& Ald., 1; Lang v. Smyth, 7 Bing, 281; White | Carolina. The bonds were secured by a trust v. R. R. Co., 21 How., 577 (62 U. S.. XVI., deed of the railroad, buildings and franchise of 223); Moran v. Miami Co., 2 Black, 731 (67 U. the Company executed to the appellants, WilS., XVII., 347); Thompson v. Lee Co., 3 Wall., son and Mitchell. The deed stipulated that, in 331 (70 U. S., XVIII., 178); Murray v. Lard case the Company failed to pay the principal ner, 2 Wall., 118 (69 U. S., XVII., 858). and interest on the bonds as they became due, the trustees should, upon request of the holders of the bonds or of their guarantor, proceed to sell the property, or so much thereof as might be necessary, and apply the proceeds of the sale to the payment of the bonds.

If the scale laws are applied to these bonds, results are attained which show that they could not have been in the contemplation of the Legislature.

Third Point. Even if the Ordinance and statutes shall be deemed constitutional, and the bonds within their operation, the parol and other relevant testimony introduced under the Ordinance and statutes is fully sufficient to repel the presumption that they were issued, payable in Confederate money.

The question presented, and the sole question under the pleadings, is, whether the bonds of the Railroad Company were solvable in Confederate notes or in the legal currency of the United States. The Company, in its answer, expresses a readiness to pay in legal currency the equivalent of the bonds, if their values be estimated upon the assumption that the bonds were payable in Confederate notes.

The complainants are the holders and owners of $25,000 of these bonds, and the Company having failed to pay either principal or interest, they requested the trustees to proceed and sell the property covered by the trust deed, and to distribute the proceeds pursuant to its provisIn the present case, the date of the bond is ions. With this request the trustees declined to held to raise the presumption that Confederate comply, alleging as a reason that the parties difmoney was intended; but the other parts of the fered as to the amount to be paid; the holders bond are relevant to the question, and the very asserting that the bonds were payable to their day of payment is sufficient of itself to repel full amount in legal currency of the United that presumption. Ten years after May, 1862, States, and the Railroad Company contending the Railroad Company agrees to pay dollars. that the bonds were solvable in Confederate Confederate money was but an expedient for notes, and were subject to be scaled to equiva meeting the exigencies of the war, wholly tem-lents in legal currency. The present suit was porary in its character, and by no one expected | accordingly brought, to enforce the executions to endure for that length of time. Those Treas of the trusts of the deed. ury Notes were not money, nor were they even absolute promises to pay money. They were drawn payable to bearer, six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States. It is absolutely incredible that any railroad company should make and issue its bonds payable in such conditional promises, at such long dates, with any hope of realizing anything by the sale of them. No one could be found who would invest even Confederate money in 1862, at its same value, to be repaid in like currency at the end of ten, twelve or thirteen years, when the value of that currency was then rapidly and steadily declining. To construe the word "dollars used in these bonds to mean this Confederate money, leads to the reductio ad absurdum, which, in the exact sciences, is proof conclusive of the falsity of the proposition. Besides, the bonds on their face declare that "They may be converted into the stock of said Company at par, by the holder." The Company was organized in 1858, and the stock paid for in good and lawful money, thereby affording an assurance to the public that the bonds were of like estima tion. The usual heading of "The Confederate States of America" has been studiously omitted from the bonds, and the name of the State of North Carolina alone affords an indication of the kind of currency meant; and that, by statute, was the same as the United States.

In support of the position taken by the Company, and the trustees representing the Company, reliance is placed upon the decision of this court in Thorington v. Smith, 8 Wall. 1 [75 U. S., XIX., 361], and the Ordinance of North Carolina of October, 1865, relating to contracts made during the war, and the Scaling Act of the State passed in 1866.

