion of tins court in United States v. Marigold, Craig v. Missouri, Ogden v. Saunders, Fox v. Ohio, Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, and also to the strongly-expressed declaration of Mr. Webster. As these authorities are quoted in the opinion of the dissenting justices, they are here omitted.]
To recapitulate:
The Articles of Confederation gave the same power to the Confederation that the Constitution gives to Congress, to coin money and regulate the value thereof. Nevertheless, the Confederation never assumed to make treasury notes a legal tender.
The States did make their own notes a legal tender, and with results which disgusted the people.
Accordingly, when the Convention met that framed the existing Constitution, they struck out of the draft the power emit bills on the credit of the United States, in order, as . Madison says, that it might not be a pretext for declarg such bills a teuder..
They took from the States the power of making anything but gold and silver a tender, and even refused to permit its. exercise with the permission of Congress.
It was declared in every State whose' debates on adopting the Constitution are reported, that paper money was to be-put an end to.
For several years, in the direst needs of the country, Congress not only never asserted any right to make treasury notes a legal tender, but, by the nature of its legislation, has indicated'that it had no power to even materially debase the coin of the republic, or'stamp it with false and arbitrary-values.
Duringthese years this court has spoken of thelegal tender as pernicious, and has pronounced the money power a trust delegated to Congress to maintain a pure metallic standard;
Not only Mr. Madison thought Congress had no power to make paper a tender, but Mr. Webster thought so; and the power has been frequently denied in Congress, and prior to. the law in question never'contended for.
No framer of the Constitution, no judge, no commentator, • is found prior to this law .w.ho claimed any such power for Congress.
With the clause giving it power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, Congress received also power to fix ihe standard of weights and. measures ; and, as the Federalist declared, on like considerations with the previous power ■of 'regulating coin, which considerations, it added, were to provide, for the harmony and proper intercourse among the States. But can Congress fix a standard, and then reduce its pound to eight ounces, its foot tó six inches, its acre to two roods, and thus provide that no man shall collect upon his contracts, and that no one-need pay more than one-half of what was bargained for ? And if Congress cannot do this arbitrarily and by itself, can it regulate the standard of weights and measures, by making sales of licenses which ■would give to the holder, for every dollar paid, a right to abate or increase an ounce, or an inch, or a rod, in every contract of sale he had made? And yet'the right to fix weights and measures is a sovereign right and prerogative, as well as the right to' coin money and regulate the value ■.thereof.
■ VI. This legal tender power was not proper, nor consistent with ¿he letter or spirit of the Constitution, and voas prohibited.
In seeking to show that an auxiliary power, to be implied, must have in itself some particular relation to and fitness for the exercise of the delegated power or powers to which it is claimed to be incident,T have been treating the question as-if these were the only considerations required. But,, ipdeed, that is not all; not only must the auxiliary power ,be appropriate, and plainly adapted to the exercise of the delegated power, but the end rmlst be legitimate, and within the scope of the Constitution as well; and the means.must not merely be appropriate and plainly adapted to such an •end-, but must also be not prohibited.
But the dissenting judges in Hepburn v. Griswold have said that “the argument is too vague for their perception, by which the indirect effect of a great public measure in depreciating the value of lands, stocks, bonds, and other contracts, renders such a.law-invalid as taking private property for public use, or as depriving the owner of it without due process of law.” But in its effects upon the creditor, this provision does not operate indirectly, but directly/ If .the issue of treasury notes, without this prevision, by inflating or depressing prices and values, by making money easy or hard to realize, affected creditors, that would be'a .case in which the evil resulting from the indirect action of a public, measure could not be considered as impairing its authority. But in this case, the power which enabled debtors to discharge pre-existing debts by treasury note promises, instead of real dollars — discharge their debts by paying one-half or three-fourths of the amount due, according to the rate at which treasury notes could be procured — operated not indirectly, but directly on the creditors’ rights; was the sale of a license to let men pay in short measures.
We are told that the government has power when prosecuting a wmr to seize any man’s property, bum any man’s 'barns, raze any man’s house. And so it has when these operations- are necessarily exercised in the course of the actual prosecution of the war. But an officer carrying on war in Carolina lias, therefore, no' authority to raze a house in Illinois; still less to l'aze every house throughout the country. . His authority to destroy is-limited to property immediately necessary to be destroyed in the prosecution of the war; and for the property so taken or destroyed, government- .becomes liable. Government has indeed power to take the property of citizens to carry on war, but it is a constitutional power, to be exercised by government, by taxation, or other method prescribed by the Constitution; not by the sale.of licenses to let one man wrong another. Nor is a wrong the less a wrong because enacted as a part of a great public measure, instead of by private act. Is my property any the less unjustly taken, any the less taken without process of law, because taken by a general law instead of by a special one? Surely the injustice of the act does not depend on the number of persons affected by it. The Constitution did- not declare it should not be lawful to take private property for public use, nor deprive persons of property without compensation, except generally, and by great public acts. On the contrary, it declares it shall not be done at all, nor to any person.
Those judges of this court who concurred in that opinion have presented, as analogous eases, the discharge of the creditors’ claim by a bankrupt court, depreciating the value of his vessels by a declaration of war, reducing the worth of his furnaces or of his mills by a change in the tariff'; and have declared that these measures would be subject, equally with this legal tender provision, to the objection that they arc unconstitutional, as taking private property without compensation. And they would iudced be unconstitutional as coming within this very provision, but fo,r the vital distinction; among othei’3, that they happen, each one of'them, to be expressly authorized by the. Constitution. Can it need argument to, show, the distinction.-between the effect of a general prohibition in au instrumentjipo'n a power expressly authorized, and upon one.only implied? The'people expressly delegated to this government certain powers; among them was the express power to “declare war,” although it would depreciate the value of ships; to “establish a system of bankruptcy,” although it would' discharge the debtor from his liability to his creditor; to “lay and collect, and remit duties and imports,” although they should enhance or diminish the value of furnaces and mills. They delegated, also, to the government the power to “make all laws necessary and proper to carry into execution the granted powers. Amd then to make sure that powers should not be implied beyond those granted which might impair private rights, they added the provision that “no person should be deprived of life or property without due process of law, nor should' private property be taken without just compensation.” Had the Constitution conferred upon Congress the express power .to make treasury notes a legal tender in discharge of preexisting debts, then, I grant that the analogy between the cases suggested and the case of legal tender would have been competent, and I should then no more .be here con- ■ tending that this prohibition against the taking of private property prevented the issue of such notes than I am contending that it prevents a declaration of war, the establishment of a system of bankruptcy, or tbe change of tariff. But it is exactly because the express power given in every one of these instances is wanting in this- instance, and is soughtto be implied, and because it is the settled rule that a power to be implied as an auxiliary to a. delegated power must be “ not prohibited,” that I assert against the implication of the legal tender provision the prohibition which the Constitution imposes.
VII. This law impairs the obligation of contracts.
The court, on the late argument of this question in Hepburn v. Griswold', were all agreed that the legal tender provision did impair the' obligation of pre-existing contracts. But a portion of the court declared that this was not forbidden to Congress, and that; iii some cases, it was expressly authorized.- I am not unmindful of the impression that has prevailed among tbe profession in this respect; and I beg to point out tbe misapprehension I-think has existed as to this.
In the course of a cause tried in 1816, in the Circuit Court in Philadelphia, Mr. Justicé Washington' is reported to have made the interlocutory remark that Congress was ■not restricted from impairing the obligation of contracts. This remark, has been since frequently quoted without either approval or disapproval. It is a singular instance of a casual , observation, passing for years unaffirtned and unchallenged by all the great commentators upon the Constitution. This was said in reference to a grant by the Federal government of a patent foran invention. If it meant that Congress was at liberty to recall its voluntary grant, I shall not dispute it. If it even meant that the government was not compelled to keep its own contracts, I need not dispute it, for government can never he coerced. It can only bé sued according to its own provisions;, and whether it be or be not constitutional for government to extinguish its contracts without fully performing them, it nevertheless remains that the creditor can .in no event recover, anything more than the government chooses he shall have. . The remark does not indeed imply that Congress had any such general power; but only that it was not restricted by any such limitation in the exercise of its particularly granted powers'.
.That the power to -impair.the obligation of contracts is not generally forbidden to Congress in express terms, I admit. It was Unnecessary, upon the theory of the Constitu'tion, to have-so forbidden it. That such power in the case of bankrupts is expressly authorized, and not therefore to be taken as forbidden by the general prohibitions in favor, of. private rights, I also admit. But that it is not. withheld or otherwise forbidden, I deny. It is, except in the authorized cases, indeed forbidden, by the very nature of the instrument, from the fact that it is not authorized. It is forbiddem by those amendments which forbid the infringement of-private rights and property. It is forbiddén by the scheme and object of the instrument, which it. itself declares was “to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty.”
Thirteen States met to form a common government. Before such meeting, and except as tlieu formed, this government had no existence. Certain powers were invested for" the general advantage in the hands of what Marshall, C. J., in McCulloch v. Maryland, called the common agent;" what Daniels, J., in Fox v. Ohio, called the common,arbiter. Such of these powets-as were important to be exercised for the general good, like the power to make war, maintain a navy, enter into treaties, and the like, were conferred on the agent, and were forbidden' to the States; others were left concurrently to both; still others were forbidden to both. Among the power's of the States when they thus met was the power to impair the obligation of contracts; but only within their respective limits. New York had no power to impair contracts in Delaware, but only in New York; nor had Delaware power to impair contracts in New York, but only in Délaware, . Now, the whole .history of the time shows this was regarded as a dangerous power; as a power to be limited even between the States and their own citizens — not to . be extended throughout all. It was, therefore, forbidden to the States. In particular, cases of general concern, the power was expressly granted to the Federal government. But to assume it was otherwise gran ted,-and to imply it, because expressly forbidden to the ¡States and not to the Federal government, is to reverse the whole spirit and purpose of the times;, to turn a restraint’upon a limited evil into permission to make it general. Since then, except in these specific instances, when, before this legal tender law, has Congress claimed to exercise such a power ? lias it ever been suggested that Congress can direct divorces — can authorize a man to discharge a contract for one hundred bushels of wheat by delivering fifty, or fulfil a contract to convey one thousand acres of land by conveying nine hundred? Weal! know it cannot.
Indeed, that Congress has power to impair the obligations-of private contract is absolutely without authority. I find no court that has so decided. On the. contrary, the very- reverse- has been declared by this very court, and other high constitutional authorities.
If Congress possesses, by implication, this power to impair the obligation of contracts, why was anthority to establish a uniform system of bankruptcyexpressly granted to it ?' If Congress took this sovereign power in any ease without express grant, surely it would be in connection with bankruptcies, where it might be regarded in some aspects as a regulation of commerce, and as, indeed, in the interest of ’ creditors generally. As Marshall, C. J., remarked, “the bankrupt law had been said to grow out of the exigencies of commerce, and to be applicable solely to traders.” The Federalist refers to the grant of power_to establish a uniform system of bankruptcy “ as so intimately connected with the regulation of commerce, and so preventive of frauds, that its expediency was not likely to be'drawn into question.” That such a power was. regarded as necessary to be specifically .granted, establishes, I maintain, that the Federal government took by the Constitution, even as it was before the restrictive amendments were added, no geueral power of impairing the obligation of contracts.
