Court Opinion

ID: 3594311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 23:42:09.687593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:59:03.128240
License: Public Domain

The magnitude of the interests depending upon the ultimate decision of these cases, and the momentous principles which they involve, justify, in my opinion, an expression by any judge who either concurs in or dissents from the judgments now to be pronounced, of the reasons which may lead him to his conclusion. I will attempt to state my views of the cases with all possible brevity. I consider the question presented to be the same in each of the cases, and that is, simply, whether Congress may, constitutionally, make anything but gold and silver a tender in the payment of private debts, or may prescribe what shall be a tender for the payment of such debts.
It is immaterial that, when the contract in the first case was made, nothing but gold and silver was such a tender, if Congress has power to authorize a tender in a different sort of money. It is said that the act making these government notes, equally with gold, a tender for the payment of this and other debts contracted before its passage, is unconstitutional as impairing the obligation of contracts. The opinion, however, has been expressed, and would seem to be well sustained, that the states only, and not the federal government, are forbidden by *Page 487 
the Constitution to pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts. However this may be, if this act of Congress is open to no other exception, it cannot be successfully impeached for impairing the contracts between debtors and creditors to which it may apply. The contract of the obligor in this bond was simply to pay the amount stipulated, as so many dollars, in the lawful money of the country, that is, in that which should be its lawful money when such payment was due. It was not, either in terms or in effect, a contract for the delivery or the return of so much gold and silver, except as that was involved in the idea of payment of the debt while gold was the only medium in which debts could be paid. Gold and silver coin, and money, are not necessarily convertible terms. The latter word is used in various senses, and has various shades of meaning, according to its employment or connection. It is, generally, the representative of values and the instrument of exchanges. But it is no part of a contract of debt, made at one time for the repayment of money at another, that this representative or instrument should possess the same exchangeable value or the same purchasing power at the time of payment as at the time of incurring the debt. All that the debtor contracts to do is to return to his creditor in dollars and and cents as much as he received; and the advance and repayment are alike to be made in that which, by competent and valid authority, is made the medium of account and payment. The only question here is, whether, under the Constitution of the United States, Congress has the power to make notes or bills issued by the government such a medium and tender in payment of debts.
In the case of The Metropolitan Bank and The Shoe andLeather Bank v. The Bank Superintendent, the same question is presented, between the holders of their notes issued as money and the banks which have issued them, as arises in the other case between creditor and debtor. Each is bound to redeem or fulfill its obligations in that which is the lawful money or medium for the payment of debts; and the superintendent of the bank department cannot require, or be compelled to require, *Page 488 
of a banking association, any more, in respect to its bills, than an individual debtor can be compelled to do by his creditor.
The rights and duties of the superintendent, in applying the peculiar remedy given by the statute for the payment or redemption of this currency, are to be measured by the statute. The Constitution of this State, it is true, declares that the legislature shall require ample security for the redemption of bank bills in specie. (Const., N.Y., art. 8, § 6.) This constitutional provision, however, does not execute itself. It calls for legislation, and must remain inoperative until such legislation is had. The present Constitution of this State was adopted since the passage of the general banking law, containing the provisions to which I have referred. These provisions must be construed according to their plain import, and the remedy which they give can only be pursued in the cases and to the extent specified in the law itself. If these banks have offered to redeem their bills in lawful money of the United States, they have complied with the law, and are not exposed to its inflictions. Lawful money of the United States means in this statute what it means in a bond or obligation — money which is a lawful tender for the payment of debts. Thus the same issue is presented here as in the case of Meyer v. Roosevelt, to wit, whether the act making government notes a tender for the payment of debts is a constitutional exercise of legislative power. If it is, the judgment of the Supreme Court, in the bank case, must be affirmed, and that in the Meyer case reversed. If, on the contrary, this court should be of opinion that Congress had no power to declare treasury notes a legal tender, then the result will be the reverse in each case.
