"Cato" 
 
 on ConRtiLutional "Money" 
 
 I 
 
George Washington Flowers 
 Memorial Collection 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ESTABLISHED BY THE 
 FAMILY OF 
 
 COLONEL FLOWERS 
 
 lUEASURtROOM 
 
C A.TO" 
 
 CONSTITUTIOiNiL "MONEY" 
 
 LEGAL TENDER. 
 
 IN TWELVE NUilBEUS 
 From the Chaklestos Mbrcdbt. 
 
 CHARLESTON: 
 
 iTKAM-roWEn PBESXF.S or KVAHO 4 COKHWEI-b, 
 3 Broad uml 103 Eant Bny rtrpeU. 
 
SCAN THE EVIL OMENS. 
 
 Obsta principiu. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 To TiiK EniTOH OF THE Mercury : If the Constitm on of the 
 Confederate States is to be preserved, and is deemed A\orth pre- 
 8ervin<;-. it is time for all who so resolve, and who so think, to 
 examine the omens that forbode misohief, and oppose, in their 
 inei])ienc3-, the insidious or heedless devices that will sap and 
 undermine all limitations of Confederate power, unless they be 
 crushed in embryo. 
 
 Some time last spring, the editor of a Savannah paper, re- 
 ferring to the measui'c adopted bj'the Congress at Washington, 
 to make the Treasury notes issued there a legal tender in the 
 payment of debts, observed (in substance) that he presumed 
 such a measure was not a violation of the Constitution of the 
 United States, because the prohibition to make anything but 
 gold and silver current coin a legal tender was on a State, not 
 on ('ongress. Soon after a niein I ler of Congress from Louisiana 
 (Dupre, I think it was) proposed such a measure respecting our 
 Treasury notes, in the shape of a resolution of inquiry, referred 
 to a committee. Upon the first intimation of this scheme from 
 Savanmih, I wrote a communication in condemnation of it for 
 a IJiclimond paper, which never saw the light. I was appri.sed 
 the like conceit had, last winter, entered the Iiead of a promi- 
 nent person in Mississipjii, and that there was reason to believe 
 it was not wiiolly without support in South Carolina. Early 
 in the present session of Congress (I quote from the newspaper 
 reporters of Richmond), "Mr. (lartrell, of Georgia, offered a 
 bill making Treasury notes a legal tender in p.ijMnent of debts. 
 To desired prompt action, and moved that the bill be made the 
 
 '3G2V79 
 
4 
 
 special order for Tuesday of next ■reek. Mr. Curry, of Ala- 
 bama, said the business of the House had been greatlj- im- 
 peded, at its last session, by the numerous special orders. He 
 hoped we would avoid the evil now. Mr. Gartrell modified his 
 motion so as to refer tlie bill to the Committee on the Judi- 
 ciary. Mr. Curry assented, and hoped for an early report, for 
 he, too, desired prompt decision, and also a prompt rejection of 
 the bill. Mr. Foote, of Tennessee, joined in a desire for a 
 prompt report, but hoped that it would bo favorable- to the 
 bill." 
 
 Eecentlythe following is reported as oecurriag in the House: 
 
 " By Mr. Swan : a memorial asking that Confederate notes be 
 made a legal tender. By Mr. Baldwin : a petition upon the 
 same subject, signed by a large number of the citizens of Rock- 
 ingham." 
 
 The lliclimond Enquirer, of August 2H, contained a communi- 
 cation, provoking no comment editorially, in which it is said : 
 " We never can get along vight until Confederate currency be 
 made a legal tender. All the debts of the country call for dollars 
 or coin; and how can debtors live through this great struggle 
 for our independence, unless they can pay their old debts with 
 Confederate notes or bonds ? The regulations make me and 
 all others take it for everything sold, and why not make all 
 take it for their old dues? The sinews of war must be sus- 
 tained. No man sliould be suffered to refuse it on any grounds. 
 Nearly all East Tennessee is polluted with tories, and, of 
 course, the major part of the debts here are due tories, and will 
 our Government longer let them refuse Confederate currency 
 for their old. dollars and coin debts f If it should, it gives them 
 six per cent, advantage over the debtors, whose money lies on 
 hand, while he pays a tory six per cent, on what he owes. 
 Constitutional or not, make that money a legal tender 
 during the war and you will see the rich fruits of it." 
 