Aud when the dissenting judges of this bench declared, in Hepburn v. Griswold, “ that, it is difficult to perceive how it can be in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution to destroy directly th.e creditors’ contract for the sake of the individual debtor, but contrary to its spirit .to affect remotely its value for the safety of the nation,” I answer that in the one case it is in accordance with this spirit, because it is so expressly declared and provided; aud in the other it is not in accordance with it, because it is not provided for at all, but is in violation of its general restrictions,: — a discrimination which, recalling those provisions of the Constitution, I submit it is hot difficult to perceive; difficult, indeed, not to perceive.
This whole question, however, of the power of Congress to impair the obligation of contracts depends upon the other question of what power Congress can take by implication; returns, indeed, to the pivotal question of whether Congress is a body of absolute or limited poyycrs. And here let me remark, that it seems to me very immaterial whether it be considered that it is for Congress to determine what means are necessary and proper to carry into effect the delegated powers, and that its decision is not subject to revision here, or whether it be that this court is the ultimate judge, if it be decided that any means are appropriate to-the exercise of any of the delegated powers which make the government stronger. The one conclusion would relieve Congress from all restraint but that of its own judgment; the other conclusion would relieve it from all but the express limitations of the Constitution. If by the assertion oí"the discretion of Congress it be meant that when the end is legitimate, and within the scope of the Constitution, and a choice of appropriate means exists, Congress is the sole judge of which to select among those means, and that its judgment in such selection is not open to review, I shall not deny it. But to hold that Congress, in selecting the means to carry into effect any of the delegated powers, may select means not authorized, not necessary nor proper, not appropriate nor plainly adapted, and can make them appropriate simply by Us selection of them, is to make the power of Congress generally absolute.
On the other hand, a decision by this court that Congress, in order to raise armies o'r execute any of its enumerated powers, may exercise any other powers that make the government stronger, without regard to the fitness of its measures to such delegated powers; that it may take any power by which strength is gained to execute the delegated power as therefore incidental to those powers — whether really fit or not, and whether coming within the general prohibition of the Constitution or not — is a doctrine which equally makes Congress absolute,.and leaves it — except as to the provisions especially forbidden in the Constitution itself — without chock or limitation ; and makes much'of the great bill of .-rights contained in the amendments of no effect.
It was indeed because, as Strong, J., maintained in. the 'Pennsylvania cases, there might be powers not enumerated-, not even means to execute the delegated powers which might. be claimed as resulting from the Constitution, and which would transcend the limits -intended to be fixed by the Constitution, that the people insisted upon the ameudipent and-inserted their general declaration, which properly, as I’ maintain, prevents Congress from taking, by implication, any power to deprive persons of property'without process of law.
What do the amendments to the Constitution provide ? Not particularly that Congress shall not impair the obligations-of contracts; not particularly that it shall not intervene to declare what shall be a legal tender in discharge of pre-'' existing debts.between citizens of any .State; but they .provide that private property, shall not be. taken for public use without just compensation, nor auy person be deprived of property without due process of law. But this, legal tender clause takes, the creditor’s property to the-.exteut of one portion of his right of action; takes it,No be sure, not directly to the public use, but, as asserted, takes, it because of the public necessities, and gives it to the debtor; equally takes it'from the creditor, and takes it from him -without any compensation.' So, too, this legal-tender clause deprives the creditor of his property to the extent of one portion of his debt, of his chose in action, withoht 'due, or any, process of law.* By what authority is this done? Not by the express authority of the Constitution; for that is not pretended. Not surely by. its implied authority'; for authority'to Be implied must be “ not prohibited, within the scope of the Constitution, consistent with its letter and spirit.” But this act which thus strips the. creditor of -his-property without pro-' cess of law is absolutely prohibited. It establishes injustice, and cannot therefore be consistent with the letter of the Constitution; establishes injustice, and therefore is flatly opposed to its whole scope and purpose — cannot therefore , possibly be implied.
Now as to the second proposition, as to which the court’ has directed argument — that is, the effect of this legal tender provision of the law upon subsequent transactions.
It is to be observed that the Constitution contains nothing whatever in rospect to tender except that it limits the States against making anything but gold and silver coin a.tender in payment of debts. But whether the tender ff r debts should, be of gold or silver, and of which of the coins of either or both, it is left with the States to declare. No limitation as to the class of coin§ which might be adopted, for that purpose was imposed. Indeed, at that time our decimal system was not established. No such coins as those we use existed, and various descriptions of coin and methods-of account prevailed in all the States. Congress early established a decimal system, and, under its power of coining money and regulating the value thereof, coined moneys according to that system, with the dollar as the unit of account and coinage, and regulated' the relative value of different foreign coins with the dollar by weight. The dollar thus coined thereupon became, cz necessilaie, even without any express law, a lawful'tender, for contracts calling for such dollars, just as wheat, and wheat only, is a lawful tender for a contract for wheat, aud wine for a contract for wine, since it alone complies .with and satisfies the contract. The States having made no other coins a tender in payment of debts, and having all adopted-the Federal system of account and reckoning, the dollar has thus remained not only the universal tender, in payment of such debts, but has become also the universal unit of calculation, upon ivhich all damages are estimated and all recoveries of money are made. Subsequently the government issued its notes, also called dollars, and they went into universal circulation. Of course, contracts calling either expressly or by implication for these treasury-note dollars are satisfied and discharged by the pay- ' meat of the requisite number of them; and this because they meet and satisfy the contract — are what the contract requires. Sovereigns would not satisfy such a contract; neither' would they satisfy a contract for specie dollars; nor would any description of dollars satisfy a contract for sovereigns. "When, therefore, a man has a contract upon which dollars " are due,-the first question must be, what description of. dollars is meant by it? If these treasury-note dollars, then the stipulated number of them will" satisfy the contract, and will satisfy it equally whether such notes be or be not a lawful “ tender in payment of debts,” unless, indeed, these treasury notes are wholly unauthorized and invalid.
If it were an open question, I should be disposed to think that Congress had no power to issue bills of credit. Looking at the history of the times; at the action of the Convention which framed the Constitution; at the declarations of the men who participated in that Conve.ufion; at the general opinion throughout the States-when the Constitution was" first considered, it does certainly seem, to have been intended that 'no power of issuing paper money, should be given to Congress at all. None the less, the power to borrow money does embrace the power to issue obligations for the money borrowed, and can, perhaps, be taken of itself to sustain the issue by the government of its bills of credit. The power was regarded as existing by many very, early in the history of the government, and in 1812 the government did put out its treasury notes, which circulated as money, although not declared a legal .tender. This course of action was repeated in 1837, 1842, 1861, and has been .continued and sustained by this court. So that whatever might have been originally . the proper determination of that question, it is now too late to assume that the Federal government does not possess the power to issue bills of credit, and that they are not valid. Being- valid, they will of coufse lawfully discharge any contract made expressly payable in them-; and any contract which, although not so particularly expressed, now implies that it is made payable in them. That is, any contract simply expressed in “ dollars,” which is the term which now distinguishes these notes from coined, or, as they are generally styled, specie dollars. So, too, when the courts come to allow recoveries upon contracts calling for treasury-note dollars, they can give judgment for their payment, and this, whether the}’ be or not the tender in payment of debts authorized by the Constitution, just as the court can enter a decree for hay on a contract for |my. Whether, therefore, those treasury notes are a lawful tender in payment of debts in the sense of the Constitution, ,or not, it is nevertheless true that they are, and may properly continue, a medium'of exchange; and that contracts can be met by and recoveries had in them.
Nevertheless-, when tho courts come to turn contracts and claims into judgment debts; when they come to assess damages, and allow recoveries for wrongs, the question remains, can they do so in this treasury-note dollar; or, is it no lawful money for such purposes, and must the court make their calculations, allow their damages, and stat’ePtheir judgments in the coin of the country as the only authorized constitutional standard of value?
My ox has keen converted. Its value is $100 specie or $110 treasury-note dollars. A recovery by me of the given amount of cither of those dollars would ho just, and make me whole. And it may not, therefore, seem of much public importance whether recoveries in law should be had and reckonings made in specie dollars, as customary on the Pacific coast (where they quoted “ greenbacks” at -a discount), or in treasury-note dollars, as on tho Atlantic side (where specie is quoted at a premium). And yet, can anything be of greater public irhportanc'e than to have the value of every transaction measured by a certain, instead of a fluctuating standard ?
Nevertheless, whatever its importance, the question of power in Congress to make these notes a tender in payment of debts remains.
If Congress has such power, where is it granted? To what delegated power can it properly bo regarded as auxiliary? I can find none. It is true that making these note? a, legal tender for subsequent transactions does not impair private rights, as it must if they be regarded a tender for preexisting debts. The presumption against the power is not, therefore, so strong in the former as in.the latter case, and yet the question of power remains. Where was it conferred upon Congress? I repeat, I cannot find that it has been conferred at all. The power given Congress'by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof, and of • foreign coins, and to provide for punishing the counterfeiting of the securities and current coin of the United States; the analogous power given it to fix the standard of weights •and measures; and the restriction upon the power of the States against making anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, all combine to establish that the government has no power to make any legal tender whatever except the coin that. it strikes. The action of the Con- - vention which framed the' Constitution,' the discussion by which it was recommended to the people, the debates in the State conventions, by which it was adopted, and the whole record of the times combine also to establish that the power to make bills of credit a tender was not intended to be given to the Federal government jit all; but that, on the contrary, it was intended, aud believed to be wholly beyond the power of either States or Union. Story says in his Commentaries :
“The prohibition to ‘emit bills of credit’ cannot, perhaps, be . more forcibly vindicated than by quoting the glowing language of the Federalist — a language justified by that of almost every contemporary writer, and attested in its truth by facts from which the mind involuntarily turns .away at once with disgust and indignation.”
This prohibition, as we have1 seen, met the warmest approbation of the Federalist, aiid was evidently considered . by the author to prevent all legal tender paper aud all substitutes for coin. The Federalist further declared that: •
“The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changos and legislative interferences in cases affecting personal rights became jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more industrious and less-informed part of the community. They have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but tho first link in a long chain of repetitions, every subsequent interference being naturally provoked by the effects of the preceding. They very rightly infer, therefore, that some thorough reform is wanting, which will banish speculations on public measures, inspire a general prudence and industry, and give a regular course to the business of society.”
In Craig v. The State of Missouri Marshall; C. J., said, speaking of paper motiey :
“Such a medium has been always liable to considerable fluctuation. Its value is continually changing; and these changes, often great and sudden, expose individuals to immense loss; are the sources of ruinous speculations, and destroy all confidence between man and man. To cutup this mischief by the roots — a mischief which was felt through the United States, and which deeply affected the interest and, prosperity of'all — tho people declared in their Constitution that no State should emit bills of credit.”
And so Judge Washington in Ogden v. Saunders:
“This policy was„to provide a fixed and uniform standard of value throughout the United States, by which tho commercial and other dealings between tho citizens thereof, or between them and foreigners, as well as the moneyed transactions of tho government, shall bo regulated. And why establish a standard at all for the government of the various contracts which might bo entered into, if those contracts might afterward be discharged by a different standard, or- by that which is not money?”
