RHODE ISLAND. 



not bound to receive from the plaintiffs such 

 currency trinli-ivil to liiia in payment of their 

 note iiuuli' In- 1 on.- tho passage of the act men- 

 tioned. When tlii* (U-i'i.-ion was made, tho 

 Court consisted of eight Judges, there being 

 one vacancy caused by the death of Associate 

 Justice Wayne. The five concurring in the de- 

 cision were Chief Justice Chase and Associate 

 Justices Nelson, Clifford, Field, and Grier. Of 

 these, tho first three were understood to hold 

 the legal-tender clause to be unconstitutional for 

 all purposes, and the latter two unconstitutional 

 as to prior contracts only. Mr. Justice Miller 

 dissented, and Justices Swayne and Davis con- 

 curred in his opinion. This decision was sub- 

 sequently reversed, as below stated. 



In the Supreme Court of the United States, 

 December term, 1870, several cases came up 

 similar in character, the controlling questions 

 of which were: 1. Are the acts of Congress, 

 known as the legal-tender acts, constitutional 

 when applied to contracts made before their 

 passage ? 2. Are they valid as applicable to 

 debts contracted since their enactment? The 

 cases were considered by a full bench, and by 

 a vote of five to four the Court held such acts 

 of Congress constitutional as applied to con- 

 tracts made either before or after the passage 

 of the acts; thus overruling the previous deci- 

 sion in the matter. The opinion was rendered 

 by Mr. Justice Strong, and concurred in by 

 Justices Bradley, Miller, Davis, and Swayne. 

 Chief Justice Chase delivered a dissenting opin- 

 ion, as did also Justices Nelson, Clifford, and 

 Field. 



In this matter Secretary Sherman, in his an- 

 nual report for 1879, submitted to Congress the 

 following : 



^The Secretary is. therefore, of opinion that the pro- 

 visions of existing law are ample to enable the Depart- 

 ment to maintain resumption even upon the present 

 volume of the United States notes. In view, however, 

 of the large inflow of gold into the country and the 

 high price of public securitieSj it would seem to be a 

 favorable time to invest a portion of tho sinking fund 

 in United States notes, to be retired and canceled, and 

 in this way gradually to reduce the maximum of such 

 notes to the sum of 1300,000,000, the amount fixed by 

 the resumption act. 



The Secretary respectfully calls the attention of Con- 

 gress to the question whether United States notes 

 ought still to be a legal tender in the payment of debts. 

 [The reader is referred to page 867 of this volume for 

 the remainder of tho Secretary's remarks on the legal 

 tender of tho notes. ED.] 



J. K. UPTOW, 

 Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. 



RHODE ISLAND. The Legislature met at 

 the usual time for the January session. An 

 act defining the liability of towns and cities for 

 property destroyed in times of riot was passed 

 in the Senate, January 29th, providing that the 

 owners of such property should be indemnified 

 to the amount of three fourths of its value, 

 and fixing sis persons as the minimum number 

 to constitute a mob. An act to rectify the 

 boundary of the two Congressional districts of 

 the State placed the whole of Providence in 

 VOL. six. 49 A 



the first district and the whole of Pawtucket 

 in the second. By an act passed March 1'Jth 

 a bailor is enabled to release himself from his 

 bond by producing his principal in court during 

 the pendency of the action. A compulsory edu- 

 cation bill was brought forward, and elicited 

 considerable debate. It provided that every 

 child between seven and fifteen years of age 

 who should absent himself from school three 

 times within three consecutive months without 

 the consent of his parent, guardian, or teacher 

 should be treated as an habitual trnant, and 

 every child who should not attend school for 

 at least three months out of the tw%lve should 

 be adjudged an absentee, the penalty in either 

 case to be a fine of not more than ten dollars 

 or detention in a reformatory institute of from 

 Bix months to ten years ; and that truant offi- 

 cers should be appointed in every town to en- 

 force the law. A bill was passed prohibiting 

 trap-fishing for two days in each week, be- 

 tween the 1st of May and the 1st of August. 

 The three bills upon which most of the work 

 and time of the January session were ex- 

 pended a bill for the regulation of savings- 

 banks, one reducing the State tax, and the com* 

 pnlsory education bill all failed to pass. The 

 General Assembly adjourned on the llth of 

 April. 



The May session of the General Assembly be- 

 gan on the 26th and ended on the 30th of May. 

 The savings-bank bill, postponed from the Jan- 

 nary session,, was passed on the last day. It 

 provides that the Supreme Court, upon appli- 

 cation by petition in equity, may order the 

 trustees of an institution under injunction, and 

 unable to pay its depositors in full, to divide 

 their assets into two classes, one class to be de- 

 nominated the quick assets, and the other the 

 reserved assets ; that the Court may permit 

 the institution to go on in business with the 

 quick assets, and may order the deficiencies in 

 the reserved assets to be apportioned among 

 the depositors ; that depositors shall give ninety 

 days' notice of an intention to withdraw their 

 funds ; and that receivers shall receive not to 

 exceed $2,500 per annum for services in wind- 

 ing np a savings-bank, and not more than 

 $5,000 in all. The fees for jurors were raised 

 from fifty cents to two dollars per diem by an 

 act passed May 30th. Another act allows 

 guardians or executors to whom letters have 

 been granted by a court of probate to manage 

 the estate of a ward or testator during the 

 pendency of an appeal from the decree of the 

 Probate Court to the Supreme Court. 



The Prohibitory State Convention met at 

 Providence February 25th. The existing State 

 officers were renominated. The following reso- 

 lutions were adopted by tho Convention : 



Renolred, That while we do not ignore other ques- 

 tions of principle and policy that pertain to tho in- 

 terests of the State of Rhode Island, we hereby ex- 

 press our firm belief that the questions of temperance, 

 license, and the prohibition of tho liquor-traffic out- 

 weigh them all in importance ; and we reiterate our 

 unalterable opposition to making that traffic respect- 