The treasury notes of the Confederate Government were issued early in the war and, though never made a legal tender, they soon, to a large extent, took the place of coin in the insurgent States. Within a short period they became the principal currency in which business in its multiplied forms was there transacted. The simplest purchase of food in the market, as well as the largest dealings of merchants, were generally made in this currency. Contracts thus made, not designed to aid the insurrectionary government, could not, therefore, without manifest injustice to the parties, be treated as invalid between them. Hence, in Thorington v. Smith, this court enforced a contract payable in these notes, treating them as a currency imposed upon the community by a In May, 1862, the Atlantic, Tennessee and government of irresistible force. As said in a Ohio Railroad Company, a Corporation char- later case, referring to this decision, “It would tered by the State of North Carolina, issued its have been a cruel and oppressive judgment, if coupon bonds in sums of $500 each, to the all the transactions of the many millions of peoamount of $151,000, payable at different periods, ple composing the inhabitants of the insurrec from November, 1869, to November, 1875, with tionary States, for the several years of the war, interest at the rate of six per cent. a year, pay- had been held tainted with illegality because of able semi annually. The bonds were indorsed the use of this forced currency, when those and their payment guarantied by the Charlotte transactions were not made with reference to and South Carolina Railroad Company, a Cor- the insurrectionary government.' Hanauer v. poration also chartered by the State of North | Woodruff, 15 Wall., 448 [82 U. S., XXI., 227].

Mr. Justice Field delivered the opinion of the court:

1

The Confederate notes, being greatly in The Ordinance of North Carolina, of October, creased in volume from time to time as the exi- 1865, recognized the difference between the gencies of the Confederate Government re- standard of value existing in that State during quired, and the probability of their ultimate the war, and usually referred to in the con redemption growing constantly less, necessarily tracts of parties, and the legal standard adopted depreciated in value as the war progressed, un- by the Government of the United States. It retil, in some portions of the insurgent territory, quired that the Legislature should provide a at the close of the year 1863, $20 in these notes, scale of depreciation of the Confederate curand at the close of the year 1864, $40 possessed rency from the time of its first issue to the end only the purchasing power of $1 in lawful of the war; and declared that all existing conmoney. The precious metals, however, still tracts solvable in money, whether under seal or constituted the legal money of the insurgent not, made after the depreciation of that curStates, and alone answered the statutory defini- rency, before the first day of May, 1865, and tion of dollars, but in fact had ceased in nearly then unfulfilled (except official bonds, and penal all, certainly in a large part of the dealings of bonds, payable to the State), should "be deemed parties, to be the measures of value. When the to have been made with the understanding that war closed, these notes, of course, became at they were solvable in money of the value of the once valueless and ceased to be current, but said currency;" but at the same time provided contracts made upon their purchasable quality, that it should be "competent for either of the and in which they were designated as dollars, parties to show, by parol or other relevant tesexisted in great numbers. It was at once evi timony, what the understanding was in regard dent that great injustice would in many cases to the kind of currency in which the same were be done to parties if the terms used were inter-solvable," and that in such case "the true unpreted only by reference to the coinage of the derstanding" should regulate the value of the United States or their legal tender notes, instead contract. The Act of the Legislature of the of the standard adopted by the parties. The State, passed in 1866, adopted a scale of deprelegal standard and the conventional standard ciation of Confederate currency as required by differed, and justice to the parties could only the Ordinance, designating the value in such be done by allowing evidence of the sense in currency of the gold dollar on the first day of which they used the terms, and enforcing the each month, from November, 1861, to April, contracts thus interpreted. The anomalous con- 1865. dition of things at the South had created in the meaning of the term "dollars" an ambiguity which only parol evidence could in many instances remove. It was, therefore, held in Thorington v. Smith, where this condition of things, and the general use of Confederate notes as currency in the insurgent States were shown, that parol evidence was admissible to prove that a contract between parties in those States dur ing the war, payable in "dollars," was in fact made for the payment of Confederate dollars; the court observing, in the light of the facts respecting the currency of the Confederate notes, which were detailed, that it seemed "hardly less than absurd to say that these dollars must be regarded as identical in kind and value with the dollars which constitute the money of the United States."