- Why was the power1 of fixing the standard of weights and measures given to Congress but to enable it to fix a general and, uniform standard of weights and measures ? Why was the power of coining money and regulating the value thereof, aud of foreign coin, given to Congress, except to enable it to provide a fixed and uniform standard of value ? And yet you cannot have a measure of weights that have no weight, nor a standard of measure without length. 'Ilow, then, can you have a uniform standard of value without value? A substance that constantly fluctuated in weight, or that would not weigh — like gas — could not be made a standard of height. An elastic and variable measure could not properly be made the standard of measures. How, théreforo, can Congress, under this power'to establish a uniform system of coinage and values, select as the standard of value, not a coin at all, but a fluctuating and changeable unit; not even a thing at all, but only the promise of a thing? This power of coining money was iutrusted to Congress, and restrictions ay ere put upon the States, in order to secure “ uniformity of value, and to preclude a fluctuating and variable currency.” The people, when called upon to sacrifice their right to issue bills of credit, and make anything but.gold and silver a tender, did so for the same end. This court has never spoken of the poAver of Congress except as a trust to maintain the uniformity and purity of the standard of value. Under that trust, and that alone, Congress seeks to establish a standard of value, neither pure nor uniform. On the contrary, a standard without any intrinsic .value Avhatevor;.forever fluctuating and uncertain, and affecting with those qualities all transactions in itdn arithmetical proportion to their magnitude — a standard which, instead of affording certainty and uniformity of value, invites forever .to uneertaint}’, to speculation, and extravagance. This is not Avbat .the Constitution granted to Congress. It is exactly what it forbade to the States — exactly what the Avise men who framed this government never intended either State or Federal government should possess, and what no statesman from the foundation of the government to the introduction of this law had ever claimed for it.
The question before the court is no mere question for today, Avheu the íavo currencies are nearly equivalent in value, but it is a question whether this supreme tribunal will establish, as the permanent standard for the dealings, values, and engagements of this great'nation, something without intrinsic value at all — a forever fluctuating and uncertain unit.
The importance of the question is that its decision depends upon, and must determine, the powers of Congress in respect of private rights. For if Congress may impair the obligation of contracts in this respect,'it may in other respects': and the obligation of contracts is among the most important subject as to which Congress can legislate. It is, as Chief Justice Marshall well said, a power which comes ’home to every man; touches the interest and controls the credit of all. What was true in that regard at the founda-' tion of the government, when the fathers saw the importance of limiting such' power, is vastly more true now, when our property is so extensively represented in notes, bills, bonds, coupons, mortgages, and other money obligations.
The decision by this court that Congress can use the legal tender provision as a means to any delegated power, leaves' Congress as much at liberty to use it as an auxiliary to borrowing money, or to regulating commerce, as to levying war. It will,thus be, that whenever the great corporate and moneyed interests of the country wish to wrong their creditors, they will create a necessity which shall compel the issue-of those notes; while, whenever the creditors would wrong; the debtors, they will struggle to repeal the law making these notes a tender. It was the feeling created by the decision that such notes would not be legal tender for preexisting debts which,,more than anything, I think, tended to deter the lower House of the last Congress from passing a bill to increase their issue.
Who can deny that a whole community is being demoralized, as under such a system of paper money communities everywhere and at all times have been demoralized?' Who can deny that men will, do now what they would have shrunk from ten years ago, before this system existed-?' When the wicked prosper, other men make haste to do like wise. And now, not from the cities only, but from every part, men seek-the great marts to try'their fortune in the ventures of the hour, hoping to gather where they have not strewn. Gambling in stocks, with the dangerous combinations it invites, and the corruption which it encourages, has-become general; so that it is deemed venial to artificially inflate or depress prices, to create fictitious values by forced scarceness, or undue depression by combined attacks. And whatever danger may come to the public debt of this great country, will come, not from the unwillingness of the people to pay; not from their want of ability to pay ; but will come, if it shall come at all, from the recklessness of a people carrying out their schemes upon the waves of an inflated currency, and from the demoralization which such speculations produces. How can it be expected that this people will make the sacrifices necessary to enable their government to keep its pledged faith, when it has not only failed to keep its own faith with its creditors, but has filled its coffers from the sale of licénses to men to wrong each other by short payments, and has made haste to ratify, by the decision of its supreme tribunal, the constitutionality ánd righteousness of such a course ?
It-is said that the.course of action and decisions, since this law was passed, has been favorable to its validity. To the action of Congress, in this respect, I do not attach weight. There were various opinions in Congress as to its power, and the time was -one of doubt and danger, illy suited to the consideration of that question. As Mr. Goiiverueur Morris :said., in his famous letter to Mr. Pickering, “ The legislative ■ lion will never be confined in the meshes of a logical net.” And legislators will always find it in. their consciences to consider that measure constitutional which they wish to adopt.
As to the decisions of the State courts, though the majority ■were in favor of the law — only Kentucky and Indiana being adverse — they were almost all by divided courts, and in all there were indications that these decisions were given doubtfully, and,in view of the existing crisis, and with the feeling that the ultimate determination of the question* of power should, under the circumstances, be left to this tribunal.
There was, however, a decision on this subject'in Rhode Island, in 1786, in the ease of Trevitt v. Weldon, That State had issued bills of credit and made them a tender, and lixed a penalty for refusing to receive them at their nominal value.Mr. Weldon refused, and was prosecuted for the penalty, ajid the Rhode Island court held the legal tender provision unauthorized on the same general principles which were declared by this court in Wikinson v. Leland, also from that State. And for that-decision, the judges lost their office.
This court rather avoided the consideration of the question until forced upon it after the determination of the Kentucky Court of Appeals in Griswold v. Hepburn. When, however, that case had been argued and submitted here, the court, at the suggestion of the government, ordered it to stand over to be reheai’d, when counsel, than whom there were none more eminent iu the country, were heard in'favor of the validity of the provision. After which the court, being then a full court, held the case under advisement, until, in February, 1870, when it decided that the law was invalid iu respect of pre-existing debts.
Here let me remark that I think Judge Grier was right, in the view he took of the act, as not applying to precedent contracts. I see no principle of construction by which this , statute — if it be considered that Congress has the constitutional power to issue notes which shall be a legal tender in discharge of pre-existing debts — should be held to embrace such debts. The law contains no necessary expression of the kind. True, it provides-that the notes shall be a tender for all debts except customs and bonded interest. Thiswas, however, a distinction necessary for subsequent debts. Iu- ' deed, since.there were relatively few debts due for customs or bonded interest at the time of the passage of this act, this dis-. .tinction would rather indicate that it was meant to apply only to subsequent debts. Rut surely, if the power to impair private rights is not to be taken to exist without very strong and direct expression, where it does exist, it should not be presumed that the legislature intended to exercise it without like clear and positive expression.
1 shall say nothing to this high tribunal as to the general importance to courts of justice of the maxim of stare decisis. Those judges who have been longest here know best how carefully and wisely it has adhered to that maxim.
It has been urged upon the court to review the legal tender question in these-eases, in order to settle the law as to the abstract power of Congress to make treasury notes a legal tender in discharge of pre-existing debts. But how can the court thus settle the question? Should you affirm the former decision, yon would indeed settle it; but should you overrule that decision without change in the opinions of the justices who have heretofore passed upon the question,, how then will you have settled it? What can then result but to leave this question open for the future, and destroy the consistency and influence of-the court?
. It is the high and peculiar function of this supreme tribunal that it has not merely to determine questions of right between private parties, but even to pronounce upon the validity of the laws themselves. And why Was this momentous and delicate duty committed to this great court by the people but for the belief that by its wise and independent judgments, those disputes as to the powers of government, which, under a limited government, based upon a written compact, must unavoidably arise,-would be likely to be most wisely and certainly settled? Now, whatever importance there may be in the doctrine of stare decisis in the determination of questions of private rights, it is to a tribunal charged with the determination of the limits of the power of government that certainty and consistency are absolutely essential. For more than seventy years this supreme tribunal, by the high character and learning of its members, by its rare and practical wisdom, and, above all, by its uniform, cautious, and consistent course, has so secured the respect and coufldeuce of this people as to be able, in the stormiest times, to successfully establish the limits upon the rights, and powers of the States and of the General government. To now, for the first time in its history, so gratuitously and needlessly review an abstract constitutional question so solemnly decided ; to review it, not because of changes or doubts on the part of those who shared in the decision, but through a change in the. composition of the court, is to divert the regard of the people from the court itself to the personnel of those who compose it; aud would, aq it seems to me, he in effect to abdicate the highest function with which your honors aré intrusted. • For men cannot be expected to submit their views of the powers of government to the construction of this tribunal when they once learn that, after a construction has been most solemnly established, they can change that construction by changing tlie persons who corn p'ose the tribunal.
Those of us who, in the words of the late Thaddeus Stevens, “believe, as all should believe, that the judiciary is the most important department of the government, and that great, wise, and pure judges are the chief bulwark of the lives, liberty, and rights of the people,” will then, indeed, have reason to fear that the court, in reviewing this question, will, so far from having actually and fiually settled the principle of constitutional law involved, the rather have unsettled it; and, in so unsettling it, have unsettled also the grounds for the confidence- and submission of this people under the determination by this tribunal of constitutional questions.
Mr. Akerman, Attorney-General, contra;
Two questions are submitted. The first, as the chief one, will be chiefly considered. If that is decided affirmatively tire second must be so answered also.
According to the uniform custom, when the powers of Congress are questioned/the court is told that ours is- a limited government, and that Congress has no powers but what are derived from the Constitution. In the words of the vexed patriarch, “Who knoweth not such things as these ?” Of course the court will not sustain the legislation in question, Unless it finds authority for it iii the Constitution, either expressly given or fairly implied.
It would be wonderful that a government formed in modern times and for a commercial people, and in large measure the offspring of commercial wants, should not be provided with all the powers on the subject of money — that indispensable instrument of commerce — which have beeii possessed by the .governments of other commercial nations. The world’s experience did not fall into barren soil when it was cast by history into the minds of the men who framed the Constitution of the United States. Many of them were well versed in financial' history. All of them had seen their country undergo a memorable financial experience. Thus instructed, they went to their work. They gave to Congress express powers on the subject of money. They laid Congress under no express restrictions on the subject of money. The only restrictions which they imposed in this matter were upon the States. They are in these words:
“No State shall- mak'o anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.”
From this clause — the only place in the Constitution whero'tender is named — a mind guided by the rules of strict construction, and jealous of national power, might derive the doctrine that the right to prescribe a legal tender is in the States only. This doctrine would have a stronger foundation iii the letter of the Constitution than- most of the propositions which are seriously put forth against the validity of the legal tender act. But it has no advocates; at least none whose views deserve consideration in this court. It would encounter invincible reasoning, fortified by the practice of the government 'from a very early date. Congress has never hesitated to enact what should be a legal tender iit payment of debts. The right thus-to enact has been assumed iu twenty-four statutes, passed iu the presidencies of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Tyler, Polk, Fillmore, Pierce, Lincoln, and Johnson.
Before the act now in question the authorized tenders were all iu metallic coin ; but under modifications iir purity and value, according to the pleasure of Congress.' Debts contracted when money was of a certain degree of purity, have been made dischargeable in money of the same nominal value, but of less purity, and.therefore of less intrinsic value. Counsel oil the other side has attempted to show that this statement, which has often been made in discussions of this subject, is not correct. He goes into an analysis of the statutes, and while he admits that coins of certain denominations have been debased, he affirms that-the quautity of pure silver iu the dollar coin has remained unchanged. This fact, if demonstrated, does not answer his end. It does not disprove that a man who lent ten eagles at one time might afterwards, by the force of au intervening act of Congress, be compelled to take in satisfaction of the principal of that loan teii eagles of 6 per cent, less intrinsic value: This legislation assumes that, iu contemplation of law, money of every species has the value which the law fixes on it; that Congress has the constitutional power to say that 10 pennyweights of silver shall henceforth be the dollar, and do the office hitherto done by 17 pennyweights and 4| grains.
