ity vested in Congress for the purpose above stated, though it was deemed a matter of policy that the enactment should be sustained. The complainant took an appeal from the ruling of the Court, and all the points thus controverted will have to be determined by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, whose decision on them will be looked for with anxiety. In case the decision is sustained by the Court of Appeals, the question will be taken to the United States Supreme Court, for final arbitrament."

(D.)

LEGAL TENDERS DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL IN KENTUCKY.

The Court of Appeals of the State of Kentucky has rendered a decision, declaring the Legal Tender Act of Congress to be unconstitutional. Judge Robinson gave the opinion of the Court, declaring as follows:

"Whenever a jurist inquires whether a statute is consistent with the State constitution, he looks into that constitution, not for a grant, but only for some limitation of the power inherent in the people's legislative organ so far as not forbidden by their organic law.

"But, as Congress derives its power from grants by the people of pre-existing State sovereignties, an enlightened inquirer into the constitutionality of any of its acts looks only to a delegation of power by the Federal Constitution; for that Constitution expressly declares that all power not delegated by it is reserved to the States, or to the people. In this class of cases, therefore, he who asserts the power holds the affirmative; and, unless he maintains it, the controverted act should not be enforced as law by the judiciary. On the contrary, the party affirming that a legislative act of a State is prohibited by the State Constitution, must prove it; and unless the proof be clear, the contested act must be admitted to be law. The distinctive difference between the two classes of cases is, that in the former, the power must be shown to have been delegated; but, in the latter, it must appear to have been prohibited.

A JUDICIAL DECISION.

333

"And in this case, therefore, the power to pass the Tender Act must satisfactorily appear to have been delegated before the judiciary should recognize and enforce it."

(D.)

ILLUSTRATION OF LEGAL TENDER.

"As favorable a view as we can take of the Legal Tender Act is, that it enacts in substance as follows:

*

*

66 Whenever any debt is discharged within the United States, the creditor shall forfeit to the debtor such per centage of the debt as is equal to the depreciation of legal tender notes since the debt was contracted. This is in fact the sum and substance of the enactment. It made every promissory note, every bank bill, every dollar of bank stock, every bond of every State and railroad corporation, and indeed, every promise to pay money, a real unavoidable bet, which the creditor wins when gold goes down, and the debtor when gold goes up. This, in fact, is the result of every system of irredeemable legal tender paper, and must continue to be while human nature remains as it is. To the lover of justice, the discussion of such a subject of spoliation, from a merely utilitarian point of view, must be repulsive in the extreme. No man who believes that honesty is the best policy; no man who believes in the moral government of the universe; no man who believes that the laws of nature always act to preserve the good and destroy the evil, will ask for any other judgment on the system than that which will be pronounced by his own conscience. But it will be instructive to trace all this injustice to its economic effects, present and future, if only to show how we are punished for transgressing a moral law.

"It is plain that while gold has been rising from par to a premium of 130 per cent., the creditor class of the community, represented by the owners of bank stock, depositors in savings banks, holders of bonds and mertgages, and the frugal poor who have loaned their savings, have, on the whole, been subjected to heavy and unjust losses; while the debtor class, represented by those who

live beyond their income or do business on borrowed capital, have made heavy and illegitimate profits. Owing to the different functions of the two classes in social economy, their gains and losses are productive of effects which virtually concern the best interests of society, and are therefore well worthy the serious consideration of the philosopher and statesman. The debtor class, having been from time to time relieved of a per centage of their equitable liability, have found less difficulty than usual in meeting their obligations. Hence there have been fewer failures than common, as well as larger profits, and unusual business prosperity. For the country is naturally considered prosperous when there are few failures and large profits."-Newcomb.

(D.)

A FURTHER ILLUSTRATION.

