Nrc winner
I find it interesting for the most part and qiute informative codes. Even
though as a whole I do not use codes in my approach as a AOC sovereign.
If it requires to be a discussion. Then veritas informative links would go.
Even though for the amount he posts I've got to be selective by time barrier,
but do enjoy here and there. Glad to see others doing research and posting what
others may use.
While I'm here.
I view things different then others in that we are on the territory and the
government was elected by people who desired a government. My view is we had
free colonies of sorts. Often they took up arms on the British when they had
enough. Those colony constitutions granted far more freedoms and are prohibits
agreements that can be used against the United States.
The colonies became states at the signing of the Declaration of Independance.
Silent as the people declared war. The state's at that time were spokesman for
the people. Needing more infantry men the AOC was created. The people would
never fight for another government. They had their fill.
The state's wanting their rights to control international protection and
negotiations. The states surrendered their authority to the United States by
the constitution. So today my view is your an inhabitant on the territory with
the North West ordinance or your United States citizen if there is really such
a thing other then government employees. I see it as fraud or United States
jerking the main unite in some fashion. The sad part is today is more by force
with business and rich people lacking for father's insight to liberty but
instead choose selfish desires to dictate this country.
Being connected by the AOC I'm a sovereign in my own righ by the creator. I
surrendered some to the United States and that makes it a sovereign as long as
the United States within its boundaries granted by the constitution.
That is why I go to Congress for remedies. Congress and president Pierce
decided to create a court to handle the petitions. That court today is the
United States Court of Federal Claims. A bit deceptive as many approach the
court as a subject and not the sovereign they are.
To that one brings a grievance that the local boys violated the contract:
constitution. The codes are what the United States created and may or may not
agree with the constitution. It is up to the American people to decide how they
live. For liberty minded, independant purple we fight the battle or be rebels
in the court with Congress.
In the end, Congress grants an apology letter for the local boys overstepping
their boundaries. Upon our pointing out the constitution was dishonored by
their treason per the constituition the Congress needs to charge the individual.
If they do not satisfy your request one can proceed to charge all 530 plus
members for the harm caused by their poor monitoring of their corporations. it
will never get that far but I believe that is the structural design.
Now United States can not ever contract with the people and fraud to say it is
possible. yes, the corporations have been hired by Congress but by their oaths
of allegience are responsible for violating that path as employees of the
United States. They go to jail out of ignorance as the people do. The smarter
one wins.
So going to court is first to establish jurisdiction. If United States does not
have it the uniform officer lost his status of immunity. One can sue him at
that point. The United States steps in to protect their concerns. When United
states is proven to violate the constitution the officer and United States
needs to remedy that by the constitution and man's law.
Remember, your the sovereign and all that matters is the constitution and if
the constitution does not give them the authority. They do not have it.
That is my thoughts on the subject as a practicing common law lawyer. Helping
others in life, liberty, and property.
On Nov 6, 2021, 12:10 PM -0600, nrcwinner@xxxxxxxxx <nrcwinner@xxxxxxxxx>,
wrote:
NELSON:
I am compelled to say this: Are you Lack of basic discernment or just
pampering your bordom at our expense?
NELSON : Why do you constantly pick personally-flavored studies/cases for
unnecessary discussion?
You have to CREATE questions to seek attentions and kill your unconstrained
compulsions?
What does that benefit others other than " at our expense keep deleting them"?
Are so lonely, attention-seeking that you have to use all-bolded message
saying " look at me, listen to my useless comments" subconsciously?
why don't you focus on solutions in a structured manner instead of
distracting us, wasting our time to delete your non-signifcant messages?
You are being selfish posting to all just to " kill your unproductive time "?
Perhaps take it to private, as suggested before, to fill your inner emptiness?
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
On Sat, Nov 6, 2021 at 6:38, cfc
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
have the scent on my tracks how to save rest of clan
On Friday, October 1, 2021, 09:17:43 AM CDT, NELSON DICE
<nelsondice@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
FIELD, J., dissenting.
32
From the judgment of the court in this case, and from all the positions
advanced in its support, I dissent. The question of the power of congress
to impart the quality of legal tender to the notes of the United States,
and thus make them money and a standard of value, is not new here.
Unfortunately, it has been too frequently before the court, and its latest
decision, previous to this one, has never been entirely accepted and
approved by the country. Nor should this excite surprise; for whenever it
is declared that this government, ordained to establish justice, has the
power to alter the condition of contracts between private parties, and
authorize their payment or discharge in something different from that which
the parties stipulated, thus disturbing the relations of commerce and the
business of the community generally, the doctrine will not and ought not to
be readily accepted. There will be many who will adhere to the teachings
and abide by the faith of their fathers So the question has come again, and
will continue to come until it is settled so as to uphold, and not impair,
the contracts of parties, to promote and not defeat justice.