We have been told that the practice thus established is not pertinent to the present argument: First, because the extent of debasement .has been small.. Secondly.. Because the currency with which these liberties were taken remained, metallic through all the changes.'
The right to debase cannot- depend, on the extent of the debasement. If. the right exists, it is bounded only by the pleasure of Congress. In this matter questions of constitutional right are not questions of more or less. Congress at oue time has said that a gold coin of a certain weight and fineness.shall be worth ten silver dollars, and a legal tender for that sum. Congress has afterwards said that a coin containing less of gold shall be worth ten silver dollars, and a legal tender for that sum. The power to make this debasement to the extent of 6 per cent., and to give to the debased coin the quality of a legal tender for preeontracted.debts, involves the power to carry the debasement to the extent of 60 per cent., and to give the same qualify to the coin thus debased. And it is difficult to see the difference in constitutional prin-. ciplo when the article on which a legal value is fixed, and which is’made a legal tender, is the nation’s paper promise to pay, now worth in the market over nine-tenths of its legal value in coin, and certain, if the nation keeps its faith, to be ultimately worth its par in coin.
Some men appear to consider that there is a peculiar constitutional virtue in metal, whether gold, silver,'nickel, or copper. According to them, what is a crime against the Constitution, if done in paper, may be innocently done in metal. The obligation of contracts may be impaired, in metal. The dictates of justice may be disobeyed, in metal. A man may be lawfully compelled to take, in metal* a fraction in value of what he contracted for., Tlic scope for the discretion of Congress is unlimited within the metallic field. That sensitive being, always invoked in such discussions, whom they denominate “ the spirit of the Constitution,” though enraged by the rustle of paper, is lulled to repose by the clink of metal, however base.
The Constitution nowhere declares that nothing shall be money unless made of metal. Congress has enacted that these treasury notes shall be lawful money. Nobody questions here the power to issue them and to give them some of the qualities of money. This power has been expressly admitted by this court. With certain exceptions, they are receivable for all dues to the government, and payable for all dues from the government, old and new. The largest creditor in the land, the government, is bound to take them. The largest debtor in the land, the government, pays in them. The creditors of the United States (except holders of bonds and of interest-bearing nptes) must take them or nothing. Nobody maintains that they are not “ money” in the sense in which that word is used in some places in the Constitution. “No appropriation of money” [to the use of raising and supporting armies] “shall be for a longer' term than two years.” This provision would certainly be violated by an appropriation of treasury notes to the support of the army for three years. “No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” Treasury notes could not be drawn from the treasury without such appropriation. The regular statement “of the receipts and expenditures of all public money,” which the same section requires to he published from time to time, would be incomplete if treasury notes were left out.
These notes, then, are money, for most purposes, between ■ the government and the citizen. It is argued, however, that they are not money between citizen and citizen for all the purposes for which Congress has made them such; that though Mr. Davis (a party now before the court) might be allowed by Congress to discharge a debt to the government contracted in 1857 with treasury notes, he cannot be allowed by Congress to discharge a debt of the same date to Mr. Parker with the-same-currency; that a debt which he owes to the collective American people is less sacred than a debt which he owes to one of them. Hence, it follows, from the reasoning of opposing counsel, that what' can be made money, in the constitutional sense of the word, for some purposes, cannot be made money for other purposes. The singularity of the conclusion suggests that there must be a fallacy in the logic.
The súpporters of the legal tender provision are called on to show the authority for it in the Constitution. To this call difierent responses have been made.
Some have found the authority in the power to coin-money and regulate its value. They think that the word “coin” is here used iii the large sense — to make, to fabricate; and the meaning of the word “ money” is not limited to metallic coinage, but extends to everything which had been in general use as money, or which may answer the purposes of money — a definition which will embrace a government’s promises to pay, of a form and denomination designed for circulation as currency. They maintain that-an article may be money for some uses or for all, at the will of the power that creates it; that, one sort of money'may be-good to pay duties on imports and another to pay for public lands; fhat one sort may be a legal tender for all debts and another for debtsmf a certain kind or amount, as Congress may determine. Probably this view was in the mind of Congress when th.e act of 1862 was framed, and suggested . the words, “ shall be lawful money.” Perhaps it was in the mind of tho statesman who then had charge of the national finances, who issued the legal tender notes, and who after-wards, im vindicating this policy before the people, said: “Under these circumstances I coined the credit of the nation.”
But. this, derivation of the required power, though supported by strong reason and' respectable authority, has received less-of professional and judicial favor than the derivation from the power “to- make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution.all powers ' vested by. the Constitution iii the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.”
Aniong the admitted powers which the act-in question is -believed to aid in executing, are the powers of borrowing money on the credit of the United States, of declaring war, of suppressing''’‘insurrection, of raising and supporting armies, and_of providing and maintaining a navy. The power to borrow money carnes with it the power to give to -the leqder an evidence of the debt thus created, and to strengthen the loan with incidents and adjuncts making it the more attractive in the.market. And it is'one of these incidents that the evidences of the debt shall perform the offices of money between government and citizen, and between man and man.
Counsel on the other side has insisted that the value of treasury notes is' not increased by the circumstance that they are legal tender. One might as well say that a com- ■ modify is not increased in value by the opening of a new .market for it: The. more uses there are for an article, the greater is its value. A bank whose notes are in demand for many .purposes is (other-things being eq'ual) in better credit than one whose notes will do fewer services to the holder. The credit of the United States is better when its promises will pay debts than when they will not. At least such was the judgment of Congress, from whose judgment on questions of expediency there is no appeal to the judiciary.
Whenever the extent of “ the auxiliary powers ” of Congress is in controversy, those who take the most restricted view are in the habit of quoting the following paragraph from Marshall, C. J., in McCulloch v. The State of Maryland:
■ “ Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the. Constitution, and all the means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but are consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional.”
It'is assumed, rather inconsiderately, that Marshall, C. J., held all means not coming within this description to be unconstitutional. . Such is not the fact. In United States v. Fisher, his language was, “ any means which are, in fact, conducive to the exercise of a power granted by the Constitution.” In another, part of the opinion in the case of McCulloch v. The State of Maryland, his language -was, “ any means calculated to produce the end.” These words are less restrictive than the first quotation.
Returning to that quotation, let us apply the rule there laid down to the matter in hand. It has not been denied here that the ends for which this currency was issued,, and' for which it was made a legal tender, were legitimate and within the scope of the Constitution. Insurrection could notbe.suppressed, armies could not be raised and supported, and a navy could not be provided’and maintained, without a currency. This court has’pronounced it within the undisputed power of Congress to provide a currency for the country consisting largely of treasury notes. There is no pretenee that the means in question are prohibited.
• But it is affirmed with confidence that the means are not consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution. The means consist in the issue of the notes as a currency and in the imparting to them the faculties^of paying dues to and from the government, aud of legal tender. If it is consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution to issue these notes as a currency, to protect therii against a rival currency (which.is held to be authorized in the case of the Yeazie Bank), and to give them many of the ordinary faculties of money, it is difficult to see how the letter aud spirit of the Constitution are violated when another of those’ faculties is given to them.
The opponents of the power which we maintain lay most stress upon that part of C.- J. Marshall’s definition of the allowable means which describes them as “ appropriate and plaiuly adapted to the end,” .That the issuing of a paper currency on the credit of. the United States was an .appropriate and plainly adapted’ means of maintaining the government during the insurrection is hot questioned. That this currency should, by law, be made to do 'most of the offices of money, even as the term “ money” is used in the Constitution, seems to be of admitted constitutionality.' But to go a step further, and to complete the investiture of .this currency with the attributes of money, our friends on.the other side think carries us.beyond the region of “appropriate and plainly - adapted means.” Soliciting a judicial opinion adverse to that of the legislature on-a-question of appropriateness and adaptation of .moans, they go into financial discussion, aud argue that the usefulness of the treasury notes was not increased by making them a. legal tender. So the question of constitutionality, in their view, is to be determined by tbe agreement or disagreement of the court with tbe legislature in opinioh upon finance, a subject on which meu differ as much- as on theology. This view has been pressed in the thorough argument to which we have listened, with an earnestness that perrnits.no doubt that it-is seriously taken.
But unless the court is prepared to say that the..means cannot, in good faith, be supposed by Congress to have any adaptation to the proposed end, it cannot pronounce them unconstitutional. Tbe individual judgment of judges in regard to their expediency should not be substituted for that of Congress. This court cannot say that the means now in question lay without tbe field of examination when tbe instrumentalities to the desired end were to be chosen. This admitted, the privilege of selection is with Congress. Within that field Congress is supreme. This court, may consider the question of congressional power, but not the question of congressional wisdom. If Congress may issue a currency as an appropriate means to lawful ends, it may, in its discretion, give to that currency few, many, or all of the faculties of money.
The main objection to this mode of reasoning is that it goes very far. So it does. It leads to the conclusion that Congress has a. great deal of power. A government without power is contemptible. Tbe men who made this government intended that it should have strength enough to maintain its own existence, and to accomplish the ends for which it was made. The mainspring of a government is in the department that makes the laws, and-there the Constitution has wisely reposed power sufficient for national exigencies. In relation to money and contracts, the Constitution is.jealous of the States, but shows no jealousy of Congress. Power in Congress is as little liable to abuse as power elsewhere. Of course, there is a possibility of abuse in the imperfection of man; and an argument against a claimed power, on the ground of this possibility, is an argument against all government. Every legislature, state or national, can do infinite harm by abusing its trust, and yet keep within its constitu tional limits. Congress, at any session, if disposed to mischief, could reduce the country to misery by the exercise of express and undoubted powers. It could declaré pernicious wars. It could impose oppressive taxes. But these great powers have never been exercised to the country’s ruin. We have had, and I hope we shall continue to have, sufficient safeguards in the character and accountability of the members and their identity in interest with the people on whom their laws bear. The same safeguards stand against the abuse of the auxiliary powers.
The counsel on the other side says that now, after nine years’ experience in war and peace, it is manifest that-there was no necessity for giving to the treasury notes the faculty of legal tender. Without admitting that such is the lesson of this experience, I must deny that the constitutionality of an act of Congress can be determined by events subsequent ■to its passage. A sta-tute which is constitutional if it shall work well, and unconstitutidnal if it shall work ill,"would be' a "novelty in legislation. The counsel probably meant to lay down no such rule. Yet this part of his argument is baseless without such a rule. This question ought to be decided now as it would have been decided in 1862. The Constitution is not variable. Where Congress has a choice of means, the validity of its action cannot be affected by the correctness or incorrectness of its judgment in choosing.
Opposing counsel quotes the felicitous expression of Mr." Clay, that “ the principal and the incidental power ought to be congenial to each other.” This doctrine contravenes no part of our argument. There is a kinship between the coining of money and the making of that money a legal tender. There is a kinship between the borrowing of money andthe issuing of a currency made valuable by being invested with all the faculties, of money, in evidence of that borrowing, There is a kinship between supporting armies and paying the soldiers in a valuable currency. And so' on, through the long list of good services which this -currency has performed, the congeniality required by Mr. Clay is abundantly manifest.
Mr. Webster is also quoted by tbe counsel on the other side, and it is true that he expressed himself very emphatically against the power of Congress to make paper a legal, tender. Admitting that great respect is due ,to the opinion of that eminent but not infallible man, I am at' liberty to suggest that the authors of the act in question had an experience in public necessities which was wanting to him, and. that his inexorable proposition that there can be no legal tender in this country but gold and silver is clearly wrong. This proposition would forbid the use in coinage.of a metal' .better adapted than gold or silver to the purposes of coinage, should such a metal be discovered. We may not know all that is in the bowels of the earth. The discovery of such a metal would.not'be stranger than the discovery of the gold fields of California.