The Constitution of the United States is a grant of powers, and creates a government of limited authority. Although sovereign within the range of its authority, the federal government cannot transcend that range nor exercise any power which is not either expressly or impliedly conferred by the instrument creating it. It is not claimed that the Congress of the United States is expressly prohibited from making anything but gold and silver a tender for the payment of debts. *Page 489 
Undoubtedly, however, it is not sufficient that no such express prohibition exists in the Constitution. There must be authority either expressly given or implied in some express grant of power, and resulting from it as needful to its exercise, to pass such an act or to legislate upon the subject to which it refers. It is not asserted, on the other hand, that power is expressly given to Congress by the Constitution to make the treasury notes of the United States a tender in payment of debts, as indeed no power is expressly given to legislate upon the subject of tender at all. But it is contended that, in the exercise of certain powers which the Constitution does confer upon Congress, it is necessary and proper to issue treasury notes and to make them a legal tender, not only to the government but between individuals.
It has been sometimes said, in the discussion of this subject, and oftener implied or suggested, that the power to regulate the circulating medium, and to establish the currency in which payments and exchange may be made, is a necessary function of every government, and that it is implied or involved in the very creation of the government of the United States, independent of any express grant conferring or involving the power to legislate upon the subject. I cannot, however, yield to a theory which would impute to the federal legislature these indefinite powers. If we were dealing with a government neither constituted nor controlled by a written fundamental law, it would be impossible to deny that such legislation as that which we are considering would be within its proper and ordinary functions. To authorize or direct the issue of paper money by the government, and to make that money a tender in the payment of debts, are acts not foreign to the idea of government abstractly considered, and not unprecedented in the history of other governments. But we are dealing with legislative authority conferred by a written Constitution, and restricted to the measures or the subjects specified in that Constitution. Supreme and sovereign as the federal government is within its scope, and although it is a government of the people, acting upon them individually as *Page 490 
its citizens, and not through the States as a confederacy of separate sovereignties, yet it is, as has been said, a government of limited powers. It can draw to itself nothing as inherent in the idea of government, but must look to the written charter of its existence for the warrant of any act which it seeks to do. It can only exercise the powers granted to it, and a grant of any particular power cannot be presumed from its appropriateness or its supposed necessity to the idea or the existence of a nation. There is no presumption or implication to be indulged as to the powers of the federal government, except that, when a power is expressly given, authority to do whatever is fairly appropriate to its execution is implied in the grant of the power itself.
The Congress of the United States has power, by the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, "to coin money and regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin." The term money is used in different places in the Constitution, as it is elsewhere, in somewhat different senses. Here, however, it means, in my judgment, metallic money, gold, silver, and copper, or the metals used for coin, and nothing more. The phrase "coining" cannot, without violence, be applied to the issue of paper money. To coin money is to make, stamp and issue coins as money. Coins are pieces of metal, of a particular weight and standard, and to which a particular value is given in account and payment. The clause which follows, "to regulate the value thereof," evidently means to authorize the regulation of the value of the coin thus issued, or the money coined; and that this is strictly metallic money, appears from the words immediately following, "and of foreign coin." The design was to confer upon Congress the power to regulate the value of domestic and foreign coins, and as the domestic money, whose regulation is thus conferred upon Congress, is the money whose coinage is authorized by the first part of the clause, the inference is irresistible that this money is simply domestic coin or metallic money. The clause confers upon Congress absolute and exclusive power over the circulating coin of the country, domestic and foreign, by regulating *Page 491 
the standard and coinage of the former, and the value in account of the latter.
The second subdivision of the same section of the Constitution authorizes Congress "to borrow money on the credit of the United States." Here the meaning of the word "money" is necessarily somewhat different. "Money," says Mr. J. Stuart Mill, in his Principles of Political Economy (vol. 2, book 3, chap. 8, p. 9), "which is so commonly understood as the synonym of wealth, is more especially the term in use to denote it when borrowing is spoken of. When one person lends to another, as well as when he pays wages or rent to another, what he transfers is not the mere money, but a right to a certain value of the produce of the country to be selected at pleasure, the lender having first bought this right by giving for it a portion of his capital. What he really lends is so much capital; the money is the mere instrument of transfer. But the capital usually passes from the lender to the receiver through the means either of money or of an order to receive money; and at any rate it is in money that the capital is computed and estimated. Hence, borrowing capital is universally called borrowing money."