33
If there be anything in the history of the constitution which can be
established with moral certainty, it is that the framers of that instrument
intended to prohibit the issue of legal-tender notes both by the general
government and by the states, and thus prevent interference with the
contracts of private parties. During the revolution and the period of the
old confederation, the continental congress issued bills of credit, and
upon its recommendation the states made them a legal tender, and the
refusal to receive them an extinguishment of the debts for which they were
offered. They also enacted severe penalties against those who refused to
accept them at their nominal value, as equal to coin, in exchange for
commodities. And previously, as early as January, 1776, congress had
declared that if any person should be 'so lost to all virtue and regard for
his country' as to refuse to receive in payment the bills then issued, he
should, on conviction thereof, be 'deemed, published, and treated as an
enemy of his county, and precluded from all trade and intercourse with the
inhabitants of the colonies.' Yet this legislation proved ineffectual; the
universal law of currency prevailed, which makes promises of money valuable
only as they are convertible into coin. The notes depreciated until they
became valueless in the hands of their possessors. So it always will be;
legislative declaration cannot make the promise of a thing the equivalent
of the thing itself.
34
The legislation to which the states were thus induced to resort was not
confined to the attempt to make paper money a legal tender for debts; but
the principle that private contracts could be legally impaired, and their
obligation disregarded, being once established, other measures equally
dishonest and destructive of good faith between parties were adopted. What
followed is thus stated by Mr. Justice STORY, in his Commentaries: 'The
history, indeed,' he says, 'of the various laws which were passed by the
states, in their colonial and independent character, upon this subject, is
startling at once to our morals, to our patriotism, and to our sense of
justice. Not only was paper money issued and declared to be a tender in
payment of debts, but laws of another character, well known under the
appellation of tender laws, appraisement laws, installment laws, and
suspension laws, were from time to time enacted, which prostrated all
private credit and all private morals. By some of these laws the due
payment of debts was suspended; debts were, in violation of the very terms
of the contract, authorized to be paid by installments at different
periods; property of any sort, however worthless, either real or personal,
might be tendered by the debtor in payment of his debts; and the creditor
was compelled to take the property of the debtor, which he might seize on
execution, at an appraisement wholly disproportionate to its known value.
Such grievances and oppressions, and others of a like nature, were the
ordinary results of legislation during the revolutionary war and the
intermediate period down to the formation of the constitution. They
entailed the most enormous evils on the country, and introduced a system of
fraud, chicanery, and profligacy which destroyed all private confidence and
all industry and enterprise.' Vol. 2, § 1371.
35
To put an end to this vicious system of legislation which only encouraged
fraud, thus graphically described by STORY, the clauses which forbid the
states from emitting bills of credit or making anything but gold and silver
a tender in payment of debts, or passing any law imparing the obligation of
contracts, were inserted in the constitution. 'The attention of the
convention, therefore,' says Chief Justice MARSHALL, 'was particularly
directed to paper money and to acts which enable the debtor to discharge
his debt otherwise than was stipulated in the contract. Had nothing more
been intended, nothing more would have been expressed, but, in the opinion
of the convention, much more remained to be done. The same mischief might
be effected by other means. To restore public confidence completely, it was
necessary, not only to prohibit the use of particular means by which it
might be effected, but to prohibit the use of any means by which the same
mischief might be produced. The convention appears to have intended to
establish a great principle, that contracts should be inviolable.' Sturges
v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 206. It would be difficult to believe, even in
the absence of the historical evidence we have on the subject, that the
framers of the constitution, profoundly impressed by the evils resulting
from this kind of legislation, ever intended that the new government,
ordained to establish justice, should possess the power of making its bills
a legal tender, which they were unwilling should remain with the states,
and in which the past had proved so dangerous to the peace of the
community, so disturbing to the business of the people, and so destructive
of their morality.
