which is important to be remembered in this connection, is, that the States had, to an enormous extent, passed laws impairing the obligation of contracts. Every sound statesman perceived that it would be entirely in vain to establish either a metallic currency, or any uniform standard of value, unless that power was taken away from the States altogether; and this was accordingly done.

The fourth fact is, that the Confederation had left to the States the concurrent power of making coin, although it had conferred upon Congress the exclusive authority to regulate the value of all coin. For the sake of uniformity, the power was taken away from the States altogether. And it is very im portant to observe, that this was the only particular in which the old coinage power of the Confederation needed any amendment or change, excepting to take off the restriction on the mode in which it was to be exercised, so as to make it conform to the character of the new government.

All these things were parts of a scheme which had one great national purpose, viz., to establish a uniform metallic currency as the standard of value. In the historical development of the constitutional measures necessary to bring this about, the first in order, and that which took place before the Constitution was made, was the vesting of the coining power in Congress. But in process of time, the other positive and negative features of the plan were found to be equally essential to the existence and operation of a uniform standard of value, and all tended to the same thing. It was entirely in vain to coin money and regulate its value, if the States were allowed to issue bills of credit, or if they were allowed to make such bills a legal tender in the payment of debts; or if they were allowed to pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts. Hence the positive prohibitions against doing these things. It was equally in vain to make a notation of money, and metallic coins as the tokens of that money, for the purpose of establishing a uniform standard of value, if the power to make the paper promises of the Government payment as money were to be embraced in the Constitution. In the nature of things, such paper cannot have, uniformly and at all times, and under all circumstances, the value of coin. It cannot represent coin,

which can alone be made a measure of value. There never has been a period in the history of commercial civilization, since it was known on this globe, under any form of government, or in any race of men, in which the precious metals have not performed a peculiar office in the exchanges of mankind. That office is to act as the representative or token of value in such exchanges. And no legislation of any government on earth can by any possibility put its paper promises on the same footing with the precious metals, for the reason that they can have no intrinsic and no conventional value beyond the continued existence and solvency of that government. Whereas the precious metals, whether stamped or not stamped into coin, have a value entirely irrespective of the authority or name, or the continued existence of the government that undertakes to stamp them into its own coin.

How, then, does Congress stand this day under the act, the validity of which we are now trying? It had conferred upon it in trust for the benefit of the whole country, in order that the Constitution might fulfil the promise which stands in its front, viz., to make a more perfect union-it had conferred upon it the trust and the duty of creating a metallic currency for the purpose, and the sole purpose, of making a standard of value that should operate every where throughout the country, and be the universal measure of all contracts. What has it done? It has now made a paper money; and by undertaking to say that that paper shall be received, or the tender of it, as absolute payment, just as if it were so much gold and silver, it has obviously introduced a vicious and fluctuating, an indeterminate and indeterminable measure of value, entirely different from the measure of value expressed in the constitutional coin of the country. And it has done this-I will not say in defiance, but-in disregard of the fact that the power to issue such currency and to enforce it in the contracts of the people was expressly withheld from that instrument by its framers.

And here I desire to anticipate and answer an argument which may be employed on this occasion. It may, perhaps, be argued that Congress has an unlimited power over the alloy of the coin, and may, if it sees fit, enact that the little nickel pen

ny now in my pocket shall be of the value of five dollars or a guinea, when I take it out to pay a debt with it: why, then, may it not also enact that a piece of paper, with the stamp of the Government upon it, and called paper money, shall be of the same value? Let us inquire into the truth of this.

Is it true that Congress can debase the coinage without limit? This depends upon a right understanding of the nature and purpose of the coining power. Constitutions of government, in respect to money, are to be construed and applied with reference to that great fact in the fixed conditions of commerce to which I have already alluded, and which is founded in a provision of nature. Human society, in anything approaching to a civilized state, must have a universal representative and measure of value, which can constantly be referred to as an ultimate standard. This office is performed by what are called the precious metals; which, in their pure state, have an adaptation to this purpose exceeding that of all other known substances. If we inquire why an ounce of pure gold should be regarded, through all civilization, as an ultimate measure of values, we find the answer to be, first, that it is made so by the consent of mankind; and secondly, that this convention rests. upon a provision of nature, which has so regulated the qualities and the supply of this metal as plainly to evince a special purpose in its creation.