The importance of these observations, and their application to the subject in hand, will be seen in a moment, when we advert to the supposed inconsistency in borrowing money by issuing bills or notes which are themselves to circulate and perform the functions of money. In borrowing money on the credit of the United States, it is obviously not only competent but necessary to issue obligations of some sort, as evidences of the debt, and binding the United States to repayment. It could not be contended that these obligations must be issued only in return for money received, and not for capital or commodities of which money is the representative. As the government requires articles of various descriptions, or the services of men, for its exigencies in war and in peace, it may give, as it constantly has given for these values, its own obligations or evidences of indebtedness, and these are valid and properly issued under the power to borrow money. Such has *Page 492 
been the construction, both practical and theoretical, of every school of our statesmen and jurists, and no one would probably dispute the doctrine at this day. Nor is it essential to the exercise of this power that the contract between the government and the lender, or the obligations issued, should provide for the repayment of the money borrowed at any specific future day, or with interest. This also must be considered to have been settled by general consent and the practice of the government. From a very early day treasury notes, or government bills, payable on demand and without interest, have been issued in payment for property and services. These bills or notes are what were known at the date of the Constitution, and are mentioned in it, as "bills of credit." Their issue is forbidden to the States. (Const., art. 1, sec. 19.) It is not authorized by the federal government, except by the general authority to borrow money. In the case of Craig v. The State of Missouri (4 Pet., 410), Chief Justice MARSHALL, speaking for a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States, defines bills of credit to be "a paper medium, intended to circulate between individuals, and between government and individuals, for the ordinary purposes of society." In the subsequent case of Briscoe v. The Bank of theCommonwealth of Kentucky (11 Pet., 257, 314), the same court, by Mr. Justice McLEAN, while expressly adhering to the principles of the case of Craig v. The State of Missouri, made the definition of a bill of credit, as used in the Constitution, somewhat more exact. "It is," said that learned judge, "a paper issued by the sovereign power, containing a pledge of its faith, and designed to circulate as money." To the same effect Mr. Webster said, in his speech on the currency, in September, 1837: "Any paper issued on the credit of the State, and intended for circulation from hand to hand, is a bill of credit, whether made a tender for debts or not, or whether carrying interest or not." I think it very material to the present question that the issue of treasury notes, which evidently answer this definition and are "bills of credit," should have been, by general consent, considered a constitutional exercise of the *Page 493 
power to borrow money. In May, 1838, Mr. Calhoun said, in the Senate, that the right to issue treasury notes had been exercised from the commencement of the government without being questioned, and, according to his conception, came within the power expressly granted to Congress to borrow money, which meant neither more nor less than to raise supplies on the public credit. Interest was not essential to borrowing, and it would be ridiculous to suppose that the framers of the Constitution intended to authorize the raising of supplies with interest, and to prohibit it without. In 1837-8, at the time of a great financial panic and distress, when the relations of the government to the banks, and consequently of the banks to the community, were changed by the measures of the administration and of Congress, it was proposed to aid the emergency by the issue of treasury notes. Mr. Webster, while not averse to that particular expedient, desired that the treasury notes should be of large amount and bearing interest, so as to make them sought as an investment. Mr. Calhoun, on the contrary, distinctly urged that the treasury notes should be without interest, in order to keep them in circulation. He said: "I am of the impression that the sum necessary for the present wants of the treasury should be raised by a paper which should at the same time have the requisite qualities to enable it to perform the functions of a paper circulation." He added that he objected to the interest to be allowed on the notes proposed to be issued, because it would throw them out of circulation. He proceeded to argue in favor of the issue of government bills, redeemable or payable on demand, and receivable in payment of all public dues, as a sound paper currency, both constitutional and beneficial, in a higher degree than the notes of State banks or of a Bank of the United States. Both he and his great antagonist, as well as all the public men of that day, differing widely from each other upon questions of constitutional power, clearly held that the issue of such bills as a currency would be a constitutional exercise of the power to borrow money.