36
The great historian of our country has recently given to the world a
history of the convention, the result of years of labor in the examination
of all public documents relating to its formation and of the recorded
opinions of its framers; and thus he writes: 'With the full recollection of
the need or seeming need of paper money in the revolution, with the menace
of danger in future time of war from its prohibition, authority to issue
bills of credit that should be legal tender was refused to the general
government by the vote of nine states against New Jersey and Maryland. It
was Madison who decided the vote of Virginia, and he has left his testimony
that 'the pretext for paper currency, and particularly for making the bills
a tender, either for public or private debts, was cut off.' This is the
interpretation of the clause made at the time of its adoption, alike by its
authors and by its opponents, accepted by all the statesmen of that age,
not open to dispute because too clear for argument, and never disputed so
long as any one man who took part in framing the constitution remained
alive. History cannot name a man who has gained enduring honor by causing
the issue of paper money. Wherever such paper has been employed it has, in
every case, thrown upon its authors the burden of exculpation under the
plea of pressing necessity.' Bancroft's History of the formation of the
constitution of the United States, vol. 2, p. 134. And when the convention
came to the prohibition upon the states, the historian says that the
clause, 'No state shall make anything but gold and silver a tender in
payment of debts,' was accepted without a dissentient state. 'So the
adoption of the constitution,' he adds, 'is to be the end forever of paper
money, whether issued by the several states or by the United States, if the
constitution shall be rightly interpreted and honestly obeyed.' Id. 137.
37
For nearly three-quarters of a century after the adoption of the
constitution, and until the legislation during the recent civil war, no
jurist and no statesman of any position in the country ever pretended that
a power to impart the quality of legal tender to its notes was vested in
the general government. There is no recorded word of even one in favor of
its possessing the power. All conceded, as an axiom of constitutional law,
that the power did not exist.
38
Mr. Webster, from his first entrance into public life in 1812, gave great
consideration to the subject of the currency, and in an elaborate speech on
that subject, made in the senate in 1836, then sitting in this room, he
said: 'Currency, in a large and perhaps just sense, includes not only gold
and silver and bank bills, but bills of exchange also. it may include all
that adjusts exchanges and settles balances in the operations of trade and
business; but if we understand by currency the legal money of the country,
and that which constitutes a legal tender for debts, and is the standard
measure of value, then undoubtedly nothing is included but gold and silver.
Most unquestionably there is no legal tender, and there can be no legal
tender in this country, under the authority of this government or any
other, but gold and silver, either the 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 anything but gold and silver a legal tender in
payment of debts; and although no such express prohibition is applied to
congress, yet, as congress has no power granted to it in this respect but
to coin money and to regulate the value of foreign coins, it clearly has no
power to substitute paper or anything else for coin as a tender in payment
of debts and in discharge of contracts. Congress has exercised this power
fully in both its branches; it has coined money and still coins it; it has
regulated the value of foreign coins, and still regulates their value. The
legal tender, therefore, the constitutional standard of value, is
established and cannot be overthrown. To overthrow it would shake the whole
system.' 4 Webster's Works, 271.
39
When the idea of imparting the legal-tender quality to the notes of the
United States, issued under the first act of 1862, was first broached, the
advocates of the measure rested their support of it on the ground that it
was a war measure, to which the country was compelled to resort by the
exigencies of its condition, being then sorely pressed by the confederate
forces, and requiring the daily expenditure of enormons sums to maintain
its army and navy and to carry on the government. The representative who
introduced the bill in the house declared that it was a measure of that
nature, 'one of necessity and not of choice;' that the times were
extraordinary; and that extraordinary measures must be resorted to in order
to save our government and preserve our nationality. Speech of Spaulding,
of New York; Cong. Globe, 1861-62, pt. 1, 523. Other members of the house
frankly confessed their doubt as to its constitutionality, but yielded
their support of it under the pressure of this supposed necessity.
40
In the senate also the measure was pressed for the same reasons. When the
act was reported by the committee on finance, its chairman, while opposing
the legal-tender provision, said: 'It is put on the ground of absolute,
overwhelming necessity; that the government has now arrived at that point
when it must have funds, and those funds are not to be obtained from
ordinary sources, or from any of the expedients to which we have heretofore
had recourse, and therefore this new, anomalous, and remarkable provision
must be resorted to in order to enable the government to pay off the debt
that it now owes, and afford circulation which will be available for other
purposes.' Cong. Globe, 1861-62, pt. 1, 764. And upon that ground the
provision was adopted, some of the senators stating that in the exigency
then existing money must be had, and they therefore sustained the measure,
although they apprehended danger from the experiment. 'The medicine of the
constitution,' said Senator Summer, 'must not become its daily food.' Id.