The counsel quotes from the debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 to show that members of that body were opposed to making paper a legal tender. The very- quota- • tions prove that the members considered that'the power to-emit bills of credit involved the power to make them a legal tender,- and hence they struck but of. the draft of the Constitution the power to emit bills. But it is no uncommon experience that the words of a constitution or statute are found, in their fairest interpretation, to import more than their authors distinctly designed. It is not given to man, when framing a constitution, to foresee all the cases to which the conferred powers will properly extend. And in this very matter, notwithstanding that the power to emit bills of credit was struck out, this court has held that the power exists; and why,-then, does it not exist with all that in 1787 was supposed to belong to it?
The counsel says that not much inconvenience wn'll be caused to debtors by holding the legal tender act invalid, because'most of the debts existing in 1862 have been already paid in treasury notes. This is, in effect, to say to those creditors who trusted the government in dark, hours, that they were tho victims of a foolish confidence; to declare that, in future national embarrassments, the most selfish men will come out best. The decision which he desires will favor the churls and disfavor the patriots.
It has. been urged also that the decision in Hepburn v. Griswold should be held final under the doctrine of res adjudicata, independently7 of the merits of that decision. But cir-' cumstances, the absence of a court as large as now, lessened the force of that decision, and induced a great portion of the legal profession to desire a reconsideration of the ques:tion. Moreover in that case the question of the validity of the legal tender act, as to debts contracted after its passage, was not decided, and a discussion of this question involves the whole subject. Indeed this doctrine of res adjudicata is against the position of opposing counsel, inasmuch as the court, by ordering the present argument, has adjudged that the question is still ,opeu.
On the first of May, 1871, judgment in both the cases, as already mentioned in 11th Wallace, p. 682, was affirmed; the CHIEF JUSTICE, with NELSON, CLIFFORD, and FIELD, JJ., dissenting.
On the 15th January,-1872, — till which time, in order to promote the •convenience of .some of the dissentient members of the court, the matter had been deferred, — the'opinion of the court, with concurring or dissenting opinions from the Chief Justice and different Associate Justices, was delivered.
12 Stat. at Large, 845, 532, 709. For the form of the notes mentioned in the text, see Bank v. Supervisors (7 Wallace, 26) j and for the exact language of the acts, see Lane County v. Oregon (Ib. 74), and Hepburn v. Griswold (8 Id.), 605.
6 Wallace, 13.
8 Id. 604.
7 Wallace, 700.
8 Wallace, 606.
7 Id.
2 Duvall, 63.
Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Peters, 332.
Ib. 348.
3 Madison Papers, p. 1345.
Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution, § 1360.
Bríscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Peter's, 318.
Metropolitan Bank v. Van Dyke, 27 New York, 425, 426.
Ilandolph’s'Jefferson, vol. 1, 395-6; Jefferson’s paper on coinage, in the Appendix to his worhs.
Chap. 16; vol. 1, 1, Stat. at Large, 246-9.
Congressional Debates, 6th Feb., 1823, p. 859.
. Ib., June, 1834, p. 4654.
Chap. 95; Daws 1834, 4 Stat. at Large, p. 699.
Congressional Debate's, June 21, 1834.
1 Benton’s Thirty Years, p. 469.
Congressional Debates, June 21, 1834, pp. 4650, 4652-3.
Congressional Debates, June, 1834, pp. 4643-4671.
Chap. 96, 4 Stat. at Large, 700.
Chap. 3, 5 Stat. at Large, p. 136-7, § 8.
Vide New Turk Tribune, and other journals.
Edelmnn’s Bullion Dealers' Guide, pp. 14, 15; 9 Stat. at Large, p. 591; 10 Id. p. 160.
Report as to the Mint, Congressional Debates, February, 1823, p. 8Ó4
Notwithstanding the true facts' of the case, so little have they been rightly understood, that‘we find an article in that excellent journal, the American Law Register, as late as February, 1871 (vol. 19, p. 91), still asserting in the course of a review of Hepburn v. Griswold, and other decisions of this court, in legal tender cases reported in 7th and 8th Wallace, that the power of Congress to make dollars of a greater or of a less value had been exercised in various instances; and that “in 1834, 6 per cent., was taken from the weight and value of the gold dollar, and the holders of all debts subjected to a corresponding loss;” that “in 183.7 and 1853, the half-dollar and smaller similar coin underwent a similar reduction.” Yet this is all a mistake, except as to the fractions of a dollar coined únder-the act of 1853.
8 Wallace, 631.
4 Wheaton, 421.
See dissenting opinion in Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wallace, 632, 3.
Chap. 38, Laws George III, 41 Pickering’s Statutes at Large, 523,
Encyclopsedia Britannica, title, Money. In 1811, it was made penal in England to buy coin at a premium, or to sell notes of the bank,at a discount; and tender of notes of the bank 'stopped distress for rent, and payment in them satisfied executions (]ike the bills of the Bank of Kentucky, Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Peters, 315). But this law continued in force only till March, 1814, and was, in effect’, a “ stay-law,” as the notes of the bank were at no time made a legal tender so as to discharge debts or to release securities.
52 Pennsylvania State (2 P. F. Smith), 9.
1 Congressional Debates, 1940; et seq., Feb. 3-8, 1791.
See Legal Tender Cases, 52 Pennsylvania State (2 P. F. Smith), 9.
Federalist, 88.
1 Annals of Congress, p. 1898.
It may be here stated' that the appropriateness of the bank as a fiscal agent to enable tho government to borrow money, collect taxes, and the like, although not now so apparent, seems at the time of tho decision in McCulloch v. Maryland to have been generally conceded. But whether, notwithstanding that appropriateness, it was an authorized means, was most severely contested, since government could borrow money and collect taxes without it.
1 Commentaries, 278.
2 Institutes, 584.
3 Elliott, 464.
No. 84.
3 Elliott, 419.
1 Annals of Congress, p. 1900.
§ 426.
Cohens v. Virginia, per Marshall, C. J.; Martin v. Hunter, per Story, J.
Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution, § 1360.
Ib. § 1371.
1 Elliott, Id. 492; 5 Id. 435, 485; 3 Id. 486; 4 Id. 184, 185, 436; 2 Id. 290, 291, 471, 478; Yates’s Minute, 39-40.
9 Howard, 567.
4 Peters, 434.
12 Wheaton, 288.
5 Howard, 433.
11 Peters, 317.
See infra.
No. 42.
8 Wallace, 637.
Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 Howard, 134.
8 Wallace, 637.
It has been said that this law does not impair the obligation of contracts, because, in all agreements to pay mere dollars, the creditor takes the risk of what the law njny declare to be dollars. But this is to beg the question of power to work such injustice. Indeed, until such law is established or ex. pected, the risk of it cannot he said to enter into the contract.
Evans v Eaton, 1 Peters's Circuit Court, 323.
Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Peters, 646, 657 ; Calder v. Bull, 3 Dallas, 386; Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheaton, 206.; Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Id. 269, 270, 312, 303, 304, 327, 331, 336, 354; Federalist, No. 44.
No. 42.
12 Wheaton, 274.
52 Pennsylvania State, 2 P. F. Smith, 114.
Sec. 1358.
No. 44.
Ib.
4 Peters, 432.
12 Wheaton, 265.
Gold was at the time-of this argument worth about 10 per cent, more than the notes of the United States, called •< legal tenders.!’ There had been a time, during the rebellion, when it was worth 185 per cent. more. — 11ep.
A brief which had been filed in the case of Latham v. The U nited States, areal or supposed legal tender ease, which having been withdrawn by the appellant (9 Wallace, 145), never came to hearing, — that brief being the same that had been filed in Hepburn v. Griswold, — was also submitted and relied on by Mr. Akerman, here.
Art. 1, § 18.
Ib. § 9.
Hon. S. P. Chase, at Louisville, Ky., in 1864.
Art. 1, § 8.
2 Cranch, 358.
Veazie Bank v. Benno, 8 Wallace, 549.
5 Elliott, 432.
By act of March 3d, 1863 (12 Stat. at targe, 794), the court was ordered to consist of ten members; a now member being then added. By act of July 23d, 18GG (14 Id. 209), 11 to fix the number of judges of the Supremo Court of the United States,” &c.,.it was enacted “that no vacancy in the office of associate justice shall be filled by appointment until the number of associates shall be reduced to six, and thereafter the Supreme Court shall consist of a chief justice and six associate justices.” By an act of 10th April, 1869 (16 Id. 44), to take effect from tho first Monday of December', 1869, it was enacted that the court should.consist of a dhief justice and eight associates, and that for tho purposes of this.act there should be appointed an additional judge. Hepburn v. Griswold, it is stated in the opinion of the court in tho case, was decided in conference November 27th, 1869 (8 Wallace, 626), there being then eight judges (the chief justice and seven associates) on the bench,the.lowest number to which tho court had been reduced. One of them, Justice Grier, resigned February 1st, 1870. Tho judgment in Hepburn v. Griswold was announced from the bench and entered February 7th, 1870. Mr. Justice Strong was appointed February 18th, 1870, and Mr. Justice Bradley March 21st, 1870; and the order for the present argument was made by, and the argument.itself heard before, the court of nine, as constituted by the act of 10th April, 1869.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice STRONG
delivered the opinion of the court.
The controlling questions in these cases are the following: Are the acts of Congress, known as the legal tender acts, constitutional when applied to contracts made before their passage; and, secondly, are they valid as applicable to debts contracted since their enactment? These questions have been elaborately argued, and they have received from the court that consideration which their great importance- demands. ' It- would be difficult to overestimate the consequences which must follow7 our decision. They will affect the entire business of .the country, and take hold of the possible continued existence of the government. If it be held! by this court that Congress has no constitutional power, under any circumstances, or iu any emergency, to make-treasury notes a legal tender for the'pay.ment of all debts (a.'power confessedly possessed by every independent sovereignty other than the United States),'the government is without those means of self-preservation which, all must admit, may, in certain contingencies, become indispensable,, even if they were not when the acts of Congress now called, in qnestiou w7ere'enacted. It is also clear that if we" hold the acts invalid as applicable to debts incurred, or transactions which have taken place since their enactment, our decision must cause, throughout thq country, great business derangement, widespread distress, and the rankest injustice. The debts which have'been contracted since February 25th, 1862, constitute, doubtless, by far the greatest portion of the-existing indebtedness of the country. ' They have been contracted in' view of the acts of Congress declaring treasury notes a legal tender, and in reliance upon that declaration. Men have bought and sold, borrowed and lent, and assumed every variety of obligations contemplating that payment might be made with such notes. Indeed, legal tender treasury notes have become the universal measure of values. If now, by our decision, it be established that these debts and obligations can be discharged only by gold coin; if, contrai'y tó the expectation of all parties to these contracts, legal tender notes are rendered unavailable, the government has become an instrument of the grossest injustice; all debtors are loaded with an obligation it was never contemplated they should assume; a large percentage is added to every debt, and such must become the demand for gold to satisfy contracts, that ruinous sacrifices, general distress, and bankruptcy may be expected. These consequences are too obvions to admit of question. And there is no well-founded distinction to bo made between-the constitutional validity of an act of Congress declaring treasury notes a legal tender for the payment of debts contracted after its.passage and that of an. act making them a legal tender for-the discharge of all debts, as well those incurred before as those made after its enactment. There may be a difference in the effects produced by the acts, and in the hardship of their operation, but in both cases the fundamental question, that which tests the validity of the legislation, is, can Congress constitutionally give to treasury notes the character and qualities of money ? Can such notes be constituted a legitimate circulating medium, having a defined legal value? .If they can, then such notes must be available to fulfil all contracts (not expressly excepted) solvable in money, without reference' to the time when the contracts were made. Hence it is not strange that those who hold the legal tender acts unconstitutional when applied to contracts made before February, 1.862, find themselves compelled also' to hold that the acts ate invalid as to debts created after that time, and to hold that both classes of debts alike can be .discharged only by gold and silver coin.