 The Richmond Whig, of late date, whose motto is, " The 
 Constitution — States llights" — declares, editorially, as follows : 
 *' Whether Constitutional or not, the issues of the Confederate 
 government must be made a legal tender." 
 
 In the last number of that paper which I have seen (Septem- 
 ber -i), a corres])ondent, unrobuked, elaborates the doctrine, on 
 the authority of Worcester's Dictionary, that to coin money, and 
 
regulate the value thereof, is not only to stamp and regulate 
 the value and give currency to metals, domestic and foreign, 
 but embraces also a paper currency, promises to paj^, even 
 notes of hand, etc. These citations will show that mischief is 
 brewing in and out of our Congress, and how loose and reckless 
 are the propositions made from sundiy quarters, and that J am 
 not making false clamor. 
 
 Cato. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 It is to me surprising and humiliating, that, at so early a 
 day after our Confederate Constitution was ushered into being, 
 an argument should be needed, \}y a member of Congress 
 especialh', to show that the Confederate government, or any 
 department of it, has no power to make anything a legal ten- 
 der, in payment of debts, except gold and silver current coin. 
 But it seems manifest, from what has already appeared, that 
 the poison of the fatal teachings of Alexander Hamilton and 
 the old Federal party, of Henry Clay and the Whig party, and 
 of that Consolidation party which undermined and destroyed 
 the Constitution of the United States and the Union it con- 
 structed, has even thus early begun to corrupt the blood of our 
 body politic. 
 
 Let us then look at the language. of our Constitution. Here 
 it is : 
 
 "The Congress shall have power — to coin money, regulate 
 the value thereof and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of 
 weights and measures. 
 
 " To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securi- 
 ties and current coin of the Confederate States. 
 
 " To borrow money on the credit of the Confederate States. 
 
 "To raise and support armies;, but no appropriations of 
 money to that use shall bo for a longer term than two years. 
 
 " No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in conse- 
 quence of appropriations made by law," etc. 
 
 " Congress shall appropriate no money, from the Treasury 
 except by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses," etc. 
 
 "All bills appropriating money shall spceiTy in Federal cur- 
 
 3(i9779 
 
G 
 
 rency the exact amount of each npproprialion, and the purposes 
 for which it shall be made," etc. 
 
 Lastly: "IS'o State ishall coin nionry; make anything but 
 ijjold and silver coin a tender in paj'ment of debts; pass any 
 bill of attainder, or ex post facto law, or law impairing the ob- 
 ligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility." 
 
 These are several of the connections in which our Constitu- 
 tion uses the Avord '' money." 
 
 I affirm that, from neither of the foregoing provisions, nor 
 from all combined, can the power claimed be derived. 
 
 What was the object in enabling CoTigress to coin money and 
 to regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and in re- 
 straining a State from coinings money and from making any- 
 thing but gold and silver cui'rent coin a legal tender in payment 
 of debts? It was a necessary complement to that other power 
 granted to Congress — to regulate commerce with foreign 
 nations, among the several States, and with the Indian tribes. 
 !No such regulation of commerce could be of any avail for good, 
 if there were not a standard of value such as should protect the 
 rights of creditors and ascertain the obligation of debtors with 
 such certainty and ])ermanency as should establish justice, cir- 
 cumvent fraud, and supersede endless and ruinous disputes. 
 