800. A similar necessity was urged upon the state tribunals and this court
in justification of the measure, when its validity was questioned. The
dissenting opinion in Hepburn v. Griswold referred to the pressure that was
upon the government at the time to enable it to raise and support an army,
and to provide and maintain a navy. Chief Justice CHASE, who gave the
prevailing opinion in that case, also spoke of the existence of the feeling
when the bill was passed that the provision was necessary. He favored the
provision on that ground when secretary of the treasury, although he had
come to that conclusion with reluctance, and recommended its adoption by
congress. When the question as to its validity reached this court, this
expression of favor was referred to, and by many it was supposed that it
would control his judicial action. But after long pondering upon the
subject, after listening to repeated arguments by able counsel, he decided
against the constitutionality of the provision; and, holding in his hands
the casting vote, he determined the judgment of the court. He thus
preferred to preserve his integrity as a judicial officer rather than his
consistency as a statesman. In his opinion he thus referred to his previous
views: 'It is not surprising that amid the tumult of the late civil war,
and under the influence of apprehensions for the safety of the republic
almost universal, different views, never before entertained by American
statesmen or jurists, were adopted by many. The time was not favorable to
considerate reflection upon the constitutional limits of legislative or
executive authority. If power was assumed from patriotic motives, the
assumption found ready justification in patriotic hearts. Many who doubted
yielded their doubts; many who did not doubt were silent. Some who were
strongly averse to making government notes a legal tender felt themselves
constrained to acquiesce in the views of the advocates of the measure. Not
a few who then insisted upon its necessity, or acquiesced in that view,
have, since the return of peace, and under the influence of the calmer
time, reconsidered their conclusions, and now concur in those which we have
just announced. These conclusions seem to us to be fully sanctioned by the
letter and spirit of the constitution.' 8 Wall. 625.
41
It must be evident, however, upon reflection that, if there were any power
in the government of the United States to impart the quality of legal
tender to its promissory notes, it was for congress to determine when the
necessity for its exercise existed; that war merely increased the urgency
for money; it did not add to the powers of the government nor change their
nature; that if the power existed it might be equally exercised when a loan
was made to meet ordinary expenses in time of peace, as when vast sums were
needed to support an army or a navy in time of war. The wants of the
government could never be the measure of its powers. But in the excitement
and apprehensions of the war these considerations were unheeded; the
measure was passed as one of overruling necessity in a perilous crisis of
the country. Now it is no longer advocated as one of necessity, but as one
that may be adopted at any time. Never before was it contended by any
jurist or commentator on the constitution that the government, in full
receipt of ample income, with a treasury overflowing, with more money on
hand than it knows what to do with, could issue paper money as a legal
tender. What was in 1862 called the 'medicine of the constitution' has now
become its daily bread. So it always happens that whenever a wrong
principle of conduct, political or personal, is adopted on a plea of
necessity, it will be afterwards followed on a plea of convenience.
42
The advocates of the measure have not been consistent in the designation of
the power upon which they have supported its validity, some placing it on
the power to borrow money, some on the coining power, and some have claimed
it as an incident to the general powers of the government. In the present
case it is placed by the court upon the power to borrow money, and the
alleged sovereignty of the United States over the currency. It is assumed
that this power, when exercised by the government, is something different
from what it is when exercised by corporations or individuals, and that the
government has, by the legal tender provision, the power to enforce loans
of money, because the sovereign governments of European countries have
claimed and exercised such power. 'The words 'to borrow money," says the
court, 'are not to receive that limited and restricted interpretation and
meaning which they would have in a penal statute or in an authority
conferred by law or by contract upon trustees or agents for private
purposes.' And it adds that 'the power, as incident to the power of
borrowing money and issuing bills or notes of the government for money
borrowed, of impressing upon those bills or notes the quality of being a
legal tender for the payment of private debts, was a power universally
understood to belong to sovereignty, in Europe and America, at the time of
the framing and adoption of the constitution of the United States. The
governments of Europe, acting through the monarch or the legislature,
according to the distribution of powers under their respective
constitutions, had and have as sovereign a power of issuing paper money as
of stamping coin,' and that 'the exercise of this power not being
prohibited to congress by the constitution, it is included in the power
expressly granted to borrow money on the credit of the United States.'
