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Paper Currency. 



those who held opposite views, and Rhode Island was not represented 

 in the constitutional convention. It was desirable to have harmony, 

 so it was decided not to prohibit the issue of paper money, in express 

 terms, but to make it clear that the Constitution did not authorize it. 

 The only authority given Congress to legislate respecting a currency is 

 found in two sections. Section 10 says : " No State shall * * * 

 coin money, emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and silver 

 coin a tender in payment of debts, etc." Section 8, clause 5, says : 

 " The Congress shall have power * * * to coin money, regulate 

 the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights 



In speaking of the powers of Congress, in 1831, Mr. Gallatin said: 

 M As this body has no authority to make any thing whatever but gold 

 and silver a tender in payment of private debts, it necessarily follows 

 that nothing but gold and silver coin can be a legal tender for that 

 purpose, and that Congress cannot authorize the payment, in any 

 species of paper currency, of any other debts but those due to the 

 United States." 



In 1836 Daniel Webster, that mental giant, defender and expounder 

 of the Constitution, gave his views in the following words: 



" Most unquestionably there is no legal tender, and there can be no 

 legal tender in this country, but gold and silver, either coinage of our 

 own mints or foreign coins, at rates regulated by Congress. This is a 

 constitutional principle, perfectly plain, and of the highest importance. 

 The States are expressly prohibited from making any thing but gold 

 and silver a tender in payment of debts; and although no such prohi- 

 bition is applied to Congress in express terms, yet Congress has no 

 power granted to it in this respect, but to coin money and regulate the 



revenues would provide. It was the old story over again — an emer- 

 gency, not to be governed by the teachings of history, precedent or the 

 Constitution. The active spirits in Congress thought that the great 

 and unexpected expenditures of the government should be provided 

 for, in part, by taxation and loans, and, in part, by paper currency 

 It was claimed that, under the second clause of the eighth section of 

 the Constitution, which give3 Congress the power " to borrow money on 

 the credit of the United States," circulating notes could be issued. 

 The measures introduced for the authorization of circulating notes 

 were vigorously fought, in the Senate by Judge Collamer and in the 



money than the usual 