It may be observed here, that the fact that the Constitution *Page 494 
forbids the emission of such bills of credit by the States was not supposed to furnish any implication that Congress did not possess that power; and it as little results from the prohibition to the States to make anything but gold and silver a legal tender, that Congress may not exercise such a power. No inference either way can be drawn from that prohibition.
It appears from the journal of the convention which framed the Constitution, and from the Madison Papers (volume 3, p. 1343), that the clause authorizing Congress to borrow money was originally reported to the convention with the addition of the words, "and emit bills on the credit of the United States," and that this latter part of the clause was stricken out by the convention. Mr. Madison says that this was done to cut off the pretext for a paper currency, and particularly for making the bills a legal tender. These facts are urged to show that the power now in question was expressly and intentionally withheld. They do undoubtedly show that such was the design of a portion, perhaps of a majority, of the framers of the Constitution. But, on the other hand, the practical and theoretical construction of this part of the Constitution, in the subsequent administration of the government, to which I have referred, shows that one part of this design was not accomplished. Although the authority "to emit bills on the credit of the United States" was expressly struck out and apparently intentionally withheld, it has constantly been recognized, and in this argument was conceded to belong to the government, under its general authority to borrow money. The design of the advocates of the alteration which was made in the draft of the Constitution is not entirely clear to me from Mr. Madison's account of the transaction; but, whatever it may have been, it must yield to the actual and legal construction of the words as they stand in the written instrument itself.
The construction given to the Constitution by its framers and their contemporaries, the discussions in the convention which framed it, and the apparent intention with which certain clauses were added or stricken out in their deliberations, are constantly and justly referred to upon questions of the meaning *Page 495 
of constitutional provisions. But the arguments derived from such sources are not necessarily final or conclusive. A stronger case, or one more indicative of purpose, could not easily be put than the instance which has been cited, of striking from the Constitution, in its formation, a proposed express power to issue bills of credit; yet it is obvious that, in exchanging bills of credit, or government evidences of debt intended for circulation as currency, for property or labor, the government does borrow money, or the capital of which money is the symbol; and it has, therefore, been seen that, while the power to borrow money remained, the right to emit bills of credit exists, notwithstanding the latter had been in terms expunged. The issue of such notes is an exchange of credit for money or property. All political economists recognize the fact that, in issuing paper promises to circulate as currency, their makers, whether governments or individuals, are in effect borrowing on the credit of these promises whatever of value they receive in exchange for them. In spite, therefore, of what may have been the design of the framers of the Constitution in this particular, the language which they have left in that instrument has been found to bear a construction contrary, it may be, to that design, but conformable to the exigencies of the times and the needs of the country.
It would be subjecting written constitutions to a severe test, as instruments of government, if the opinions, the declarations, or even the intentions of their framers were accepted as final upon questions of their construction, where there is a fair difference of opinion. Wise and far-seeing as the men who framed the Constitution of the United States unquestionably were, it would be attributing to them more than human sagacity to suppose that they contemplated such a history of growth, extension and change, as has been accomplished by this country, or such an emergency as is now trying both its institutions and its people. The element of weaknesss in written constitutions, as in written codes, is their inflexibility and inability to adapt themselves to the ever-changing necessities of history and progress. So far as such constitutions *Page 496 
consist of express grants or express prohibitions, this is inevitable, and it is undoubtedly a part of the security which they offer to the citizen, and even to the government itself, that it should be so. But when we enter the domain of implied or constructive powers, the rules by which we are to be governed must depend somewhat upon additional considerations. Admitting, what no one denies, that the powers and functions of the federal government are limited, yet, in the exercise of those powers and functions, the legislature must be allowed a wide discretion in the means to be employed for that purpose. In the governance of that discretion, upon questions of appropriateness or necessity, the circumstances and exigencies of the time must be more decisive than the opinions or purposes of those who framed the instrument conferring the discretion, without being able to foresee the occasions which the future would bring forth for its exercise.