43
As to the terms 'to borrow money,' where, I would ask, does the court find
any authority for giving to them a different interpretation in the
constitution from what they receive when used in other instruments, as in
the charters of municipal bodies or of private corporations, or in the
contracts of individuals? They are not ambiguous; they have a well-settled
meaning in other instruments. If the court may change that in the
constitution, so it may the meaning of all other clauses; and the powers
which the government may exercise will be found declared, not by plain
words in the organic law, but by words of a new significance resting in the
minds of the judges. Until some authority beyond the alleged claim and
practice of the sovereign governments of Europe be produced, I must believe
that the terms have the same meaning in all instruments, wherever they are
used; that they mean a power only to contract for a loan of money, upon
considerations to be agreed between the parties. The conditions of the
loan, or whether any particular security shall be given to the lender, are
matters of arrangement between the parties; they do not concern any one
else. They do not imply that the borrower can give to his promise to refund
the money any security to the lender outside of property or rights which he
possesses. The transaction is completed when the lender parts with his
money and the borrower gives his promise to pay at the time and in the
manner and with the securities agreed upon. Whatever stipulations may be
made, to add to the value of the promise, or to secure its fulfillment,
must necessarily be limited to the property, rights, and privileges, which
the borrower possesses. Whether he can add to his promises any element
which will induce others to receive them beyond the security which he gives
for their payment depends upon his power to control such element. If he has
a right to put a limitation upon the use of other persons' property, or to
enforce an exaction of some benefit from them, he may give such privilege
to the lender; but if he has no right thus to interfere with the property
or possession of others, of course he can give none. It will hardly be
pretended that the government of the United States has any power to enter
into an engagement that, as security for its notes, the lender shall have
special privileges with respect to the visible property of others, shall be
able to occupy a portion of their lands or their houses, and thus interfere
with the possession and use of their property. If the government cannot do
that, how can it step in and say, as a condition of loaning money, that the
lender shall have a right to interfere with contracts between private
parties? A large proportion of the property of the world exists in
contracts, and the government has no more rignt to deprive one of their
value by legislation operating directly upon them than it has a right to
deprive one of the value of any visible and tangible property. No one, I
think, will pretend that individuals or corporations possess the power to
impart to their evidences of indebtedness any quality by which the holder
will be able to affect the contracts of other parties, strangers to the
loan; nor would any one pretend that congress possesses the power to impart
any such quality to the notes of the United States, except from the clause
authorizing it to make laws necessary and proper to the execution of its
powers. That clause, however, does not enlarge the expressly designated
powers; it merely states what congress could have done without its
insertion in the constitution. Without it congress could have adopted any
appropriate means to borrow; but that can only be appropriate for that
purpose which has some relation of fitness to the end, which has respect to
the terms essential to the contract, or to the securities which the
borrower may furnish for the repayment of the loan. The quality of legal
tender does not touch the terms of the contract; that is complete without
it; nor does it stand as a security for the loan, for a security is a thing
pledged, over which the borrower has some control, or in which he holds
some interest.
44
The argument presented by the advocates of legal tender is, in substance,
this: The object of borrowing is to raise funds, the addition of the
quality of legal tender to the notes of the government will induce parties
to take them, and funds will thereby be more readily loaned. But the same
thing may be said of the addition of any other quality which would give to
the holder of the notes some advantage over the property of others, as, for
instance, that the notes should serve as a pass on the public conveyances
of the country, or as a ticket to places of amusement, or should exempt his
property from state and municipal taxation, or entitle him to the free use
of the telegraph lines, or to a percentage from the revenues of private
corporations. The same consequence—a ready acceptance of the notes—would
follow; and yet no one would pretend that the addition of privileges of
this kind with respect to the property of others, over which the borrower
has no control, would be in any sense an appropriate measure to the
execution of the power to borrow. Undoubtedly the power to borrow includes
the power to give evidences of the loan in bonds, treasury notes, or in
such other form as may be agreed between the parties. These may be issued
in such amounts as will fit them for circulation, and for that purpose may
be made payable to bearer, and transferable by delivery. Experience has
shown that the form best fitted to secure their ready acceptance is that of
notes payable to bearer, in such amounts as may suit the ability of the
lender. The government, in substance, says to parties with whom it deals:
Lend us your money, or furnish us with your products or your labor, and we
will ultimately pay you, and as evidence of it we will give you our notes,
in such form and amount as may suit your convenience, and enable you to
transfer them; we will also receive them for certain demands due to us. In
all this matter there is only a dealing between the government and the
individuals who trust it. The transaction concerns no others. The power
which authorizes it is a very different one from a power to deal between
parties to private contracts in which the government is not interested, and
to compel the receipt of these promises to pay in place of the money for
which the contracts stipulated. This latter power is not an incident to the
former; it is a distinct and far greater power. There is no legal
connection between the two—between the power to borrow from those willing
to lend and the power to interfere with the independent contracts of
others. The possession of this latter power would justify the interference
of the government with any rights of property of other parties, under the
pretense that its allowance to the holders of the notes would lead to their
more ready acceptance, and thus furnish the needed means.
