in the absence of any pretext of a justifying | exigency.

As an exigency created the power, so it limited the duration of the power. To attempt its exercise long after the exigency had ended, after the war which called it into being had ceased to exist, save in history and recollection, and after all the extraordinary and exigent methods of government, civil and military, which marked its dark and blood-stained days had been succeeded by the calm and order of established peace, is, we humbly submit, in excess of any power reposed by the Constitution in Congress.

er.

As the Constitution was framed; as it stands; as it has been construed, it grants no such powWe venture to affirm that if ever engrafted on the organic law, it must be by way of amendment, through the suffrages of the Nation, and not by a concession extorted from its Supreme Court.

Messrs. Thomas H. Talbot, James McKeen and B. F. Butler, for defendant in

error.

Mr. Justice Gray delivered the opinion of the court:

Julliard, a citizen of New York, brought an action against Greenman, a citizen of Connecticut, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, alleging that the plaintiff sold and delivered to the defendant, at his special instance and request, one hundred bales of cotton, of the value and for the agreed price of $5122.90; and that the defendant agreed to pay that sum in cash on the delivery of the cotton, and had not paid the same or any part thereof, except that he had paid the sum of $22.90 on account, and was now justly indebted to the plaintiff therefor in the sum of $5,100; and demanding judgment for this sum with interest and costs.

The defendant in his answer admitted the citizenship of the parties, the purchase and delivery of the cotton, and the agreement to pay therefor, as alleged; and averred that, after the delivery of the cotton, he offered and tendered to the plaintiff, in full payment, $22.50 in gold coin of the United States, forty cents in silver coin of the United States, and two United States notes, one of the denomination of $5,000, and the other of the denomination of $100, of the description known as United States legal tender notes, purporting by recital thereon to be legal tender, at their respective face values, for all debts, public and private, except duties on imports and interest on the public debt, and which, after having been presented for payment, and redeemed and paid in gold coin, since January 1, 1879, at the United States sub-treasury in New York, had been re-issued and kept in circulation under and in pursuance of the Act of Congress of May 31, 1878, ch. 146; that at the time of offering and tendering these notes and coin to the plaintiff, the sum of $5122.90 was the entire amount due and owing in payment for the cotton, but the plaintiff declined to receive the notes in payment of $5,100 thereof; and that the defendant had ever since remained and still was ready and willing to pay to the plaintiff the sum of $5,100 in these notes, and brought these notes into court, ready to be paid to the plaintiff, if he would accept them.

The plaintiff demurred to the answer, upon the grounds that the defense, consisting of new matter, was insufficient in law upon its face, and that the facts stated in the answer did not constitute any defense to the cause of action alleged.

The Circuit Court overruled the demurrer and gave judgment for the defendant, and the plaintiff sued out this writ of error.

The amount which the plaintiff seeks to recover and which, if the tender pleaded is insufficient in law, he is entitled to recover is $5,100. There can, therefore, be no doubt of the jurisdiction of this court to revise the judg ment of the Circuit Court. Act of February 18, 1875, ch. 77, sec. 8; 18 Stat. at L., 315.

The notes of the United States, tendered in payment of the defendant's debt to the plaintiff, were originally issued under the Acts of Congress of February 25, 1862, ch. 83, July 11, 1862, ch. 142, and March 3, 1863, ch. 73, passed during the war of the rebellion, and enacting that these notes should "be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States", except for duties on imports and interest on the public debt. 12 Stat. at L., 845, 532, 709.

The provisions of the earlier Acts of Congress, so far as it is necessary, for the understanding of the recent statutes, to quote them, are re-enacted in the following provisions of the Revised Statutes:

"Sec. 8579. When any United States notes are returned to the Treasury, they may be reissued, from time to time, as the exigencies of the public interest may require.

Sec. 3580. When any United States notes re turned to the Treasury are so mutilated or oth erwise injured as to be unfit for use, the Secre tary of the Treasury is authorized to replace the same with others of the same character and amounts.

Sec. 3581. Mutilated United States notes, when replaced according to law, and all other notes which by law are required to be taken up and not re-issued, when taken up shall be destroyed in such manner and under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe.