 For such end the recognized standard of the commercial 
 world was, and is, and ever will be, alone adequate — i. e., gold 
 and silver. That standard alone, coined and regulated in 
 value by authority of Congress, was the "money" in contem- 
 plation; that money, and only that, could any State make a 
 legal tender in payment of debts; that money, and only that, 
 could be made the solvent of debts and the measure of commer- 
 cial values between foreign traders or those of dilferent States, 
 among themselves, so as to secure justice, concord, and profit- 
 able trailic. Such measure and standard of commercial values 
 was alone recognized by the commercial nations of the eartii 
 the most convenient, the most enduring, capable of the most 
 exactness, and the most consecrated by its antiquity. Surebr 
 was there abundant reason to lead those who concocted, and 
 those who ratified, the provisions of the Constitution of the 
 United States, respecting this subject, to set up the standard of 
 gold and silver, current coin, as the measure of value; for, 
 were they not thoroughly educated in this behall' by a knowl- 
 
edge of what resulted, in confusion, injustice, desolation, angiy 
 collisions, from the Continental ^' 7noney," and the jarring, dis- 
 cordant, unfaithful, and mischievous legislation of numerous 
 independent sovereignties, touching debts, contracts, currencj', 
 and standards of value ? 
 
 Cato. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 If gold and silver current coin was thus imperiously de- 
 manded for the great ends of international and interstate com- 
 merce, and the judicious and proper regulation thereof, why 
 should a Confederate any more than a State government be 
 permitted to thwart the great end and aim of a constitutional 
 stipulation, and introduce a scene not onl}- of confusion worse 
 confounded, in the relations of individuals and communities, in 
 transactions of the gravest importance, and as closely connected 
 with public as private prosperity, but to subvert the carefully 
 constructed foundation of good morals, plain justice, stipulated 
 and covenanted right in contracts, between man and man, 
 people and people ? 
 
 The Confederate Congress has the exclusive power to "coin 
 money and regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin.'' 
 That is a power wholl}- distinct from the power to make that 
 coin a legal tender, or to make anything whatever a legal ten- 
 der. It was a power pertaining to the reserved rights of the 
 States to declare what should be a legal tender. The very 
 restriction u])on a State, confining its power in that respect to 
 gold and silver current coin, shows this by conclusive inference; 
 and the restriction was, and is, proper and necessary, and natu- 
 rally followed the provision granting to Congress the exclusive 
 right to coin the specified metals, fix their Value, and declare 
 what domestic or foreign coin should be current. The one 
 government should coin gold and silver, or adopt that coined 
 by another government, fix the value thereof, and the other 
 sliould make that alone a legal tender. Thus the function pre- 
 scribed to each government was explicitly defined. Every coin 
 made and issued by the United States government was not, 
 
8 
 
 ipso facto, a legal tender; for example, copper cents^ offered in 
 satisfaction of a stipulation to pay dollars. It is not Congress, 
 but the Constitution, that puts on a State, the prohibition as to 
 what it shall declare a legal tender; and will any man in the 
 Confederate Congress, or out of it, be listened to, with patience 
 and resj)ect, who teaches that what is prohibited to a State, and 
 not proliibitcd to Congress, by express terms, is, therefore, 
 granted to Congress ? 
 
 The writer for the Eichmond Whig, herein before referred to, 
 who proposes further to elaborate his ideas, borrows certain 
 definitions of "money" and of "coin" from John Taylor, Jun., 
 and from Worcester's Dictionary. From the first, as follows: 
 Money is "a token of a certain nominal amount, issued by 
 government in return for value received, and payable at the 
 Exchequer for taxes." From Worcester : " Money, originally 
 stamped coin, is now apjDlied to whatever serves as a circulating 
 medium; including bank notes and drafts, as well as metallic 
 coins." " Cash is ready money, and is sometimes restricted to 
 coin or metallic money bearing a legal stamp, but it is commonly 
 used to include bank notes, drafts," etc. The same writer 
 summons Worcester to help out his argument by conforming 
 the word '' coin" to the necessities of his logic, and gets what 
 follows: " Coin, that with which payment is made." "To coin, 
 or to convert into money; to fashion or form by stamping." 
 Thereupon ho concludes, and inculcates the doctrine, that what- 
 ever Congress " stamps " for money is money, is the same as 
 *' coined " money, and being declared cui'rent, is properly to be 
 also declared a legal tender in payment of debts. It is plain, 
 that a State can't make anything but " gold and silver curi'ent 
 coin" such tender, for it is expressly restricted to those metals, ■ 
 coined by the Confederate government, and those coined by 
 foreign governments, made current and regulated in value by 
 the Congress. Here, then, we have the remarkable result that 
 a State can have alone one legal tender, one specified standard 
 of value, and the (,\)nfcderate government may declare a totally 
 different thing such. So there may be, in the same country, 
 two different standards of commercial value, wholl}^ unequal to 
 each other — the one capable of sustaining foreign trade, and 
 the other not. Was not the object of the constitution to have 
 sx _stajidard, one fixed standard, to measure all commercial values, 
 