45
The power vested in congress to coin money does not in my judgment fortify
the position of the court, as its opinion affirms. So far from deducing
from that power any authority to impress the notes of the government with
the quality of legal tender, its existence seems to me inconsistent with a
power to make anything but coin a legal tender. The meaning of the terms
'to coin money' is not at all doubtful. It is to mould metallic substances
into forms convenient for circulation and to stamp them with the impress of
the government authority indicating their value with reference to the unit
of value established by law. Coins are pieces of metal of definite weight
and value, stamped such by the authority of the government. If any doubt
could exist that the power has reference to metallic substances only it
would be removed by the language which immediately follows, authorizing
congress to regulate the value of money thus coined and of foreign coin,
and also by clauses making a distinction between coin and the obligations
of the general government and of the states. Thus, in the clause
authorizing congress 'to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the
securities and current coin of the United States,' a distinction is made
between the obligations and the coin of the government.
46
Money is not only a medium of exchange, but it is a standard of value.
Nothing can be such standard which has not intrinsic value, or which is
subject to frequent changes in value. From the earliest period in the
history of civilized nations we find pieces of gold and silver used as
money. These metals are scattered over the world in small quantities; they
are susceptible of division, capable of easy impression, have more value in
proportion to weight and size, and are less subject to loss by wear and
abrasion than any other material possessing these qualities. It requires
labor to obtain them; they are not dependent upon legislation or the
caprices of the multitude; they cannot be manufactured or decreed into
existence; and they do not perish by lapse of time. They have, therefore,
naturally, if not necessarily, become throughout the world a standard of
value. In exchange for pieces of them, products requiring an equal amount
of labor are readily given. When the product and the piece of metal
represent the same labor, or an approximation to it, they are freely
exchanged. There can be no adequate substitute for these metals. Says Mr.
Webster, in a speech made in the house of representatives in 1815: 'The
circulating medium of a commercial community must be that which is also the
circulating medium of other commercial communities, or must be capable of
being converted into that medium without loss. It must also be able not
only to pass in payments and receipts among individuals of the same society
and nation, but to adjust and discharge the balance of exchanges between
different nations. It must be something which has a value abroad as well as
at home, by which foreign as well as domestic debts can be satisfied. The
precious metals alone answer these purposes. They alone, therefore, are
money, and whatever else is to perform the functions of money must be their
representative, and capable of being turned into them at will. So long as
bank paper retains this quality it is a substitute for money; divested of
this, nothing can give it that character.' 3 Webster's Works, 41. The
clause to coin money must be read in connection with the prohibition upon
the states to make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of
debts. The two taken together clearly show that the coins to be fabricated
under the authority of the general government, and as such to be a legal
tender for debts, are to be composed principally, if not entirely, of the
metals of gold and silver. Coins of such metals are necessarily a legal
tender to the amount of their respective values, without any legislative
enactment, and the statute of the United States providing that they shall
be such tender is only declaratory of their effect when offered in payment.
47
When the constitution says, therefore, that congress shall have the power
to coin money, interpreting that clause with the prohibition upon the
states, it says it shall have the power to make coins of the precious
metals a legal tender, for that alone which is money can be a legal tender.
If this be the true import of the language, nothing else can be made a
legal tender. We all know that the value of the notes of the government in
the market, and in the commercial world generally, depends upon their
convertibility on demand into coin; and as confidence in such
convertibility increases or diminishes, so does the exchangeable value of
the notes vary. So far from becoming themselves standards of value by
reason of the legislative declaration to that effect, their own value is
measured by the facility with which they can be exchanged into that which
alone is regarded as money by the commercial world. They are promises of
money, but they are not money in the sense of the constitution. The term
'money' is used in that instrument in several clauses,—in the one
authorizing congress 'to borrow money;' in the one authorizing congress 'to
coin money;' in the one declaring that 'no money' shall be drawn from the
treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and in the one
declaring that no state shall 'coin money.' And it is a settled rule of
interpretation that the same term occurring in different parts of the same
instrument shall be taken in the same sense, unless there is something in
the context indicating that a different meaning was intended. Now, to coin
money is, as I have said, to make coins out of metallic substances, and the
only money the value of which congress can regulate is coined money, either
of our mints, or of foreign countries. It should seem, therefore, that to
borrow money, is to obtain a loan of coin money; that is, money composed of
the precious metals, representing value in the purchase of property and
payment of debts. Between the promises of the government, designated as its
securities, and this money, the constitution draws a distinction, which
disappears in the opinion of the court. The opinion not only declares that
it is in the power of congress to make the notes of the government a legal
tender and a standard of value, but that under the power to coin money and
regulate the value thereof, congress may issue coins of the same
denominations as those now already current, but of less intrinsic value, by
reason of containing a less weight of the precious metals, and thereby