The Ordinance and Act require the courts, in the construction of contracts made in the insurgent States between certain dates, to assume as a fact that the parties intended by the term "dollars" Confederate notes, and understood that the contracts were solvable in that currency: and they thus throw upon the party contesting the truth of the assumed fact the burden of establishing a different understanding. It is contended by the complainants that the Ordinance and statute in thus giving a supposed conventional meaning to the terms used, in the absence of any evidence on the subject, instead of the meaning which otherwise would attach to the terms, impair the obligation of the contracts between them and the Railroad Company, and are, therefore, void. Upon this question we refrain from expressing any opinion. It is unnecessary that we should do so, for there is sufficient in this case to rebut the presumption required by theOrdinance and statute.

The decision upon which reliance is placed, as thus seen, only holds that a contract made during the war in the insurgent States, payable in Confederate notes, is not for that reason in- The understanding of the parties may be valid, and that parol evidence, under the pecul- shown from the nature of the transaction, and iar condition of things in those States, is ad the attendant circumstances, as satisfactorily as missible to prove the value of the notes, at the from the language used. A contract, for extime the contract was made, in the legal cur ample, to pay $50 for a night's lodging at a rency of the United States. In the absence of house of public entertainment, where similar such evidence the presumption of law would accommodation was usually afforded for one be that by the term " dollars," the lawful cur- twentieth of that sum in coin, accompanied by rency of the United States was intended. This proof of a corresponding depreciation of Concase affords, therefore, no support to the posi federate notes, would leave little doubt that the tion of the appellants here, for no evidence was parties had Confederate money in contemplaproduced by them that payment of the bonds tion when the contract was made. In Thorin Confederate notes was intended by the Rail-ington v. Smith the land was sold for the nomroad Company when they were issued, or by inal sum of $45,000, when its value in coin was the parties who purchased them. only $3,000, a most persuasive fact to the con1.-According to the Scaling Act of North Caro-clusion that Confederate notes were alone inlina one dollar in gold in that State was worth, at the close of 1863, $20, and at the close of 1864, $49 in Confederate notes. According to the Scaling Act of South Carolina one dollar in gold in that State was worth at those periods respectively, $13.90 and $22.22 in Confederate notes.

tended in the original transaction. So, on the other hand, contracts made payable out of the Confederate States, or at distant periods, such as may be supposed to be desired as investments of moneys, or given upon a consideration

of gold, would, in the absence of other circum- | the Port of Indianola in the State of Texas, and stances, justify the inference that the parties contemplated payment in the legal currency of the country.

In the present case the intention of the Railroad Company that the principal of its bonds should be paid in lawful money instead of Confederate notes may justly be inferred, we think, from the nature of the contracts, particularly the long period before they were to mature. When they were issued, in May, 1862, it could not have been in the contemplation of the par ties that the war would continue from seven to thirteen years. It is well known that at that time it was the general expectation on all sides that the war would be one of short duration. The Confederate notes were only payable by their terms after a ratification of peace between the Confederate States and the United States. The bonds of the railroad were intended for sale in the markets of the world generally, and not merely in the Confederate States; they were payable to bearer and, therefore, transferable by delivery. They state on their face that they may be converted into the stock of the Com pany, at par, by the holder. The declarations of the officers of the Company up to July, 1863, show that the Company treated the bonds as having an exceptional value, and not subject to the fluctuation of Confederate currency. Repeated declarations of the officers were made to that import.

There is sufficient in these circumstances to repel the presumption created by the Ordinance and Act of North Carolina, and that being repelled, the ordinary presumption of law as to the meaning of the parties in the terms used must prevail.

With reference to the interest payable semiannually a different presumption cannot be al lowed, as the interest must follow the character of the principal.