9 
 
 in all traffic, foreign and domestic? Was not that the neces- 
 sity ? If so (and who can doubt it), the scheme of the Avriter 
 allirded to, and those who concur with him, in and out of Con- 
 gress, is unfounded, unconstitutional, wild, and visionar}'. That 
 it is also disastrously mischievous, subversive of justice and 
 moral obligation and dut\', is a legitimate inference, and will 
 be hereafter shown. 
 
 If Worcester is to be our constitution, quoad hoc, or the 
 authorized interpreter of it, then truly is he the patroti saint of 
 a needy and unscrupulous government. If he teaches that the 
 government "stamp" upon anything as money, with a regula- 
 tion of its value and a declaration of its currency, thereby 
 makes that thing coined money, " current money," then may 
 the government so treat any other thing it pleases as money, 
 if it can be stamped ^ for, by the argument, the Confederate 
 government is confined to no one thing among the vast number 
 capable of being stamped, of being regulated in value, and of 
 being declared curreiit money. Hence, if the government at 
 llichmond abound in mules, or iron, or calico, et id omne genus, 
 it. may stamp either or all, regulate the value as money, declare 
 such mone}' current, and thus it has executed its function " to 
 coin n)(niey and regulate the value thereof.* I do not wish to 
 pervert or misrepresent the argument I combat, but I verily 
 believe, and it is submitted to the reader, that I have only ex- 
 posed its legitimate consequences. 
 
 The fallacy- springs, and the reductio ad absurdum follows, 
 from the false premise assumed, to wit: that Congress has 
 anything to do respecting a legal tender in payment of debts; 
 in forgetting that the matter pertained to the reserved rights 
 of the States; and in overlooking the fact that the Constitu- 
 tion settles what shall be money, and what shall be, tlierefore, 
 a legal tender in payment of debts. 
 
 1 urge, further, that if stamping a promise to pay (a promis- 
 sory note), regulating the value and declaring the same current 
 money, is to "coin money," etc., that process applied by Con- 
 gress to any promise to pay, a ])romissory note of the Bank of 
 England or France, or of any individual, is equally within its 
 competence, and i» also " coining money," etc. 
 
 Cato. 
 