enable debtors to discharge their debts by payment of coins of less real
value. This doctrine is put forth as in some way a justification of the
legislation authorizing the tender of nominal money in place of real money
in payment of debts. Undoubtedly congress has power to alter the value of
coins issued, either by increasing or diminishing the alloy they contain;
so it may alter, at its pleasure, their denominations; it may hereafter
call a dollar an eagle, and it may call an eagle a dollar. But if it be
intended to assert that congress can make the coins changed the equivalent
of those having a greater value in their previous condition, and compel
parties contracting for the latter to receive coins with diminished value,
I must be permitted to deny any such authority. Any such declaration on its
part would be not only utterly inoperative in fact, but a shameful
disregard of its constitutional duty. As I said on a former occasion: 'The
power to coin money, as declared by this court, is a great trust devolved
upon congress, carrying with it the duty of creating and maintaining a
uniform standard of value throughout the Union, and it would be a manifest
abuse of this trust to give to the coins issued by its authority any other
than their real value. By debasing the coins, when once the standard is
fixed, is meant giving to the coins by their form and impress a certificate
of their having a relation to that standard different from that which in
truth they possess; in other words, giving to the coins a false certificate
of their value. Arbitrary and profligate governments have often resorted to
this miserable scheme of robbery, which Mill designates as a shallow and
impudent artifice, the 'least covert of all modes of knavery, which
consists in calling a shilling a pound, that a debt of one hundred pounds
may be canceled by the payment of one hundred shillings." No such
debasement has ever been attempted in this country, and none ever will be
so long as any sentiment of honor influences the governing power of the
nation. The changes from time to time in the quantity of alloy in the
different coins has been made to preserve the proper relative value between
gold and silver, or to prevent exportation, and not with a view of debasing
them. Whatever power may be vested in the government of the United States,
it has none to perpetrate such monstrous iniquity. One of the great
purposes of its creation, as expressed in the preamble of the constitution,
was the establishment of justice, and not a line nor a word is found in
that instrument which sanctions any intentional wrong to the citizen,
either in war or in peace.
48
But beyond and above all the objections which I have stated to the decision
recognizing a power in congress to impart the legal-tender quality to the
notes of the government, is my objection to the rule of construction,
adopted by the court to reach its conclusions—a rule which, fully carried
out, would change the whole nature of our constitution, and break down the
barriers which separate a government of limited from one of unlimited
powers. When the constitution came before the conventions of the several
states for adoption, apprehension existed that other powers than those
designated might be claimed; and it led to the first 10 amendments. When
these were presented to the states they were preceded by a preamble stating
that the conventions of a number of the states had, at the time of adopting
the constitution, expressed a desire, 'in order to prevent misconception or
abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses
should be added.' One of them is found in the tenth amendment, which
declares that 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the
constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the
states respectively, or to the people.' The framers of the constitution, as
I have said, were profoundly impressed with the evils which had resulted
from the vicious legislation of the states making notes a legal tender, and
they determined that such a power should not exist any longer. They
therefore prohibited the states from exercising it, and they refused to
grant it to the new government which they created. Of what purpose is it,
then, to refer to the exercise of the power by the absolute or the limited
governments of Europe, or by the states previous to our constitution?
Congress can exercise no power by virtue of any supposed inherent
sovereignty in the general government. Indeed, it may be doubted whether
the power can be correctly said to appertain to sovereignty in any proper
sense, as an attribute of an independent political community. The power to
commit violence, perpetrate injustice, take private property by force
without compensation to the owner, and compel the receipt of promises to
pay in place of money, may be exercised, as it often has been, by
irresponsible authority, but it cannot be considered as belonging to a
government founded upon law. But be that as it may, there is no such thing
as a power of inherent sovereignty in the government of the United States.
It is a government of delegated powers, supreme within its prescribed
sphere, but powerless outside of it. In this country, sovereignty resides
in the people, and congress can exercise no power which they have not, by
their constitution, intrusted to it; all else is withheld. It seems,
however, to be supposed that, as the power was taken from the states, it
could not have been intended that it should disappear entirely, and
therefore it must, in some way, adhere to the general government,
notwithstanding the tenth amendment and the nature of the constitution. The
doctrine that a power not expressly forbidden may be exercised would, as I
have observed, change the character of our government. If I have read the
constitution aright, if there is any weight to be given to the uniform
teachings of our great jurists and of commentators previous to the late
civil war, the true doctrine is the very opposite of this. If the power is
not in terms granted, and is not necessary and proper for the exercise of a
power which is thus granted, it does not exist. And in determining what
measures may be adopted in executing the powers granted, Chief Justice
MARSHALL declares that they must be appropriate, plainly adapted to the
end, not prohibited, and consistent with the letter and spirit of the
constitution. Now, all through that instrument we find limitations upon the
power, both of the general government and the state governments, so as to
prevent oppression and injustice. No legislation, therefore, tending to
promote either can consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution.