The consequences of which we have spoken, serious as they are, must be accepted, if there is a clear incompatibility between the Constitution and the legal tender acts. Eut we are unwilling to precipitate them upon thm country unless such an incompatibility plainly appears. A decent respect for a co-ordinate branch of the government demands that the judiciary should presume, until the coutrary is clearly shown, that there has been no transgression of power by Congress — all the members of which act'Under the obligation of an oath of fidelity to the Constitution. Such has always been the rule. In Commonwealth v. Smith the language of the court was, " It must be remembered that, for weighty reasons, it has been assumed as a principle, in construing constitutions, by the Supreme Court of the United States, by this court, and by every other court of reputation in the United States, that an act of the legislature is not to be declared void unless the violation of the Constitution is so manifest as to leave no room for reasonable doubt;" and, in Fletcher v. Peck, Chief Justice Marshall said, "It is irot on slight implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers and its acts to be considered void. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other." It is incumbent, therefore, upon those who affirm the uncoustitutionality of an act of Congress to show clearly that it is in violation of the provisions of the Constitution.. It is not sufficient for them that they succeed in raising a doubt.
Nor can it be questioned that, when investigating the nature and extent of the powers conferred by the Constitution upon Congress, it is indispensable to keep in view the objects for which those powers were- granted. - This is a universal rule of construction applied alike to statutes, wills, contracts, aud constitutions. If the general purpose of the instrument is ascertained, the language of its provisions must be'construed with reference to that purpose and so as-to subserve it. Iu no other way can the intent of the framers of the instrument be discovered. And there are more urgent reasons for looking to the ultimate purpose in examining the powers conferred by a constitution than there are iu construing a statute, a will, or a contract. We do not expect to find in a constitution.minute details. It is necessarily brief aud comprehensive. It prescribes outlines, leaving tlie filling up to be deduced from the outlines. In Martin v. Hunter, it was said,-"The Constitution unavoidably deals in general language. It did not suit the purpose of the people in framing this great charter of our liberties to provide for minute specifications of its powers, or to declare the means by which those powers should be carried into execution.'.' And ivith singular clearness was it said by Chief Justice Marshall, in McCulloch v. The State of Maryland, "A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which it may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of q political code, and would scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires that only its groat outlines shoirld be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves." If these are correct -principles, if they are proper views of the manner in which the Constitution is to be understood, the pouters conferred upon Congress must be regarded as related to each other, and all. means for a common end. Each is but part of a system, a constituent of one'whole. No single -power is the ultimate end-for which the Constitution was adopted. It may, in a very proper sense, be treated as a means for the accomplishment of a subordinate object, but that object is itself a means designed for an ulterior purpose. Thus the power to levy and collect taxes, to coin money and regulate its value, to raise and support armies, or to provide for and maintain a navy, are instruments for the paramount object, which was to establish a government, sovereign within its sphere, with capability of self-preservation, thereby forming a union rqore perfect than that which existed under the old Confederacy.
The same may be asserted also of all the nou-enumerated' powers included in the authority expressly given "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the specified powers vested in Congress, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." It is impossible to know what those non-enumerated powers are, and what is their nature and extent, without considering the purposes they were intended to subserve. Those purposes, it must be noted, reach beyond the mere-execution of all powers definitely intrusted to Congress aud mentioned in detail. They embrace the execution of all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or iu any department or officer thereof. It certainly was intended to confer upon, tii-e government the power'of self-preservation. Said Chief Justice Marshall, iu Cohens v. The Bank of Virginia "America has chosen to be, in many respects and to many purposes, a nation, and for all these purposes-her •government is.complete;'for all these objects it is supreme. It can then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory." He added, in the same ease: "A' constitution is framed for agés to come, aud is designed to approach'immortality as. near as mortality can approach it. . Its course cannot always be tranquil. It is exposed to storms and tempests, and its framers must be Unwise statesmen indeed, if they have not provided it, as far as its nature will permit, with the means of self-preservation from .the perils it is sure to encounter." That would appear, then, to be a most unreasonable construction of the Constitution which denies to the government created- by it, the right to employ freely every means, not prohibited, necessary for its preservation, and for the fulfilment of its acknowledged duties. Such a right, we hold, was given by the last clause of the eighth section of its first article. The means or instrumentalities referred to in that clause, and authorized, are not enumerated or defined. In the nature of things enumeration and specification were impossible. But they were left to the discretion of Congress, subject only to the restrictions that they be not prohibited, and be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the enumerated powers given to Congress, and all other powers vested in the-government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
And here it is to be observed it is not indispensable to the' existence of any power claimed for the Federal government that it can be found specified in the words of the Constitution, or clearly and directly traceable to some one of the specified powers. Its existence may be deduced fairly from more than one of the substantive powers expressly defined, or from them all combined. It is allowable to group together any number of them and infer from them all that the power claimed has been conferred. Such a treatment of the Constitution is recognized by its own provisions. This is well illustrated in its language respecting the writ of habeas corpus. The power to.suspend the privilege of that writ is not expressly given, nor can it be deduced from any one of the particularized grants of power. Yet it is provided that the privileges of the writ shall not be suspended except in certain defined contingencies. This is no express grant of power. It is a restriction. But it shows irresistibly that somewhere in the Constitution power to suspend the privilege of the writ was granted, cither by some one or more of the specifications of power, or by them all combined. And, that important powers were-understood by the" people who adopted the Constitution to have been created by it, powers not enumerated, and not included incidentally in any one of those enumerated, is shown by the amendments. The first ten of these were suggested in the conventions of the States, and proposed at the first session of the first Congress, before any complaint was made of a disposition to assume doubtful powers. The preamble to the resolution submitting'them for adoption recited that the '" conventions of a number of the States had, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order, to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added." This was the origin of the amendments, and they are significant. They tend plainly to show that., in the judgment of those who;, adopted the Constitution, there were powers created by it, neither expressly specified nor deducible from'any one specified power, or ancillary to it alone, but which grew out of the aggregate of powers conferred upon- tlie government, or out of the sovereignty instituted. Most of these amendments are denials of power which had not been expressly granted, and which cannot be said to have been necessary and proper for carrying .into execution any other powers. Such, for example, is the prohibition of any laws respecting the establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.
And it is of importance to observe that Congress has often exercised, without question, powers /that are not expressly' given nor ancillary to any single enumerated power. Powers thus exercised are what are called by Judge Story in his Commentaries on the. Constitution, resulting powers, arising from the aggregate powers of the government. He instances .the right to sue and make contracts. Many others might be. given. The oath required bylaw from officers of the government is one. So is building a capitol or a presidential mansion, and so also is the penal code. This last is worthy of brief notice. Congress is expressly authorized " to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, and to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offences against the laws of nations." It is also, empowered to declare the punishment of treason, and provision is made for impeachments. This is 'the extent of power to punish crime expressly conferred. It might be argued that the expression of those limited powers implies an exclusion of all other subjects of criminal legislation. Such is the argument in the present cases. It is said because Congress is authorized to coin money and regulate its value it cannot declare a ny? thing other than gold and silver to be money or make it a legal tender. Yet Congress, by,the act of April 30, 1790, entitled "An act more effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes against-the United States," and the supplementary act of March 3d, 1825, defined and provided for the punishment of a large class of crimes .other than those mentioned in the Constitution, and some of the punishments prescribed are manifestly not in aid of any single substantive power. No one doubts that this was rightfully done, and the power thus exercised has been affirmed by this court in United States v. Marigold. This case shows that a power may exist as au aid to the execution of an express power, or an aggregate of such powers, though there is another express power'given relating in part to the same subject but less extensive. Another illustration of this may be found in connection with the provisions respecting a census. The Constitution orders an enumeration of free*'persons hi' the different States' every ten years. The direction extends no further. Yet Congress has repeatedly directed an.enumeration not only of free persons in the States but of free persons in the Territories, and not only an enumeration of •persons but the collection of statistics respecting age, sex, and production. Who questions the power to do this?
Indeed the whole history of the government and of congressional legislation has exhibited the use of a very wide discretion, even in times of peace and in the absence of any trying emergency, in the selection of the necessary and proper means to carry into effect the great objects for which the "government was framed, and this discretion has geuer.ally been unquestioned, or, if questioned, sanctioned by this court. Tlii? is true not only when an attempt has been made to execute a single power specifically given, but equally true when the means adopted have been appropriate to the execution, not of a single authority, but of.all the powers created by the Constitution. Under the power to establish post-offices and post-roads Congress has provided for carrying the mails, punishing theft of letters and mail robberies, and even for transporting the mails to foreign countries. Under the power to regulate commerce, provision has been made by law for the improvement of .harbors, the establishment of observatories, the erection of lighthouses, breakwaters, and buoys, the registry, enrolment, and construction of ships, and a code has been enacted for the government of seamen. Under the same power and other powers over the revenue and the currency of the country, for the convenience of the treasury and internal commerce, a corporation known as the United States- Balde was early created. To its capital the government subscribed one-fifth of its stock. But the corporation was a private one, doing business for its own profit. Its incorporation was a constitutional exercise of congressional power for no other reason than that it was deemed to be a convenient instrument or meanv for accomplishing one or more of the ends for which the government was established, or, in the language of the first article, already quoted, " necessary and proper" for carrying into execution some or all the powers vested in the government. Clearly this necessity, if any existed, was not a direct and obvious one, Yet this court, in McCulloch v. Maryland unanimously ruled that in authorizing the bank, Congress had not transcended its powers. So debts due to the United States have been declared by acts of Congress entitled to priority of payment over debts duo to other creditors, and this court has held .such acts warranted by the Constitution.
This is enough to show how, from the earliest period of 'our existence as a nation, the powers conferred by the Constitution have been construed by Congress and by this court whenever such action by Congress has been called in ques tion. Happily the true meaning of the clause authorizing the enactment of all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the express powers conferred upon Congress, and all other powers vested in the government of the United States, or in any of its departments or officers, has long since been settled. In Fisher v. Blight this court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, said that in construiug it "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 necessary because the end might be obtained by other means." " Congress," said this court, " must possess 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 most eligible to effect that object. It has, consequently, a right to make remittances by bills or otherwise, and to take those precautions, which will render the transaction safe." It was in this case, as "we have already remarked, that a law giving priority to debts due to the United States was ruled to be constitutional lor the reason that it appeared to Congress to be an eligible means to enable the government to pay the debts of the Union.