10 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 If a Yankee dictionaiy deserved to be an arbiter on this 
 question, 1, too, might cite, in support of my view, one quite as 
 good as Worcester — I mean Webster. He ought, at any 
 rate, to be respectfully listened to by such as repose any trust 
 in dictionaries when a Constitution is under consideration. He 
 says "money and mint arc the same word varied. Money, 
 coin — stam])ed metal, any piece of metal, usually gold, silver, 
 or copper, stamped by ])ublic authority and used as' tlie me- 
 dium of commerce. 2. Bank notes or bills of credit issued b}'' 
 authority, and exchangeable for coin, or redeemable, are also 
 called money; as such notes, in modern times, represent coin 
 and are used as a substitute for it." Yes, called so — in modern 
 times — when they are payable and paid in coin on demand, 
 and when issued by authority — and this because they are 
 deemed to represent coin. But did the Constitution ever mean 
 to call them so? There were few of tlicm in 1789, when the 
 United States (Constitution v/as adopted; and since that time 
 up to the period when our Constitution was brought into 
 being, and rtow, when eveiy bank in the land has suspended 
 specie payments, and so continues, did the Constitution mean 
 to call such currency money; could it do so without a flagrant 
 breach of truth; could any man, who means to use language 
 with tolerable propriety, not to saj'' technical accuracy, now 
 ''cair' a bank note or draft ^' money"? It is easy to state how 
 it came to pass that such a currency was "called" money — 
 loosely so called, for it never was money, even when payable 
 and ]iaid on demand in metallic curreuc}^ — coin. It was so 
 '"calliMl" in inexact common j)arlance, because when in fact 
 redeemed on demand, it was, in current transactions among 
 ourselves, used as money. The States chartered many banks 
 (very unwisely I think), and requiring, on pain of death, their 
 pajter currency to be paid in specie, made that currency, so 
 long as it was so redeemed, receivable at their treasuries : but 
 onlj' so long. And how often has it been thus unredeemable 
 and unredeemed, and thus excluded from the State treasu- 
 ries and condemned as utterly unworthy the title of money? 
 Never was it, in any degree, a substitute for gold and silver 
 coin, or bullion, in foreign commerce; it never can be. Is it 
 
11 
 
 not, then, a rc])ronch to those who concocted and those who 
 ratified the UiiiLcd iStatos oi- Confederate Constitution, to im- 
 ])ute to thcni tlie idea tliat, in their conceptions, money, coin, 
 meant a promise to ]>ay it. by bank, government, or anj'body 
 eb<e; u promise so liable to be violated, and as often violated as 
 kepti* What a ridiculous standard of value, when this was 
 deemed worthy the sanctity of a constitutional prescription; 
 Avhen it was meant to bo a standard, a stable, accurate, con- 
 venient, intelli^-ible, commonly approved measure of commer- 
 cial values, in a eoveted intercourse with foreign communities, 
 as well as between confederate but distinct, independent sove- 
 reignties, and between man and man in the same or different 
 communities! Nothing but gold and silver has a single quality 
 that belongs to such a standard, or that is worthy to be set 
 up as the arbiter of justice, right, and honest}', in the transac- 
 tions of men who deal in trade, or in contracts that refer to 
 "money" as their subject matter. AVhy, the very banks, whose 
 promissor}- notes, we are told, are "called money," and are 
 80 meant to be regarded by the Constitution, and would be, 
 if stamped by the authorit}- of Congress, and worthy to be 
 declai-ed a legal tender, arc drawing their ch'ecks upon a 
 depository in so many "dollars," "payable in current funds." 
 Suppose Congress M'ere to undertake, to-day, "to regulate (i. c. 
 to lix) the value" of the Confederate Treasury -iiotes, or of 
 bank notes, according to what standard would it be fixed? Is 
 there any more accuracy or justice attainable in fixing the 
 value of such a promissory note than in fixing the value of 
 mine or 3'ours? Our Confederate govcrninent is to pay, " in 
 dollars," six months after the war is ended and a treaty of 
 peace ratified. Now, when it is said that such a paper is 
 "money," "coin," if the subject admitted an impulse of humor, 
 I might be tempted to borrow the language of JIouack, and 
 exclaim : " Rlsum tmeatis amici"? To "regulate the value" of 
 a money currency, a thing worthy to become a legal tender in 
 p^ymentof debts, it must be referred to some permanent, accu- 
 rate, and recognized element; and when "regulated" in value, 
 it must have the attributes of permanency, actual value in tiie 
 estimation of the world, and a fitnc.'^s to measure the value 
 of all exchangeable commodities, in traffic, foreign or domestic 
 — as well as other attributes not now necessary to be enumer- 
 
