360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of payment gold be worth more or less. In Bronson vs. Rodes, 

 7 Wall., 229, Chief- Justice Chase said : " It is the appropriate func- 

 tion of the courts to enforce contracts according to the lawful 

 understanding of the parties. . . . The intent of the parties is 

 clear. ... A contract to pay a certain number of dollars in 

 gold or silver is therefore in legal import nothing else than an 

 agreement to deliver a certain weight of standard gold, to be 

 ascertained by a count of coins, each of which is certified to con- 

 tain a definite proportion of that weight. It is not distinguish- 

 able, as we think, from a contract to deliver an equal amount of 

 bullion of equal fineness." The same doctrine has been estab- 

 lished by the cases of Butler vs. Horwitz, 7 Wall., 259, and Tribe- 

 lock vs. Wilson, 12 Wall., 687, the latter case being decided in 

 1871, Justices Miller and Bradley dissenting. The later case of 

 Gregory vs. Morris, 6 Otto, 619, decided in 1877, without dissent 

 among the justices, affirmed the case first cited. And while it is 

 within the bounds of possibility that this doctrine may be upset 

 in some period of great excitement, it is as solidly established as 

 any doctrine can well be, having been affirmed by a large number 

 of the Supreme Courts of the States as well as by the Supreme 

 Court of the United States, which in such matters has supreme 

 authority.* 



The currency problem has therefore been taken out of politics 

 in a very large class of cases, and it can readily be done in nearly 

 all. If bankers agree to pay their depositors in coin of a specified 

 kind, say in gold coin of the present standard weight and fineness, 

 regardless of legislation, they can readily make obligations due 

 themselves likewise payable. Bankers, indeed, being subject to 

 demand payments by their depositors, are really under a pledge 

 to pay them in an undepreciated currency, since in the event of a 

 debasement of the coinage the public would at once rush for the 

 more valuable currency ; and, as few bankers could stand such 

 runs if made simultaneously on different banks, they are almost 

 unanimously opposed to any change in the currency. The asser- 

 tion may be ventured that the same causes that have led to the 

 insertion of the above-cited provision in railroad mortgages will 

 lead to similar contracts in other instances, particularly in the 

 case of long-time, low-rate real-estate mortgages to insurance com- 

 panies. While such changes can not come quickly, the pressure 

 of interest and the universal desire for certainty will lead gradu- 

 ally to the adoption of expedients of the kind mentioned. If this 

 kind of obligations should become common and of recognized va- 

 lidity, it is obvious that the political pressure, now so great, would 

 be entirely neutralized, because few would have anything to gain 



* For a collection of authorities, see 2 Daniel on Negotiable Instruments, sec. 1247. 



