is true-true by a paramount authority of Congress over the subject of tender, or the discharge of contracts-then the bank. ing system of the State of New York, framed with so much care and wisdom, and supposed to rest upon the State sovereignty as upon a rock, is nothing but a house built upon the sand. For, may it please your Honors, the very same authority which enables Congress to make a treasury note a discharge of that obligation under the constitution and laws of this State, enables them to say that it may be discharged by merchandize, by lands, by the vegetable products of the earth. Because, if Congress has power to say that our constitution and laws are satisfied by the tender of a treasury note in lieu of coin, then, puri ratióne, by the same method of argumentation you reach the power to make everything a legal tender.

It will not do to say that the authority is limited to making paper money a tender; that it is limited to making the solemn promises of the Government a tender, resting on the sovereign character and high authority of that Government. For, unless you can reach a power to affect the tender prescribed by the State law, to affect the subject of what shall constitute redemption or payment, and unless you can reach it by some paramount authority residing in Congress to legislate on that subject, you cannot get authority to make the treasury note a legal tender; and, when you have got that, you have got everything. I desire the merchants and bankers, and people of New York, to reflect upon this, and to ask themselves whether this is an advance in civilization, or a relapse towards barbarism.

The judgment, in the third place, directs that the defendant be enjoined from selling the stocks which, by the statute, it is made his positive duty to sell, under the circumstances which have occurred here. Now, I am utterly at a loss to know what ground there is here for an injunction, or on what it is to rest; or how the interference that is proposed by the judgment is anything but a legislative act. Even if you find that treasury notes are equivalent to money-even if you find that they are equivalent in value to coin, or that they are to be treated, under the circumstances, as equivalents-how are you, as a judiciary, authorized to relieve against the operation of the statute, on the ground that equivalents have been tendered?

Is it your province to decide what equivalents may be taken for specie, under the Constitution and laws of the State? You can reach a decision which will enable you to interfere with the discharge of his duties by the superintendent of the Banking Department, only by holding that the phrase "lawful money of the United States," means anything that the United. States may choose to enact as money. It is not, I submit, the province of the Court to decide what equivalents for specie may be taken; that is a legislative and not a judicial function, and all the reasons which may be urged in the existing state of the currency of the country, or the existing circumstances of the country, or the situation of the banks, are reasons which address themselves entirely to legislative discretion; and the relief that is sought against the operation of the statute can only be attained through the legislative power of the State, and that, too, when the Legislature is authorized by an amendment of the Constitution of the State, to accept anything as equivalents for specie other than the hard money itself.

The subject expands itself into a field of discussion altogether too wide and general for judicial consideration. But I ought not to sit down without saying a few words in respect to the duty which is now imposed upon the Court.

I must say for myself, that looking forward from the present state of things, I can see nothing but financial disaster and ruin, unless some of the steps that have been taken shall be retraced. This opinion is not mine alone; it is shared by many. And it seems to me that it is a mere question of time as to when the final convulsion and crash shall come. For myself, meaning no reflection upon others with whose motives or purposes I have no concernI desire, when that day comes, to be able to say that I have done my duty to my country, according to my convictions. I can see very clearly, as it seems to me, what the steps are which will secure us from that impending calamity. The first depends on the firmness of the State judiciaries in administering their own constitutions and laws. It is plain, that nothing can be more important, as a means of reaching a condition of safety, than to hold the banks of this State to the performance of their obligations under the Constitution and laws of the State. No serious injury can result to them; for the confidence of the community in

their bills is the great thing to be preserved for them, and for all of us, as the first step to be taken to arrest the disasters that seem to be in the future. The process can result in no serious inconvenience to them.

On the 11th day of May, the entire circulation of the banks of this State was $35,506,606. The entire amount of specie in their vaults was $36,802,438, and of that, $34,000,000, in round numbers, was held in the city of New York.*

Now, what is to be the immediate effect of a decision of this Court, that the banks of this State are to discharge their obligations, and to redeem their bills in gold and silver? Some temporary and slight loss may occur. But what will be the immediate tendency? Why, I submit it will be to satisfy the whole people that the laws of the State are to be executed in favor of the bill-holders; that the faith of the State is to be kept; and that point reached, the banks will find it very difficult to get in this circulation of thirty-five millions, even though they may wish to get it in.

On the other hand, may it please your Honors, a decision which throws all State laws and institutions, all contracts, all pecuniary obligations into a position where there can be no ultimate basis for anything but the promises of the Federal Government, and which locks up gold and silver in the banks for speculation, can have no possible tendency but to depreciate more and more the paper currency of the government.

The next step lies wholly outside of the sphere of State legislation, wholly outside of the sphere of State judicial action, and depends upon the wisdom and virtue of Congress. It is, as it seems to me, to pledge the surplus revenues of the customs, which are receivable in gold, in some form of proper sinking fund, toward the withdrawal of portions of this currency from circulation. And, in the second place, by a vigorous system of taxation, creating and sustaining a demand for the use of government notes, to be paid in in the form of taxes. And as the necessity for issuing them diminishes, and the necessity for taxation diminishes, withdrawing portions of them from time to time. Undoubtedly a long period of years must transpire before much can be done in that direction.

* This cause was argued June 26.

But neither this nor any other measure can be reached so as to save us from those convulsions and disasters which have visited every nation that has gone beadlong into the use of paper money of this description, so long as it is insisted that the promissory notes of the Federal Government shall be accepted as the basis of all banking, all pecuniary relations, all values; and gold is thrust out of the office assigned to it by the univer sal consent of mankind, by the Constitution of the United States, and by the constitution of this, commercially speaking, the most important State in the Union.

ARGUMENT

OF

HON. LYMAN TREMAIN,

Of Counsel for Respondent.

MR. TREMAIN said:

May it please the Court,-Your Honors, I am certain, can scarcely expect an apology from me for putting in print the body of the argument that I have the honor to submit on this occasion. Considering the gravity of the case, its national importance and bearing, that it involves the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, and hence requires greater care and precision than an ordinary oral discussion,-it has seemed to me that that mode of presentation was due both to the dignity of the cause, and of this high tribunal which is to determine it.

Before entering upon the discussion of the questions and principles involved, I wish to direct the attention of the Court, briefly, to the precise nature of the questions in the case, and the manner in which they are presented. The parties to this controversy have availed themselves of that valuable provision contained in the Code, by which a simple and economical mode of obtaining decisions upon controversies that exist between them may be had. They have determined, as they have a right to do, what those questions were. They have foreclosed all inquiry in relation to matters of fact, including the question presented by my honored adversary, as to whether or not a proper case for an injunction was established, with an exact reference to the issues which the