Sec. 3582. The authority given to the Secretary of the Treasury to make any reduction of the currency, by retiring and canceling United States notes, is suspended."

"Sec. 3588. United States notes shall be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States, except for duties on imports and interest on the public debt."

The Act of January 14, 1875, ch. 15, "To provide for the resumption of specie payments, enacted that on and after January 1, 1879, "The Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem in coin the United States legal tender notes then outstanding, on their presentation for redemption at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of the United States in the City of New York, in sums of not less than $50," and authorized him to use for that purpose any surplus revenues in the Treasury and the proceeds of the sales of certain bonds of the United States. 18 Stat. at L., 296.

The Act of May 31, 1878, ch. which the notes in question were

146, under re-issued, is

"From and after the passage of this Act it shall not be lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury or other officer under him to cancel or retire any more of the United States legal tender notes. And when any of said notes may be redeemed or be received into the Treasury under any law from any source whatever and shall belong to the United States, they shall not be retired, canceled or destroyed, but they shall be re-issued and paid out again and kept in cir culation; Provided, That nothing herein shall prohibit the cancellation and destruction of mutilated notes and the issue of other notes of like denomination in their stead, as now provided by law. All Acts and parts of Acts in conflict herewith are hereby repealed." 20 Stat. at L., 87.

The manifest intention of this Act is that the notes which it directs, after having been redeemed, to be re-issued and kept in circulation, shall retain their original quality of being a legal tender.

The single question, therefore, to be considered, and upon the answer to which the judgment to be rendered between these parties depends, is whether notes of the United States, issued in time of war, under Acts of Congress declaring them to be a legal tender in payment of private debts, and afterwards in time of peace redeemed and paid in gold coin at the Treasury, and then re-issued under the Act of 1878, can, under the Constitution of the United States, be a legal tender in payment of such debts.

Upon full consideration of the case, the court is unanimously of opinion that it cannot be distinguished in principle from the cases heretofore determined, reported under the names of the Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall., 457 [79 U. S., XX., 287]; Dooley v. Smith, 13 Wall., 604 [80 U. S., XX., 547]; R. R. Co. v. Johnson, 15 Wall., 195 (82 U. S., XXI., 178]; and Md. v. R. R. Co., 22 Wall., 105 [89 U. S., XXII., 718]; and all the Judges, except Mr. Justice Field, who adheres to the views expressed in his dissenting opinions in those cases, are of opinion that they were rightly decided.

The elaborate printed briefs submitted by counsel in this case, and the opinions delivered in the Legal Tender Cases, and in the earlier case of Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wall., 603 [75 U. S., XIX., 513], which those cases overruled, forcibly present the arguments on either side of the question of the power of Congress to make the notes of the United States a legal tender in payment of private debts. Without undertaking to deal with all those arguments, the court has thought it fit that the grounds of its judgment in the case at bar should be fully stated.

sovereign powers, legislative, executive and judicial. "The government of the Union," said Chief Justice Marshall, "though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action;" and its laws, when made in pursuance of the Constitution, form the supreme law of the land." Among the enumerated powers of government, we find the great powers to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to declare and conduct a war; and to raise and support armies and navies. The sword and the purse, all the external relations, and no inconsiderable portion of the industry of the Nation, are intrusted to its government." 4 Wheat., 405, 406, 407.

A constitution, establishing a frame of government, declaring fundamental principles and creating a national sovereignty and intended to endure for ages and to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs, is not to be interpreted with the strictness of a private contract. The Constitution of the United States, by apt words of designation or general description, marks the outlines of the powers granted to the National Legislature; but it does not undertake, with the precision and detail of a code of laws, to enumerate the subdivisions of those powers, or to specify all the means by which they may be carried into execution. Chief Justice Marshall, after dwelling upon this view, as required by the very nature of the Constitution, by the language in which it is framed, by the limitations upon the general powers of Congress introduced in the 9th section of the 1st article, and by the omission to use any restrictive term which might prevent its receiving a fair and just interpretation, added these emphatic words:

In considering this question, then, we must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding." 4 Wheat., 407. See, also, page 415.