12 
 
 atcd. Has a promissory note, even to pay on demand — above 
 all, lias a promissory note, such as the Confederacy issues — 
 a single one of such attributes? It is enough to ask the ques- 
 tion, there can bo but one answer. It is too plain to admit of 
 discussion, that a promise to pay, issued by government, bank- 
 ing corporation, or individual, is liable to constant fluctuation 
 in value, from numerous causes — so many as to defy com- 
 plete specifications; and, therefore, such a thing being incajja- 
 ble of valuation for a daj" or an hour in the future, i.s totally 
 unfit to become the standard of value of anything else, which 
 "money" must be, and gold and silver coin actually is. A 
 vane on a spire would be its counterpart, as to changoableness ; 
 but it deserves to be said for the vane, that it answers its 
 purpose, and is, therefore, not deserving of condemnation. 
 
 To those who draw inspiration upon this subject from dic- 
 tionaries, let it be observed that the favorite one (Worcester) 
 is in authority against them, for he interprets "coin" as metals 
 stamped. He says: "Coin or metallic money bearing a legal 
 stamp." iS'or will any encouragement be derived by those 
 whose ideas I controvert Irom Webster's exposition of '■'■coin.'" 
 But 1 have done with lexicographers." 
 
 * Cato. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 We can draw instruction as to the true meaning of the words 
 " to coin raone}^, regulate the value thereof and of foreign 
 coin," Irom sources vastly more profound and authoritative 
 than any dictionary, or of all of them combined, and to such 
 sources 1 resort. 
 
 Tiie (Committee of Five presented to the Convention at 
 Philadelphia, August (i, 1787, the " Draft of a Constitution." 
 The draft contained the following language, Art. 7, enumerat- 
 ing the powers of Congress, to wit : " To coin money : to regu- 
 late the value of foreign coin — lo borrow money, and emit bills 
 on the credit of the United States." Art. 13 : No State, without 
 the consent of the Legislature of the United States, shall emit 
 
13 
 
 bills of credit, or make anything l)ut spkcik a tender in pay- 
 ment of debts," etc. 
 
 ]S^OAv, observe, according to the " draft " Congress was to be 
 cmj)Owered to "coin money" and " emit bills of credit" — i. e., 
 a pa])c:' currency, undoubtedly. Were they the same or equiva- 
 lent things, in the contemplation of the convention ? If so, 
 ■why specif}- both ? That bod}' knew how to use the English 
 language, and were not given to tautology. The States wero 
 prohibited to make anything but ''specie' a legal tender ivith- 
 oiit the consent of Congress. The scheme is manifest that pro- 
 ceeded from the brain of the Committee of Five. It was this: 
 Congress alone should issue a paper currency, and the States 
 should be confined, as to a legal tender, to specie, and that 
 alone, unless Congress should "emit bills of credit;" and in 
 that case, the States might, had Congress authorized it, not that 
 they should, make the Federal " bills of credit" a legal tender. 
 But not even by this scheme, as it came from the committee, 
 was Congress empowered to declare what should be a legal 
 tender in paj'ment of debts. 
 
 But soon afterward Congress was shorn of the power to 
 make a paper currency, or to allow a State to use such a cur- 
 rency, made by any authority whatever, as a legal tender. To 
 the proof: 
 
 " Avgiist IG. — It was moved and seconded to strike the 
 words 'and endt bills,' out of the 8th clause of the first section 
 of the 7th article — which passed in the affirmative" — nine 
 states aye — two (New Jersey and Maryland) na}-. Thus the 
 clause read (as it now reads in the Constitution of the United 
 States and in our own) " to borrow money on the credit," etc. 
 