It was, however, in McCulloch v. Maryland that the fullest consideration was given to this clause of the Constitution granting auxiliary powers, and a construction adopted that has ever since been accepted as determining its true meaning. We shall not now go over the ground there trodden. It is familiar to the legal profession, and, indeed, to the whole country. Suffice it to say; in that case it was finally settled that in the gift by the Constitution to Congress of authority jo enact laws " necessary and proper" for the execution of all the powers created by it, the necessity spoken of is not to be understood as an absolute one. On the contrary, this court then held that 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. Said Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the court: "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." The ease also marks out with admirable precision the province of this court. It declares that " when the law (enacted by Congress) is not prohibited and is really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted 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. This court (it was said) disclaims all pretensions to such a power." It is hardly necessary to say that these principles are received with universal assent. Even in Hepburn v. Griswold both the majority and minority of the court concurred in accepting the doctrines of McCulloch v. Maryland as sound expositions of the Constitution, though disagreeing in their application.
With these rules of constitutional construction before us, settled at an early period in the history of the government, hitherto universally accepted, and not even now doubted, we have a safe guide to. a right decision of the questions before us. Before' we can hold the legal tender acts unconstitutional, we must be convinced they were not appropriate 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 (for we are not judges of the degree of appropriateness), or wc must hold that, they were prohibited. This brings us to the inquiry whether they were, when enacted, appropriate instrumentalities for carrying into effect, or executing any of. the known powers of Congress, or of any department of the government. Plainly to this inquiry'; a consideration of the time when they were enacted, and of the circumstances in which the government then stood, is important. It is not to be denied that acts may be adapted to the exercise of lawful power, and appropriate to-it, in seasons of exigency, which would be inappropriate at other times.
We do not propose to dilate at length' upon the circumstances in which the country was placed, when Congress attempted to make treasury notes a legal tender. They are of too recent occurrence to. justify enlarged ' description. Suffice it to'saj' that a civil war was then raging which seri-. ously threatened the overthrow of the government and the destruction of the Constitution itself. It demanded the equipment ánd support of large armies and navies, and the employmentof money to an 'extent beyond the capacity of all ordinary sources of supply. Meanwhile the public treasury was nearly empty, and the credit of the government, if not stretched to its utmost tension, had become nearly exhausted. Moneyed institutions had advanced! largely of. their means, and more could not be expected of them. They had been compelled to suspend specie payments. Taxation was inadequate to pay even the interest oh the debt already incurred, and it was impossible to await the income of additional taxes. The necessity was immediate and pressing. The army was unpaid. • There was then due to the soldiers in the field nearly a score of millions of dollars. The requisitions from the War and Navy Departments for supplies exceeded fifty millions, and the current expenditure was over one million per day. The entire amount of coin in the country, including that in private hands, as well as that in banking institutions, was insufficient to supply the need of the government three months, had it all been poured into the treasury. Foreign credit we had none. We say nothing of .the overhanging paralysis of trade, and of business gener ally, which threatened loss of confidence in the ability of the government to maintain its continued existence, and therewith the complete destruction of all remaining national credit.
It was at such a time and in such circumstances that Congress was called upon to devise means for maintaining the army and navy, for securing the large supplies of money needed, and, indeed, for the preservation of the government created by the Constitution. It was at such a time and in such an emergency that the legal tender acts were passed. Now, if it were certain that nothing else would have supplied the absolute necessities of the treasury, that nothing else would have enabled the government to maintain its armies and navy, that nothing else would have saved the government and the Constitution from destruction, while' the legal tender acts would, could any one be bold enough to assert that Congress transgressed its powers ? Or if these enactments did work these results, can it be maintained now that they were not for a legitimate end, or " appropriate and adapted'to that end," in the language of Chief Justice Marshall ? That they did work such results is not to he doubted. Something revived the drooping faith of the people; something brought immediately to the government's aid the resources of'the nation, and something euabled the successful prosecution of the war, and the preservation of the national life. What was it, if not the legal fender enactments ?
But if it be conceded that some other means might have been chosen for the accomplishment of these legitimate and necessary ends, the' concession does not weaken the argument. It is urged now, after the lapse of nine years, and when the emergency has passed, that treasury notes without the legal tender clause might have been issued, and that the necessities of the government might thus have been supplied. Hence it is inferred there was no necessity for giving to the notes issued the capability of paying private debts. At best this is mere conjecture. But admitting it to be true, what does it prove? Nothing more than that Congress had the choice of means for a legitimate end, each appropriate, and adapted to that end, though, perhaps, in different degrees. What then? Can this court say that it ought to have adopted one rather than the other ? Is it our province to decide that the means selected were beyond the constitutional power of Congress, because we may think that other means to the same ends would have beeu more appropriate and equally efficient? That would be to assume legislative power, and. to disregard the accepted rules for construing the Constitution. The degree of the necessity for any congressional enactment, or the relative degree of its appropriateness, if it have any appropriateness, is for consideration in Congress, not here. Said Chief Justice Marshall, in McCulloch v. Maryland, as already stated, "When the law is not prohibited, and is really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted 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."
It is plain to our view, however, that none of those measures which it is now conjectured might have been substituted for the legal tender acts, could have met the exigencies of the case,,at the time when those acts were passed. Wo have said that the credit of the government had been tried to its utmost endurance. Every new issue of notes which had nothing more to rest upon than government credit, must have paralyzed it more and more, and rendered it increasingly difficult to keep the army in the field, or the navy afloat. It is an historical fact that many persons and institutions refused to reeeivd and pay those notes that had been issued, and even the head of the treasury represented to Congress the necessity of making the new issues legal tenders, or rather, declared it impossible to avoid the necessity. The vast body of men in the 'military service was composed of citizens who had left their farms, their workshops, and their business with families and debts to be provided for. ' The government could not pay them with ordinary treasury notes, nor could they discharge their debts with such a currency. Something more was needed, something that had all the uses of money. And as no one could be compelled to take common treasury notes in payment of debts, and as the prospect of ultimate redemption was remote and contingent, it is not too much to say that they must have depreciated in the market long before the war closed, as did the currency of the Confederate States. Making the notes legal tenders gave them a new use, and it needs no argument to show that the value of things is in proportion to the uses to which they may be applied.
It may be conceded that Congress is not authorized to enact laws in furtherance even of a legitimate end, merely because they are useful, or because they make the government stronger. There must be some relation between the means and the end; some adaptedness or appropriateness of the laws to carry into execution the powers created by the Constitution. But when a statute has proved effective dn the execution of powers confessedly existing, it is not too much to say that it must have had some appropriateness to the execution of those powers. The rules of construction heretofore adopted, do not demand that the relationship between the means and the end shall be direct and immediate. Illustrations of this may bo found in several of the eases above cited. The charter of a Bank of the United States, the priority given to debts due the government over private debts, and the exemption of Federal loans from liability to State taxation, are only a few of the many which might be given.' The case of Veazie Bank v. Fenno presents a suggestive illustration. There a tax of ten per cent, on State bank notes in circulation was h^ld constitutional, not merely because it w,as a means of raising revenue, but as an instrument to put out of existence such a circulation in competition with notes issued by the government. There, this court, speaking through the Chief Justice, avowed that it is the constitutional right of Congress to provide a currency for the whole country; that this might be done by coin, or United States notes, or notes of National banks; and that it cannot be questioned Congress may constitutionally secure the benefit of such a currency to the people by appropriate legislation. It was said there can 'be no question of the power of this government to emit bills of credit; to make them receivable in payment of debts to itself; to fit them for use by those who see fit to use them in all the transactions of'commerce; to make-them a currency uniform in value and description, and convenient and useful for circulation. Here the substantive power to tax was allowed to be employed for improving the currency. It is not easy to see why, if State bank notes can be taxed out of existence for the purposes of indirectly making United States notes more convenient and useful for commercial purposes, the same end may not be secured directly by making them a legal tender.
Concluding, then, that the provision which made treasury notes a legal tender for the payment of all debts other than those expressly excepted, was not an inappropriate means for carrying into execution the legitimate powers, of the government, we proceed to inquire whether it was forbidden by the letter or spirit of the Constitution. It is not claimed that any -express prohibition exists, but it is insisted that the spirit of the Constitution was- violated by the enactment. Here those who assert the unconstitutionality of the acts mainly rest their argument. They claim that the clause which conferred upon Congress power " to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin-," contains an implication that nothing but that which is the subject of coinage, nothing but the precious metals can ever be declared by law to be money, or to have the uses of mouey. .If by this is meant that because certain powers over the currency are expressly given to Congress, all other powers relating to the same subject are impliedly forbidden, we need only remark that such is not the manner in which the Constitution- has always been construed.. On the contrary it has been ruled that power over a particular subject may be exercised as auxiliary to an express power, though there is another express power re'lat ing to the same subject, less comprehensive. There an express power to punish a certain class of crimes (the only direct reference to criminal legislation contained in the Constitution), was not regarded as an objection to deducing authority to punish other crimes from another substantive and defined grant of power. There are other decisions to the same effect. To assert, then, that the clause enabling Congress to coin money and regulate its value tacitly implies a denial of all other power over the currency of the nation, is an attempt to introduce a new rule of construction against the solemn decisions of this court. So far from its containing a lurking prohibition, many have thought it was intended to confer upon Congress that general' power over the currency which has always been an acknowledged attribute of sovereignty in every other civilized nation than our own, especially when considered in .connection with the other'clause which denies to the States the power to coin money, emit bills of credit, or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. We do not assert this now, but there are some considerations touching these-clauses which tend to show that if any implications are to-be deduced from them, (hey are of an enlarging rather than-a restraining character. The Constitution was intended to frame a government as distinguished from a league or compact, a government supreme in some particulars over States and people. It was designed to provide the same currency,, having a uniform legal value in all the States. It was forth is 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 withdrawn 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. This may indeed have been intended. Some powers that usually belong to sovereignties were extin guished, but .their extinguishment was not left to inference. In most cases, if not in all, when it was intended that governmental powers, commonly acknowledged as such, should cease to exist, both in the States and in the Federal government, it was expressly denied to both, as well to the United States as to the individual. States.- 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. Why, then, it may be asked, if the. design was to prohibit to the new government, as well as to the States, that general power over the currency which the States had when the Constitution was framed, was such denial not expressly extended, to the new government, as it was to the States ? Iii view of this it might .be argued with much force that when it is considered in what brief and comprehensive terms, the Constitution speaks, how sensible its framers must have been that emergencies might arise when the precious metals (then more scarce than now) might prove inadequate to the necessities of the government 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.gteat evil sought to be remedied was the want of uniformity in the current value of money, it might be argued, .we say, that the giffc-of power to coin money and regulate the value thereof,-was understood as conveying general power over the currency, the power which had belonged to the States, and which they surrendered.. Such a construction, it might be said, would be in close analogy fo the mode of construing other substantive powers granted to Congress. They have never been construed literally, and the government could not exist if they were. Thus the power to carry on war is conferred by the power to "declare war." The whole system of the-transportation of the mails is built upon the power to establish post-offices and post-roads. The power to regulate eom- meree has also been extended far beyond the letter of the .-grant. Even the advocates of a strict literal construction of .the phrase, "to coin money and regulate the value thereof," while' insisting that it defines the material to be coined as metal, are compelled to concede to Congress large discretion in all pther particulars. The Constitution does not ordain what metals may be coined, or prescribe that the legal value of the metals, when coined, shall correspond at all with their intrinsic value in 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 regulate the value of money coined, and of foreign coins, is not exhausted by the 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 metal shall be coined, its purity, and how far its statutory value, as money, shall correspond, from time to time, with the market value of the same metal as bullion. How then can the grant of a power to coin money and regulate its value, made in terms so liberal and unrestrained, coupled also with a denial to the States of all power over the currency, be regarded asan implied prohibition to.Congress against declaring treasury notes a legal tender, if such declaration is .appropriate, and-adapted, to carrying into execution the admitted powers of the government?