I am not contending that necessity can confer any additional powers upon such a government as ours, but simply that in the history of the country occasions will arise for the use of means to accomplish the recognized objects of the Constitution, different from what its founders could have anticipated, and perhaps contrary to their expectations, and that in such event the question of constitutional power is to be decided by a fair construction of the Constitution itself, and by the appropriateness of the proposed means to the proposed end, tested rather by the facts of the day than by the judgment of the past or its history.
Taking it for granted that Congress has power to issue treasury notes or bills of credit to circulate as currency, in order to borrow money upon the credit of the United States, the question before us comes to whether Congress may confer upon these notes the character of a legal tender in order more effectually to accomplish the object of borrowing money by or upon them.
The principles upon which the Constitution is to be construed, in cases where the act in question is neither expressly authorized nor expressly forbidden, received, as is well known, *Page 497 
an exhaustive discussion in the case of McCulloch v. The Stateof Maryland (4 Wheat., 316). The memorable and masterly judgment of Chief Justice MARSHALL, in that case, leaves nothing to be said upon the abstract questions which lie at the bottom of this and similar disputes. In discussing the meaning of the words "necessary and proper," as used in the general authority conferred to pass laws for carrying into execution the express powers of Congress, the Chief Justice said: "The subject is the execution of those great powers on which the welfare of a nation essentially depends. It must have been the intention of those who gave these powers to ensure, as far as human prudence could ensure, their beneficial execution. This could not be done by confining the choice of means to such narrow limits as not to leave it in the power of Congress to adopt any which might be appropriate, and which were conducive to the end. This provision is made in a Constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs. To have prescribed the means by which the government should, in all future time, execute its powers, would have been to change entirely the character of the instrument, and give it the proportions of a written code. It would have been an insane attempt to provide by immutable rules for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which could best be provided for as they occur. To have declared that the best means shall not be used, but those alone without which the power given would be nugatory, would have been to deprive the legislature of the capacity to avail itself of experience, to exercise its reason, and to accommodate its legislation to circumstances." And he gives the rule in language often quoted: "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." If the measure proposed is an appropriate means to a legitimate end, the degree of its necessity is to be discussed elsewhere than in a judicial forum. So again the Chief Justice *Page 498 
said in the same case: "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."
We are brought by such considerations, I conceive, to a narrow issue, after all, in this case. It is not denied that making treasury notes a tender between individuals is not in terms prohibited to Congress by the Constitution, although it is to the several States. The question that remains is, whether such a measure is appropriate to the object of borrowing money upon them. I cannot doubt, after long and anxious consideration of the subject, that it is.
It is conceded that Congress may issue these notes in a form and manner to make them readily pass and continue in circulation as currency, in order more easily to borrow or obtain property or value by its use. Nor is it disputed that the power which has been heretofore exercised, of making such notes a tender for dues to the government, is appropriate to the same end. Mr. Calhoun considered it so much so that he supposed that nothing else was needed to make such notes a permanent and perpetual paper currency, and of course to enable the government to obtain, as a loan, without interest, for an indefinite time, the whole amount of that currency. It is sufficiently plain that to make such notes also a tender between individuals must, or at least may, add still more to their use and currency, and so tend to keep a much larger amount in circulation. When the point is established that government has power to issue a currency as a means of borrowing from the people, the inference is irresistible to my mind that it may confer upon such a currency any and all attributes, not expressly forbidden by the Constitution, which will enhance its value and increase the amount likely to be retained in circulation and use.
It does, indeed, at first consideration, appear like a solecism to say that Congress is authorized to issue paper money, as a means of borrowing money. But the confusion arises from *Page 499 
the different senses or shades of meaning in which the word money is used, as a circulating medium, or as a synonym of capital or value. The fact itself is simply an instance of the theory upon which all issues of exchequer bills, bank notes or paper credits, to circulate as currency, are made profitable, to wit, that whoever parts with value, in exchange for such paper credits, in fact lends to the government or the individual which issues them. There is really no solecism or contradiction in the idea of borrowing money, by issuing paper currency. Making the bills of credit which constitute this currency a legal tender, is a measure of the same general nature, and as appropriate to the end to be accomplished by their exercise, as it is to confer upon them any of the other attributes of use or value which have, from time to time, been given to them or to other obligations of the government. It is a means, directly related to that end by a connection which is palpable and distinct. The necessity, or the degree of necessity of such a measure, is a question which belongs to the legislature, and not to the courts. It is enough to forbid our interference that we shall be able to see that the act is not forbidden by the fundamental law, and that it appropriately and properly tends to the accomplishment of one of the material objects of the government, or to the exercise of one of the great powers conferred upon the federal legislature to effect these objects. Of the wisdom of such a measure, or of the necessity which demanded a resort to it, another branch of the government, and not the courts, is the judge, and for the consequences of its use, whatever they may be, others are responsible.