The breadth and comprehensiveness of the words of the Constitution are nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in regard to the pow. ers over the subjects of revenue, finance and currency, of which there is no other express grant than may be found in these few brief clauses:

"The Congress shall have power:

To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures."

The People of the United States by the Consti

By the settled construction and the only rea

make the treasury notes of the United States a legal tender in payment of private debts.

That clause of the Constitution which declares that "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," either embodies a grant of power to pay the debts of the United States, or presupposes and assumes that power as inherent in the United States as a sovereign government. But, in whichever aspect it be considered, neither this nor any other clause of the Constitution makes any mention of priority or preference of the United States as a creditor over other creditors of an individual debtor. Yet this court, in the early case of U. S. v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358, held that, under the power to pay the debts of the United States, Congress had the power to enact that debts due to the United States should have that priority of payment out of the estate of an insolvent debtor, which the law of England gave to debts due to the Crown.

In delivering judgment in that case, Chief Justice Marshall expounded the clause giving Congress power to make all necessary and proper laws, as follows: "In construing this clause, it would be incorrect, and would produce endless difficulties, if the opinion should be maintained that no law was authorized which was not indispensably necessary to give effect to a [441] specified power. Where various systems might be adopted for that purpose, it might be said with respect to each, that it was not necessary, because the end might be obtained by other means. Congress must possess the choice of means, and must be empowered to use any means which are in fact conducive to the exercise of a power granted by the Constitution. The government is to pay the debt of the Union, and must be authorized to use the means which appear to itself the most eligible to effect that object.' 2 Cranch, 396.

"

In McCulloch v. Md., he more fully developed the same view, concluding thus: "We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the government are limited and that its limits are not to be transcended. But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must allow to the National Legislature that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional." 4 Wheat., 421.

The rule of interpretation thus laid down has been constantly adhered to and acted on by this court, and was accepted as expressing the true test by all the Judges who took part in the former discussions of the power of Congress to

The other judgments delivered by Chief Justice Marshall contain nothing adverse to the power of Congress to issue legal tender notes. By the Articles of Confederation of 1777, the United States in Congress assembled were aucredit of the United States; but it was declared that "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." Art. 2; art. 9, section 5; 1 Stat. at L., 4, 7. Yet, upon the question whether, under those articles, Congress, by virtue of the power to emit bills on the credit of the United States, had the power to make bills so emitted a legal tender, Chief Justice Marshall spoke very guardedly, saying: "Congress emitted bills of credit to a large amount, and did not, perhaps could not, make them a legal tender. This power resided in the States. Craig v. Mo., 4 Pet., 410, 435. But in the Constitution, as he had before observed in McCulloch v. Md., "There is no phrase which, like the Articles of Confederation, excludes incidental or implied powers; and which requires that everything granted shall be expressly and minutely described. Even the 10th Amendment, which was framed for the purpose of quieting the excessive jealousies which had been excited, omits the word 'expressly,' and declares only that the powers 'not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people;' thus leaving the question, whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest has been delegated to the one government or prohibited to the other, to depend on a fair construction of the whole instrument. The men who drew and adopted this Amendment had experienced the embarrassments resulting from the insertion of this word in the Articles of Confederation, and probably omitted it to avoid those embarrassments.' 4 Wheat.,406, 407,

The sentence sometimes quoted from his opinion in Sturges v. Crowninshield had exclusive relation to the restrictions imposed by the Constitution on the powers of the States, and especial reference to the effect of the clause prohibiting the States from passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts, as will clearly appear by quoting the whole paragraph: "Was this general prohibition intended to prevent paper money? We are not allowed to say so, because it is expressly provided that no State shall emit bills of credit; neither could these words be intended to restrain the States from enabling debtors to discharge their debts by the tender of property of no real value to the creditor, because for that subject also particular provision is made. Nothing but gold and silver coin can be made a tender in payment of debts." 4 Wheat., 122, 204.

Such reports as have come down to us of the debates in the Convention that framed the Constitution afford no proof of any general concurrence of opinion upon the subject before us. The adoption of the motion to strike out the words "and emit bills" from the clause “to borrow money and emit bills on the credit of the