"Three years ago two hundred mechanics each put one hundred dollars into a savings bank. The savings bank loaned this $20,000 to a ship-builder, who employed it in building a ship. He sends the ship to England and sells her for $22,000 in gold, making a legitimate profit of ten per cent. By every principle of justice $20,000 of the money belongs to the savings bank. But now the legal tender clause comes in and declares the builder relieved from the debt in payment of twenty thousand paper dollars. He therefore buys the paper with perhaps $8,000 in gold, pays them to the bank, and keeps the additional $12,000 [in gold] for his own private use."-Newcomb. (See page 74.)

(E.)

THE SUPREME FOLLY OF PREFERRING PAPER TO GOLD CURRENCY IN CALIFORNIA.

In the present inflated condition of the currency of the United States, it becomes a question of much importance

UNWISE LEGISLATION.

335

to California-a gold-bearing State of the Union-to know what fraction of the value of gold results from the fact that this metal is money by constitutional provision, and what would be its value if demonetized, and thrown upon the world as merchandise. The value of money is in a direct ratio to demand, and in an inverse ratio to the supply. If the supply be ample, the price rules low; if it be limited, the value increases. By making a legal tender of paper, the domestic call for gold is greatly reduced, and it is driven to foreign countries for a market. But if all civilized countries rejected gold as money, its value as merchandise would not be one-fourth of its present value as money. Again: if all civilized countries made gold their only money, rejecting all forms of paper issue as such, its value in the markets of the world-and by its value I mean its exchangeable power for other forms of wealthwould be greatly advanced.

If then, three-fourths of the value of gold results from the fact that it is money, what should be the wise policy of a gold-bearing State like California? Certainly to continue to support her staple, and keep it in use as money and for money; not to deprive herself of three-fourths of its value by insisting that it shall only be merchandise, and that our money shall be nothing but credit and promises. Our mines yield more gold in six months than the whole circulation of the State. Would it not be suicidal to reduce the value of gold by shadows and substitutes?—And above all, by legislative enactments, to coerce it from circulation as our medium of exchange and measure of value?

When the State of Maine shall legislate that white pine boards shall no longer be used for covering the roofs of buildings there, but that all her roofing material shall be tules imported from California; when Massachusetts shall enact that water power shall no longer be used in that State to propel the machinery of her manufactures, but that all her power of manufacturing shall be slaves imported from the Southern States; when New York shall make a law that in future commerce shall not be carried on by means of ships and ocean steamers, but that all commerce of the State shall be done in balloons, which shall navigate the air, and move with inconceivable velo

city; when Indiana and Illinois shall legislate that bread shall no longer be made of wheat flour, but a substitute for it shall be rye flour and potatoes; when Ohio shall enact that hams, bacon, and mess pork shall no more be eaten there, but a substitute shall be found in importing cod-fish from Newfoundland; when Pennsylvania shall legislate that coal shall no longer be used there as fuel, but that wood shall be brought from the forests of Canada; when Missouri shall make a law that railroad iron shall no more be made from the iron ore of her mountains ; when Louisiana shall decree that the sugar from the cane shall no longer be used there, but that beet-sugar shall be imported from France; when Alabama shall enact that goods manufactured from cotton shall no longer be used in that State, but that all her articles of clothing shall be made of gunny-bags and sackcloth; and when all the other States of the Union shall enact laws equally sottish and equally destructive of their vital interests-then, and not till then, let California cap the climax of folly, and ordain that gold coin of the mints of the United States shall no longer be money here-shall no longer measure values in our State, but that we will import from the East paper promises redeemable twenty years hence, or long after we shall have any earthly cares to annoy us, and we will swear that these are the best measures of value that were ever instituted; and as we look on the devastation and wide-spread ruin which such legislation has induced, like Nero who danced and fiddled while Rome was in ruins, we will shout pæans of joy, and, Io TRIUMPHE! SIC ITUR AD ASTRA!! (See pp. 75 to 81.) February 6, 1864.

(E.)

THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SPECIE DECISIONTHE OPINION OF THE COURT IN FULL.

(From the Boston Traveller of 20th January, 1864.)

The Supreme Court of this State have recently decided in the case of Wood vs. Bullens, argued last September,