The conclusion thus indicated is not without strong support from decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in cases strongly analogous to the present. In Weston v. The City ofCharleston (2 Pet., 449), it was held, and the principle has been affirmed and extended in the recent tax case, in which the judgment of this court was reversed, that Congress can exempt from all State taxation the bonds or stocks issued by the United States. No express power to confer such a *Page 500 
right upon government bonds or their owners is contained in the fundamental law, and no other property or evidences of value can be endowed by Congress with such a privilege. The power to make this important exception to the reach of State legislation is derived wholly by implication from the power which the Constitution contains to borrow money on the credit of the United States.
The analogy to the legislation now under consideration is, in one aspect, very exact. It is said that the subject of contracts is left by our system to State legislation exclusively. But the assessment and collection of local taxes is equally within the domain of State power, and no right is more jealously asserted, as an attribute of sovereignty by the several States, than the right to subject all property within their limits to the taxes necessary for the support of their governments. Yet large masses of property and values are abstracted from the reach of State laws by the federal legislation to which I refer — legislation resting wholly upon a power implied from the propriety or advantage of conferring such attributes on federal evidences of debt, in order to aid the federal government in borrowing money.
In all such instances, the incidental consequences to the States or to individuals, however far-reaching, are no answer to the assertion of a power by the general government, if it be appropriate and adapted to an object which that government was expressly authorized to pursue.
It should also be observed that, although the laws of contracts, with their rights and remedies, as between citizen and citizen, do unquestionably belong to the States, and not to the federal government, yet the regulation of the value and denomination of the money or medium in which contracts of indebtedness are to be performed, is within the control of Congress, and with it necessarily the general subject of tender. The money of account and payment in all private as well as public transactions is the money of the United States; and no one has ever questioned the power always exercised by Congress to declare its own or foreign coins a tender in the payment *Page 501 
of debts. The power to declare what shall be such a tender obviously belongs to the federal government, and not to the States; and our inquiries have therefore been limited, in effect, to the question whether this power is restricted to the use of gold and silver only.
By the course of reasoning which I have thus indicated, and which might, of course, be much elaborated, I have been brought to the result that the Congress of the United States possesses the power to make the United States treasury notes or bills of credit lawful money and a tender in the payment of debts, and that judgment should be rendered in these two cases accordingly.
In concluding these observations, which have already been made more extended than I supposed they would or intended they should be, I will only add a single remark. It is, I think, proper for me frankly to say that I approached the consideration of this great question with a desire to sustain the act of Congress, whose validity is called in question. As much as this is due, in my judgment, to any and every act of the supreme legislature of the nation. But this just repugnance to thwart that legislative will or prohibit its exercise is enhanced in the present instance by the consideration of the grave responsibility assumed by any citizen, who, in any way or in any sphere of action, will interpose hindrances or obstacles to the efforts of the government to suppress the great and wicked rebellion, which has brought so much misery upon us — a rebellion as little justified in morals as in legal or constitutional right.
Notwithstanding such considerations, however, the question for us, as judges, is simply one of law; and if our judgments had been adverse to the right of Congress to pass this law, our oaths and our consciences are paramount to all other considerations. In this connection I must also say, that I commenced the examination of this question with serious doubts of the power of Congress to pass this law, and with an impression adverse to its validity. Deliberate examination has removed these doubts, and I give my judgment with a clear *Page 502 
and unhesitating conviction of the power of Congress to make government notes a legal tender, as a pure question of constitutional law, and with the satisfaction which attends a clear belief so carefully reached upon a point of such importance.