RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 459 



court the constitutionality of the legal tender acts was to 

 be fully argued and finally settled by the court, so that the 

 question should be forever put at rest. The best legal 

 talent of the country was present, representing the bul- 

 lionists of both Europe and America. The greatest efforts 

 possible were made by capitalists to secure an adverse deci- 

 sion against the legal tender qualities of the greenback 

 currency. We give below extracts from the opinions of 

 the court. 



" Before we can hold the legal tender acts unconstitu- 

 tional 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 the government, not appro- 

 priate in any degree (for we are not judges of that degree 

 of appropriation), or we must hold they were prohibited." 

 12 Wallace U. S. Supreme Court Reports, page 



"The degree of the necessity for any Congressional 

 enactment, or the relative degree of its appropriateness, is 

 for consideration in Congress, not here. 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." 12 Wallace, 542. 



"The constitution was intended to frame a govern- 

 ment, 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 for 

 this reason the power to coin money and regulate its value 

 was conferred upon the Federal Government, while the 

 same power to emit bills of credit was withheld from the 

 States. The States can no longer declare what shall be 

 money, or regulate its value. IVJiatever 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. 

 12 Wallace, 5^5. 



44 And generally when one of such powers was ex- 