A law which interferes with the contracts of others, and compels one of the
parties to receive in satisfaction something different from that
stipulated, without reference to its actual value in the market,
necessarily works such injustice and wrong.
49
There is, it is true, no provision in the constitution of the United States
forbidding in direct terms the passing of laws by congress impairing the
obligation of contracts, and there are many express powers conferred, such
as the power to declare war, levy duties, and regulate commerce, the
exercise of which affects more or less the value of contracts. Thus, war
necessarily suspends intercourse between the citizens or subjects of
belligerent nations, and the performance during its continuance of previous
contracts. The imposition of duties upon goods may affect the prices of
articles imported or manufactured, so as to materially alter the value of
previous contracts respecting them. But these incidental consequences
arising from the exercise of such powers were contemplated in the grant of
them. As there can be no solid objection to legislation under them, no just
complaint can be made of such consequences. But far different is the case
when the impairment of the contract does not follow incidentally, but is
directly and in terms allowed and enacted. Legislation operating directly
upon private contracts, changing their conditions, is forbidden to the
states; and no power to alter the stipulations of such contracts by direct
legislation is conferred upon congress. There are also many considerations,
outside of the fact that there is no grant of the power, which show that
the framers of the constitution never intended that such power should be
exercised. One of the great objects of the constitution, as already
observed, was to establish justice, and what was meant by that in its
relations to contracts, as said by the late chief justice in his opinion in
Hepburn v. Griswold, was not left to interference or conjecture. And in
support of this statement he refers to the fact that when the constitution
was undergoing discussion in the convention, the congress of the
confederation was engaged in framing the ordinance for the government of
the Northwest territory, in which certain articles of compact were
established between the people of the original states and the people of the
territory 'for the purposes,' as expressed in the instrument, 'of extending
the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, whereon these
republics, [the states united under the confederation,] their laws and
constitutions, are erected.' That congress was also alive to the evils
which the loose legislation of the states had created by interfering with
the obligation of private contracts and making notes a legal tender for
debts; and the ordinance declared that in the just preservation of rights
and property no law 'ought ever to be made, or have force in the said
territory, that shall in any manner whatever interfere with or affect
private contracts, or engagements, bona fide and without fraud previously
formed.' This principle, said the chief justice, found more condensed
expression in the prohibition upon the states against impairing the
obligation of contracts, which has always been recognized 'as an efficient
safeguard against injustice;' and the court was then of opinion that 'it is
clear that those who framed and those who adopted the constitution intended
that the spirit of this prohibition should pervade the entire body of
legislation, and that the justice which the constitution was ordained to
establish was not thought by them to be compatible with legislation of an
opposite tendency.' Soon after the constitution was adopted the case of
Calder v. Bull came before this court, and it was there said that there
were acts which the federal and state legislatures could not do without
exceeding their authority; and among them was mentioned a law which
punished a citizen for an innocent act, and a law which destroyed or
impaired the lawful private contracts of citizens. 'It is against all
reason and justice,' it was added, 'for a people to intrust a legislature
with such powers, and therefore it cannot be presumed that they have done
it.' 3 Dall. 388. And Mr. Madison, in one of the articles in the
Federalist, declared that laws impairing the obligation of contracts were
contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every
principle of sound legislation. Yet this court holds that a measure
directly operating upon and necessarily impairing private contracts, may be
adopted in the execution of powers specifically granted for other purposes
because it is not in terms prohibited, and that it is consistent with the
letter and spirit of the constitution.
50
From the decision of the court I see only evil likely to follow. There have
been times within the memory of all of us when the legal-tender notes of
the United States were not exchangeable for more than one-half of their
nominal value. The possibility of such depreciation will always attend
paper money. This inborn infirmity no mere legislative declaration can
cure. If congress has the power to make the notes a legal tender and to
pass as money or its equivalent, why should not a sufficient amount be
issued to pay the bonds of the United States as they nature? Why pay
interest on the millions of dollars of bonds now due when congress can in
one day make the money to pay the principal? And why should there be any
restraint upon unlimited appropriations by the government for all imaginary
schemes of public improvement, if the printing-press can furnish the money
that is needed for them?
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