We do not, however., rest our assertion of the power of Congress to enact legal tender laws upon this grant. We assert only that the grant can, in no just sense, be regarded as.containing au implied prohibition against their enactment, and that, if it raises any' implications, they are of complete power over the currency, rather than restraining.
We come next to the argument much used, and, indeed, the main reliance of those who assert the unconstitutionality of the legal tender acts. It is that they are prohibited by the spirit of the Constitution because.they indirectly impair the obligation of contracts. The argument, of course, relates only to those contracts which were made before February, 1862, when the first act was passed, and it has no bearing upon the question whether the acts are valid when applied to contracts made after their passage. The argument assumes two things,, — first, that the acts do, in effect, impair the obligation of contracts, and second, that Congress is prohibited from taking any action which may indirectly have that effect. Neither of these assumptions can be accepted. It is true that under the acts, a debtor, who became such before they were passed, may discharge his debt with the notes authorized by them, and the creditor is compellable to receive such notes in discharge of his claim. But wdiether the obligation of the contract is thereby weakened can be determined only after considering what was the contract obligation. It was not a duty to pay gold or silver, or the kind of 'money recognized by law at the time when the contract -was made, nor was it a duty to pay money of equals intrinsic value in the market. (We speak now of contracts to pay money generally, not contracts to pay some specifically defined species of money.) The expectation of the creditor and the anticipation of the debtor may have been that the contract would be discharged by the payment of coined metals, but neither the expectation of one party to the contract respecting its fruits,, nor the anticipation of the other constitutes its obligation. There is a well-recognized distinction between, the expectation of the parties to a contract and the duty imposed by it. Were it not so the expectation of results would be always equivalent to a'bihding eu-_ gagement that they should follow. But the obligation of a contract to pay money is to pay that which the law shall recognize as-money when'the-payment is to be made. If there is anything settled by decision it is this, and we do not understand it to be controverted- No one ever doubted that a debt of one thousand dollars, contracted before 1834, 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 because of its legal value. The eagles coined after 1834,' were not money until they were authorized by law, and had they been coined before, without a 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, simply, is necessarily subject to the constitutional power of the government over the currency, whatever that power may be, and the obligation of the parties is, therefore, assumed with reference to that power. Nor is this singular. A covenant for quiet-enjoyment is not broken, nor is its obligation impaired by the government's taking the land granted in virtue, of -its right of eminent domain.. The expectation of the covenantee may be disappointed.- lie may not enjoy all he anticipated, but the grant was made and.the covenant undertaken in subordination to the paramount right of the government. We have been asked whether Congress can declare that a contract to deliver a quantity of grain may be satisfied by the tender of a less quantity. Undoubtedly not. But this is a false analogy. There is a wide distinction between .a tender of quantities, or of specific articles, and a tender of legal values. Contracts for the delivery of specific articles belong exclusively to the domain of State legislation, while contracts for the payment of money are subject to the authority of Congress, at least so far as relates to the means of payment. They are engagements to pay with lawful money of the. United States, and Congress is empowered to regulate that money. It cannot, therefore, be maintained that the legal tender acts impaired the obligation of contracts.
Nor can it be truly asserted that Congress may- not, by its action, indirectly impair the obligation of contracts, if by the expression be meant -rendering contrasts fruitless, or partially fruitless. Directly it may, confessedly, by passing, a bankrupt act, embracing past as well as future transac tions. This is obliterating contracts entirely. So it may relieve parties from their apparent obligations indirectly in a multitude of ways. It inay-declare war, or, even in peace, pass non-intercourse acts, or direct an einbargo. . All such measures may,, and must operate seriously upon existing contracts, and may not merely hinder, but relieve the parties to such contracts entirely from performance. It is, then, clear that the powers of Congress may be exerted, though the effect of such exertion may be in one case to annul, and in other cases to -impair the obligation of contracts. Aud it is no sufficient answer to this to say it is true only when the powers exerted were expressly granted. There is no ground for any such distinction. It has no warrant in the Constitution, or in any of the docisions-of this court. We are accustomed to speak for mere convenience of the express and implied powers conferred upon Congress. But in fact the auxiliary powers, those necessary and appropriate to the execution of other pow.ers singly described, are as expressly given as .is the power to declare'war, or to establish uniform laws on tho subject of bankruptcy. They are hot catalogued, no list of them is made, but they are grouped in the last cluse of section eight of the first article, and granted in the same words in which all other powers are granted to Congress. And this court has recognized no such distinction'' as is now attempted. An embargo suspends many contracts and renders performance of others impossible, yet the power to enforce it has been declared constitutional. The power to enact a law directing an embargo is one of the auxiliary powers, existing only because appropriate in time of peace to regulate commerce, or appropriate to carrying on war. Though not conferred as a substantive power, it has not been thought to be in conflict with the'Constitution; because it impairs indirectly the obligation of contracts. That discovery calls for a new reading of the Constitution.
If, then, the legal tender acts were justly chargeable with impairing contract obligations, they would not, for that reason, be forbidden, unless a different rule is to be applied to them from that which has hitherto prevailed in the construction of other powers granted by the fundamental law. But, as already "intimated, the objection misapprehends the nature and extent of the contract obligation spoken of in the Constitution.. As in a state of civil society property of a citizen or subject is ownership, subject to the lawful demands of the sovereign, so contracts must be understood as madq. in reference to the possible exercise of the,rightful authority of the government, and no obligation of a contract can extend to the defeat of legitimate government authority.
Closely allied to the objection we have just been considering is the argument' pressed upon us that the legal tender acts were prohibited by the spirit of the fifth amendment, which forbids taking private^property for public use without just compensation or due process'd" law. That provision has always been understood as referring only to a direct appropriation, and not to consequential injuries resulting from the exercise of lawful power. It has never been supposed to have any bearing upon, ór to inhibit laws that indirectly work harm and loss to individuals. ' A new tariff", an embargo, a draft, or a Avar may inevitably bring upon individuals great lpsses; may, indeed, render .valuable property almost .valueless. They may destroy the worth of contracts. But whoever supposed that, because of this, a tariff" could not be changed, or a non-intercourse act, or an embargo be enacted, or a war be declared ? - By the act of June 28,1834, a new regulation of the Aveight and value of gold coin Avas adopted, and about six per cent. Avas taken from the Aveight of each dollar. The effect of this Avas that all creditors were subjected to a- corresponding loss. The debts then due became solvable with six per cent, less gold than Avas required to pay them before. The result was thus precisely what it is contended the legal tender acts worked. But was it ever imagined this was taking private property without compensation or without due process of laAV ? Was the idea ever advanced that the new regulation of gold coin was against the spirit of the fifth amendment? And has any one in good faith avowed his belief that even a law debasing the current coin, by increasing the alloy, would be taking private property? It might be impolitic and unjust, but co.uld its constitutionality be doubted? Other statutes have, from time to time, reduced the quantity of silver in silver coin without any question of their constitutionality. It is said, however, now, that the act of 1884 only brought the legal value of gold coin more nearly into correspondence with its actual value in the market, or its relative value to silver. But we do not perceive that this varies the case or diminishes its force as an illustration. The creditor who had a thousand dollars due him on the 31st day of July, 1834 (the day before .the act took effect), was entitled to a thousand dollars of coined gold of the weight and fineness of the then existing coinage. The day after, he was entitled only to a sum six per cent, less in weight and in market value, or to' a smaller number of silver dollars. Yet he .would have been a bold man who had asserted that, because of th-is, the obligation of the contract was impaired, or that private property ivas taken without compensation or without duo process of law. No such assertion, so far as we know, was ever made. Admit it was a hardship, but it is not every hardship that is unjust, much less that.is unconstitutional; and certainly it would be an anomaly for us to hold an act of Congress invalid merely because we might think its provisions harsh and unjust.
We arc nob aware of anything else which has been advanced in support of the proposition that the legal tender acts wore forbidden by either the letter or the spirit of the Constitution. If, therefore, they were, what we have endeavored to show, appropriate means for legitimate ends, they were not transgressive of the authority vested in Congress.
Hero we riiight 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 assimilating the constitutional provision respecting a standard of weights and measures to that, confer ring the power to coin money and regulate its value. It is said there can bo no uniform standard of weights without weight, or of measure without length or space, and wo are asked how anything can be made a uniform standard of value which has itself no value? This is a question foreign to the subject before us. The legal tender acts do not attempt to make paper a standard of value. "We do not rest their validity upon the assertion that their emission is coinage, or any regulation of the value of money; nor do we assert that Congress may make anything which has no value money. What we do assert is, that Congress has power to enact that the government's promises to pay money shall be, for the time being, equivalent in value to the representative of value determined by the coinage acts, or to multiples thereof. It is hardly correct to speak of a standard of value. The Constitution does not speak of it. It contemplates a •standard for that which has gravity or extension; but value is an ideal thing. ' The coinage acts-fix its unit as a dollar; but the gold or silver thing we call a dollar is, in no sense, a standard of a dollar. It io a representative of it. There might never have been a piece of money of the denomination of a dollar. There never was a pound sterling coined until 1815, if we except a few coins struck in the reign of Henry VIII, almost immediately debased, yet it has been the unit of British currency for many generations. It is, then, a mistake to regard the legal tender acts as either fixing a standard of value or regulating money values, or 'making that money which has-no intrinsic value.
But, without extending our remarks further, it will be seen that we hold the acts of Congress .constitutional as applied to contracts tnade either before or after their passage. In so holding, Ave overrule so much of Avhat was decided in Hepburn v. Griswold, as ruled the acts unwarranted by the Constitution so far as they apply to contracts made before their enactment. That casehvas decided by a divided court, and by a court having a less number of judges than the law then in existence provided this court shall have. These cases have been heard before a full court, and they have , received our most careful consideration. The questions involved are constitutional questions of the most vital importance to the government and to the public at large. We have been in the habit of treating eases involving a consideration of constitutional power differently from those which concern merely private right. We are not accustomed to hear them in the absence of a full court, if it can be avoided. Even in cases involving only private rights, if convinced we had. made a.mistake, we would hear another argument and cor- ' rect our error. And if is no unprecedented thing in courts of last resort, both in this country and in England, to overrule decisions previously made. We agree this should not be done inconsiderately, but in a case of such far-reachiug consequences as the present, thoroughly convinced as we are that Congress has not transgressed its powers, we regard it as our duty so to decide and to affirm both these judgments.
The other questions raised in the case of Knox v. Lee were substantially decided in Texas v. White.
Judgment in each case aeeirmed.
4 Binney, 123.
6 Crunch, 87.
1 Wheaton, 326.
4 Id. 405.
6 Wheaton, 414.
9 Howard, 560.
4 Wheaton, 416.
Fisher v. Blight, 2 Cranch, 358.
2 Cranch, 358.
8 Wallace. 603.
8 Wallace, 533.
United States v. Marigold, 9 Howard, 560.
Apsden v. Austin, 5 Adolphus & Ellis, N. S. 671; Dunn v. Sayles, Ib. 685; Coffin v. Landis, 10 Wright, 426.
Davies, 28; Barrington v. Potter, Dyer, 81, b., fol. 67; Faw v. Marsteller, 2 Cranch, 29.
Dobbins v. Brown, 2 Jones (Pennsylvania), 75; Workman v. Miffrin, 6 Casey, 362.
Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheaton, 1.
8 Wallace, 603.
Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 8 Peters, 118.
7 Wallace, 700.
Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wallace, 632.