The other questions presented by counsel are not raised on the pleadings. Usury, as a defense, should have been specially pleaded or set up in the answer to entitle it to consideration. Decree affirmed.

the other from Brushear in the State of Louiisiana, by the Port of Sabine in the State of Texas, and back to Brushear. Peete, the appellant, was health officer of the City of Galveston and, as alleged in the bill, "Under the pretense of collecting quarantine dues to defray the expenses of keeping up a quarantine at said port of Galveston, by force and threats to stop said steamship and fine and imprison the commanders, compelled your orator to pay for and on account of each steamer each time it entered the Port of Galveston, a tonnage duty of $5 for the first one hundred tons burden, and also quarantine duty of one and one half cents for each and every added ton burden over one hundred tons." The bill further alleged that Peete threatened to continue these illegal exactions, and asked for an injunction. The defendant, Peete, justified his action under the proclamation of the Governor of the State and the Mayor of the City establishing quarantine, and under section 7 of the Act amending "An Act Authorizing Quarantine on the Coast of Texas, and Elsewhere within the State." This section was as follows:

44

'There shall be collected by the examining health officer from every vessel arriving at each and every quarantine station, the following fees, to wit: for every vessel of one hundred tons burden or under, the sum of $5; from every vessel over one hundred tons burden, the sum of $5, and also, a further fee of one and one half cents for each and every ton. The aforesaid fees, collected as aforesaid, shall be reported to the proper authorities of the town or city at which such quarantine is established, and all the fees and fines, as herein before provided for, shall be used to defray the expenses of keeping said quarantine."

The circuit court decreed an injunction as prayed, and the defendant appealed to this court.

Messrs. C. B. Sabin and A. H. Willie, for appellant.

Mr. P. Phillips, for the appellee, referred to Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., 203; Morgan v. Parham, 16 Wall., 472 (83 U. S., XXI., 303); Cited 91 U. S., 4; 94 U. S., 435; 104 U. S., 602; 105 Passenger cases, 7 How., 283; Cox v. Collector,

U.S., 140.

Argued Mar. 23, 1874. Decided Apr. 13, 1874.

12 Wall., 205, 218 (79 U. S., XX., 370, 375).

Mr. Justice Davis delivered the opinion of the court:

Morgan, a citizen of New York, and the owner of two lines of steamers registered and enrolled in New York, running from ports in Louisiana to ports in Texas, and back to the ports in Louisiana, brought his bill in equity in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Texas, to restrain Peete, the health officer at Galveston, from the future collection of quarantine fees, which had been exacted from all his vessels coming to the quarantine ground, under claim of authority by virt

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the Unitue of the legislation of Texas. This legisla

ed States for the Eastern District of Texas. Charles Morgan, a citizen of New York, was the owner of two lines of steamers, one running from New Orleans by the way of Galveston to

NOTE.-Power of States to tax. See note to Providence Bank v. Billings, 29 U. S. (4 Pet.), 514; and note to Dobbins v. Erie Co., 41 U. S. (16 Pet.), 435.

tion, which had the approval of the Governor, on the 13th of August, 1870, declared that every vessel arriving at the quarantine station should pay the sum of $5 for the first hundred tons,

and one and a half cents for each additional ton. The case was heard on bill and answer, and a decree rendered granting the injunction prayed for and making it perpetual.

The object of this appeal is to review that decision.

That the power to establish quarantine laws rests with the States, and has not been surrendered to the General Government, is settled in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., 203. The source of this power is in the acknowledged right of a State to provide for the health of its people, and although this power when set in motion may in a greater or less degree affect commerce, yet the laws passed in the exercise of this power are not enacted for such an object. They are enacted for the sole purpose of preserving the public health, and if they injuriously affect commerce, Congress, under the power to reg

that the inhibition in the Federal Constitution prevented the State from taxing in this mode. Much more does this inhibition apply when the vessels are owned by citizens of another State, and are engaged in commerce between the States, over which Congress has control.

This leads to an affirmance of the decree, which is accordingly ordered.

U. S., 284; 100 U. S., 678; 107 U. S., 376, 698.

Cited-20 Wall., 581; 94 U. S., 245; 95 U. S., 86; 99

UNITED STATES, Appt..

v.

