Opinion of the Court.

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; Dooley v. Smith, 13 Wall. 604; Railroad Company v. Johnson, 15 Wall. 195; and Maryland v. Railroad Company, 22 Wall. 105; 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, 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.

No question of the scope and extent of the implied powers of Congress under the Constitution can be satisfactorily discussed without repeating much of the reasoning of Chief Justice Marshall in the great judgment in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, by which the power of Congress to incorporate a bank was demonstrated and affirmed, notwithstanding the Constitution does not enumerate, among the powers granted, that of establishing a bank or creating a corporation.

The people of the United States by the Constitution established a national government, with 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

Opinion of the Court.

the purse, all the external relations,. and no inconsiderable portion of the industry of the nation, are entrusted 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 ninth section of the first 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. 107. See also page 415.

The breadth and comprehensiveness of the words of the Constitution are nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in regard to the powers 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 defence 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."

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The section which contains the grant of these and other principal legislative powers concludes by declaring that the Congress shall have power

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."

By the settled construction and the only reasonable interpretation of this clause, the words "necessary and proper” are not limited to such measures as are absolutely and indispensably necessary, without which the powers granted must fail of execution; but they include all appropriate means which are conducive or adapted to the end to be accomplished, and which in the judgment of Congress will most advantageously effect it.

That clause of the Constitution which declares that "the Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence 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 which ever 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 United States 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 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

Opinion of the Court.

which was not indispensably necessary to give effect to a 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. Maryland, 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 make the treasury notes of the United States a legal tender in payment of private debts.

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 authorized "to borrow money or emit bills on the credit 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

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not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." Art. 2; art. 9, § 5; 1 Stat. 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. Missouri, 4 Pet. 410, 435. But in the Constitution, as he had before observed in McCulloch v. Maryland, "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 Tenth 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 pro