If we pursue this inquiry further, we find that the office of representatives and measures of value, performed by the precious metals, exists independently of the authority of any particu lar government, because it is founded in the consent of mankind, based upon ordinances of nature. Governments arise, flourish and perish, and the gold and silver which have been embraced in their coin remain in the estimation and use of mankind representatives and measures of value. As such representatives they may rise or fall, in respect to the quantity of other things which a given quantity of them will command at different times or places in the exchanges of commerce; but they never cease to perform their office, throughout the world, and this office is always referred to their pure state.

But here another fact is to be observed. Coins made of the precious metals, in a pure state, are not so durable as when

those metals are, to a certain extent, mixed with others. Hence arises the practical necessity for an alloy to indurate the coin, and prevent, as far as possible, a loss of the pure gold or silver by attrition. But the value of the particular coin depends upon the quantity of pure gold or silver which it contains, and not upon an arbitrary enactment: for when the unit of a national coinage is fixed, it must be fixed in a certain weight of pure gold or silver, and every particular coin must contain a certain multiple or a certain fraction of that unit. Thus the practical necessity for an alloy limits the extent to which the coin can rightfully be debased or adulterated. If to a coin, made to contain a grain of pure gold and an ounce of lead, an arbitrary value were affixed, making it by authority of law equal in exchanges to an ounce of pure gold, a fraud would be committed under color of law; because such a coin would be an attempt to deceive mankind into the belief that an ounce of gold was present in the coin, and confidence in it could not exist. But if the alloy does not exceed the proportion necessary to a proper induration, he who takes the coin knows that it is worth in commerce the value affixed to it by law, which expresses the quantity of the precious metal actually embraced in it.

It was upon these facts and upon certain great national purposes that the money provisions of the Constitution of the United States were framed. That Constitution was made for a commercial people. It was not made for a people who proposed to lead a Spartan existence-who intended to shut themselves up on this continent of America, and to trade merely with themselves. It was made for a commercial nation, who must have a standard of value in their money capable of being recognized by the world at large, and bearing some practical relation to the universal medium of exchanges, by being based on the precious metals. Accordingly, while Congress was invested with the trust and duty of coining money and regulating its value-which means the creation of durable coins and the measuring of the quantity of pure gold or silver which they are respectively to contain-it was made the duty of the States to adopt "gold and silver coin," and nothing else, as the means by which a tender in discharge of a contract should be made.

I do not, therefore, admit that Congress can rightfully debase

the coin of the country to an unlimited extent; for Congress is clothed with a trust, and that trust, to use the language of the Supreme Court of the United States, involves "the duty of creating and maintaining a uniform and pure metallic standard of value throughout the Union." (U. S. vs. Marigold, 9 Howard, 567.)

This trust constantly accompanies and limits the coining power; and it is violated whenever the coin is so debased that an arbitrary legal value, as of an ounce of gold, is given to a less quantity of that metal; or, in other words, when more than the proportion of alloy necessary to sufficient induration of an ounce of gold is employed, and a part or the whole of the excess of alloy is reckoned as if it were pure gold. This is the same process as that employed in counterfeiting. The difference is, that the individual who makes spurious coin may be punished in the penitentiary; the government which does the same thing cannot be punished, excepting by the loss of national character and national wealth.

In my view, therefore, the supposed argument falls to the ground. Congress has no such unlimited and arbitrary power over the measures or representatives of value as to be able to say that an ounce of lead, or an ounce of iron, or a few square inches of printed paper, shall have in the exchanges of commerce the same value as an ounce of gold. Gold and silver can be primarily represented in money by nothing but themselves. Paper, that is convertible on demand into gold and silver, is only a secondary representative of the precious metals, and it is allowed to act in that capacity solely because it is instantly convertible into that which is the universal measure and ultimate representative of value for all mankind. This is at once made apparent by attempting to apply to the creation of inconvertible paper money that part of the Congressional trust which is expressed in the terms "to regulate its value." How can the value of a mere paper promise of a government, which is not redeemable in gold or silver, be regulated by law? The value of an eagle or a "sovereign" may be regulated, because the quantity of pure gold which it contains is ascertained, and its regulated value consists in that quantity. But the value of an inconvertible promise is an unknown thing, because there is nothing with which to compare it, and because it does not even