Deceased.

ulate it, may control them. Of necessity, they THE HEIRS OF JAMES INNERARITY, operate on vessels engaged in commerce, and may produce delay or inconvenience, but they are still lawful when not opposed to any constitutional provision, or any Act of Congress on the subject.

It is evident that the power to establish quarantine regulations cannot be executed without the State possesses the means to raise a revenue for their enforcement, but it is equally evident that the means used for this purpose must be of such a character as the restrictions imposed by the Federal Constitution upon the taxing power of the States authorize. We are not called upon in this case to go into the general subject of the limitations imposed by these restrictions, be

(See S. C., 19 Wall., 595-597.) Improper amendment to bill.

One who has, under the Act for the adjustment of land claims in Louisiana, filed a bill for certain lands and afterwards discovered that the true right to the lands claimed existed, not in himself, but in another, cannot, by a supplemental petition, allege such other title in support of his bill, especially where such other title was barred by the Statute of Limitations. Submitted Mar. 27, 1874. Decided Apr. 13, 1874. [No. 247.]

cause the tax in question is manifestly outside/ APPEAL from the District Court of the

the jurisdiction of the State to impose; as it is a "duty of tonnage," within the meaning of the Constitution.

United States for the District of Louisiana. The case sufficiently appears in the opinion. Mr. C. H. Hill, Asst. Atty Gen., for appellant.

Messrs. R. H. Bradford and J. L. Bradford for appellees.

Mr. Justice Hunt delivered the opinion of the court:

On the 2d of March, 1867, 14 Stat. at L., 544, an Act was passed extending the time for filing a petition under the said Act of 1860 for three years from and after the passage of the Act.

This duty was doubtless imposed to raise revenue, but Chief Justice Marshall, in com menting on this subject in Gibbons v. Ogden (supra), says: "It is true, that duties may often he, and in fact often are, imposed on tonnage, with a view to the regulation of commerce; This is the case of a petition presented under but they may be also imposed with a view to the Act of 1860, 12 Stat. at L., 85, for the conrevenue; and it was, therefore, a prudent pre-firmation of a grant of land under the Spanish caution to prohibit the States from exercising Government. this power. This power cannot be exercised without the permission of Congress, and Congress has never consented that the States should lay any duty on tonnage. On the contrary, so apprehensive was Congress that its legislation in 1799, 1 Stat. at L., 619, directing the col lectors of customs and officers commanding forts and revenue-cutters to aid in the execution of the quarantine and health laws of the States, rendered necessary on account of the prevalence of yellow fever in New York, might be construed into an admission of the right of the States to lay this duty, that it used the following words of exclusion: "That nothing herein shall enable any State to collect a duty of tonnage or impost, without the consent of the Congress of the United States thereto."

It is, however, not necessary to discuss this subject, as it has been recently fully considered by this court in the State Tonnage Tax cases, reported in 12 Wall., 204 [79 U. S., XX., 370]. In these cases the law of Alabama levied a tax at so much per ton on all steamboats. The boats on which the tax was levied were owned by citizens of the State, and were employed ex clusively in the internal commerce of the State, over which Congress has no control. This court, while conceding the full power of the State to tax the property of its citizens, held

On the first of March, 1870, the heirs of James Innerarity filed a petition alleging that, as heirs and representatives of Innerarity, they were entitled to a recognition of a Spanish patent of 20,000 arpents, made to one Ramos, which lands afterwards became the property of their ancestor. The court held, and rightly, that their petition was filed in time.

It now appears that the allegations of the petition were made in ignorance of the facts, and that Innerarity really had no claim in law or in equity to the land described. This necessarily disposes of the case as to his heirs.

The attempt to set up a claim under this petition, or a supplemental petition, by Innerarity's heirs in favor of the heirs of John Watkins, cannot be sustained. It does not appear that Watkins derived title from Innerarity, or that Innerarity ever had any title. The case is simply this: Innerarity's heirs have filed their petition in time, but have no title. Watkins' heirs have a title, but have not filed a petition for its allowance. Watkins' title cannot be interposed by the present petitioners. Such practice is unknown. If a suit be commenced by