UNITED STATES. 



745 



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 charac- 

 ter and qualification 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. It is not, 

 therefore, Btrange that those who hold the Legal- 

 Tender Act unconstitutional when applied to con- 

 tracts made before February, 1862, find themselves 

 compelled also to hold that the act is 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. 



^ A lengthy examination of the rules of constitu- 

 tional construction is made, and the conclusion is 

 that Congress has authority in all cases to enact 

 laws necessary and proper for the execution of all 

 powers created by the Constitution, and that the ne- 

 cessity spoken of is not absolute, but within the 

 judgment and discretion of Congress. It is deter- 

 mined that one of the duties of Government is to 

 preserve itself, and held that this Government is 

 possessed of all necessary powers to that end ; and, 

 after a statement of the condition of the country at 

 the date of the issue of the legal tenders, the circum- 

 stances of the war, and the means required to main- 

 tain the army and navy, it is said that if it were cer- 

 tain that nothing else would have supplied the abso- 

 lute 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 destruc- 

 tion, while the Legal-Tender Act would, it cannot 

 be said that Congress transgressed its powers in the 

 enactment of this law, or if this enactment did 

 work the result, it cannot be maintained now that 

 it was not for a legitimate end, and appropriate 

 and adapted to that end. In the language of Mar- 

 shall, in McCullagh vs. Maryland, that it did work 

 such results cannot be doubted, and if it be conceded 

 that some other means might have been chosen for 

 the accomplishment of the same necessary object, 

 the argument is not weakened by the concession. 

 Congress had the choice of means, and it chose a 

 sufficient and proper one, and that it had a right to 

 do, and that was all it could have done. If the court 

 were to hold that the means selected were beyond 

 the constitutional power of Congress because, in their 

 opinion, some other means would have been equally 

 appropriate and efficient, that would be to assume le- 

 gislative power and to disregard the accented rules for 

 construing the Constitution. But the view is taken 

 that none of the other means suggested could have 

 been successful. The credit of the country 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 

 receive land for those notes that were at first issued, 

 and the head of the Treasury Department repre- 

 sented to Congress the necessity of making the new 

 issues legal tenders, or, rather, declared it impossible 

 to avoid the necessity. The grant to Congress of 

 the power to coin money cannot be regarded as con- 

 taining an implied prohibition against the issue of 

 legal-tender notes, and if it raises any implications 

 they are of complete power over the currency rather 

 than restraining. 



The objection that the Legal-Tender Act impairs 

 the obligations of contracts cannot be accepted, for 

 it is not an obligation of the debtor to pay gold or 

 silver as to contracts, but to pay money generally 

 not contracts to pay specifically-defined money, or 



the kind of money recognized by law at the time 

 when the contract was made, nor is it his duty to 

 pay money of equal intrinsic value in the market. 

 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 the one party to the con- 

 tract concerning its fruits, nor the anticipations of 

 the other, constitutes its obligation. 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 any thing settled by deci- 

 sion it is this, and cannot be understood to be con- 

 troverted. Nor can it be said that Congress may 

 not by its action indirectly impair the obligations of 

 contracts, if by the expression be meant rendering 

 them fruitless or partially so. Directly it may, con- 

 fessedly, by passing a bankrupt act embracing past 

 as well as future transactions. This is obliterating 

 contracts entirely. So it may relieve parties from 

 their apparent obligations indirectly in a multitude 

 of ways. All such measures may and must operate 

 seriously upon existing contracts, and may not merely 

 hinder, but relieve, the parties entirely from per- 

 formance. 



As to the objection that the Legal-Tender Act 

 w;as prohibited _ by the constitutional provision pro- 

 hibiting the taking of private property for public use 

 without just compensation, it is said* that provision 

 has always been understood to refer only to a direct 

 appropriation, and not to consequential* injuries re- 

 sulting from the exercise of lawful power. The ob- 

 jection that the unit of money value must possess 

 intrinsic value is regarded as foreign to the subject. 

 The Legal-Tender Act does not attempt to make a 

 standard of value. Its validity is not vested upon 

 the assertion that its emission is coinage or any 

 regulation of the value of money. Nor is it asserted 

 that Congress has the power to enact that Govern- 

 ment 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, and 

 contemplates merely a standard for that which has 

 gravity or extension. Value is an ideal thing. The 

 Coinage Act fixes its unit as a dollar, but the gold or 

 silver thing called a dollar is in no sense the stand- 

 ard of a dollar, but a representative of it. This de- 

 cision overrules as much what was decided in Hep- 

 burn vs. Griswold 8 Wall, 603 as ruled the Legal- 

 Tender Act unwarranted by the Constitution so far as 

 it applies to contracts made before that enactment. 



It is said that it is no unprecedented thing in 

 courts of legal resort, both in this country and in 

 England, to overrule decisions previously made, and 

 that, even in cases involving private interests, if this 

 court is convinced it has made a mistake, it will hear 

 another argument and correct the error. It is agreed 

 this should not bo done inconsiderately; but in a 

 case of such far-reaching consequences as the present, 

 thoroughly convinced as the court is that Congress 

 has not transgressed its powers, it is regarded! as a 

 duty so to decide and to affirm the judgments below 

 in both cases. It is also remarked that the court is 

 not accustomed to hear such cases in the absence of 

 a full court, if it can be avoided. 



Mr. Justice Bradley read an opinion concur- 

 ring in the conclusions of Mr. Justice Strong. 

 The Chief Justice and Justices Clifford and 

 Field all the dissenting justices, except Mr. 

 Justice Nelson who was not present read dis- 

 senting opinions, setting forth at great length 

 the minority's views, as having been the 

 opinion of the court in the former decision 

 of the legal-tender question. In conclusion 

 the Chief Justice says : 