 Again : the twelfth article of the " draft " provided as fol- 
 lows : "No State shall coin money nor grant letters of marque," 
 etc. In the Convention, August '_'8, "it was moved and 
 seconded to insert the words ' nor emit bills of credit,' after the 
 word 'money' in the twelfth article — which passe<l in the 
 affirmative" — yeas,H; na}*, (Virginia) Ij divided, 1 (Maryland). 
 " It was moved and seconded to insert the following clause 
 after the last amendment: 'Nor make anj'thing but gold and 
 silver coin a tendei- in ])aymcnt of debts;' which ])asscd unani- 
 mously in the aflfirmative — eleven States being present." It is 
 now established, upon a foundation impregnable, that deliber- 
 
Jitely, on Kpccific motion, and by ayes and noes, the Convention, 
 overruling its committee, denied to Congress the power to 
 emit " bills of credit," or to authorize the States to make a 
 paper issue a legal tender, but explicitl}' and rigidly confined 
 the former to the power to "coin nionoy" — that is, to make 
 specie, to render it current, at a regulated vahie, and the States 
 to that, and that only, as a legal tender. 
 
 When the above proceedings are examined in the light of the 
 liistory of the times, reflected somewhat, as it is, by the debates 
 in the State conventions to which the (y'oiistitation was refer- 
 red, it is safe to sa}' that the people, the ConvcrUion at Phila- 
 delphia, and the statesmen of those days, almost universally 
 looked with horror upon a paper cui-rency. and they had the 
 most abundant reason for the sentimciit. as their posterity have 
 had, on sundr}- occasions since, llhode Island may constitute a 
 special exception, which State had gained an infamous notoriety 
 by the frauds perpetrated through her paper issues and her leg- 
 islation to support that currency and the frauds, not to nseuiion 
 other scandalous iniquities. 
 
 In our Confederate Constitution there is no prohibition laid 
 upon a State to emit bills of credit; but it is clear such bills 
 cannot be made a legal tender. To my mind, it was always 
 apparent that a bank bill, issued b}' a banlc instituted and 
 owned by a State, and for the redemption of which it was 
 liable, though the transaction was eft'(Jcted by agents with a 
 corporate existence (such, for example, as the bills of tlse Bank 
 of the State of South Carolina), were " bills of credit," and in 
 conflict with the Constitution of the United States. I am 
 aware, at the same time, that the contrary was held by Bald- 
 win, of the Supreme Court of the United States, upon the 
 sand}' foundation that the practical construction of half a cen- 
 tury, by State and Federal governments, maintained tlic doc- 
 trine ruled : while, if the question was, rci^ Integra, the contrary 
 opinion. /. c, my opinion, would be tlie better one. Yet, no 
 consolation can be dei'ivod liy my o])poni nts from this, because 
 no niatter what a State may be entitled to do, because it ma}- 
 not be forbidden by its constitutional contract, expressly or by 
 just implication, it remains ]»erpctually, universallj', and funda- 
 mentally true, that Congress can tlo nothing which it is not 
 expressly authorized to do. 
 
 Cato. 
 
15 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 I sluill now appeal to a source of information, tliat approaches 
 the strinf;;ent force of authority upon the question of the true 
 jncaniu;^ of the phrase "to coin money." I say approaches the 
 force of authority, because I. an^ not willing to nttrihutc the 
 force of absolute authority' to the ojiinions of iiny man, not 
 vested with competent express power to make an irrcvci'sible, 
 binding exposition of any word in a Constitution, to which, by 
 fair and express contract, directly or through nij State, I 
 am bound to yield obedience. I cite the observations of Mr. 
 Madison, on the clause of t1ie Constitution in question, ex- 
 pressed before its adoption, and i;i the face of that close and 
 unsparing scrutiny with whicli its opponents would, and did, 
 visit all his opinions and expositions, in Conventions to be 
 engaged in an examination of that instrument. I have, by no 
 means, the same respect for the opinions of the same man, on 
 the same subject, expressed after lie became an administi-ator 
 of the Constitution, or the expounder of it, being under the 
 bhindishments which spring from the possession and exercise 
 of power, which, evermore, "grows on what it feeds on," or the 
 disturbing influences of heated party bias, or that siren song, 
 the unfailing lullaby of a purpose to usurp and tyrannize — the 
 plea of public necessity — the inexorable demands of the con- 
 dition of war. 
 
 In the 4id Xo. Federalist, Mr. Madison saj's: "All that need 
 be remarUcd on the power to coin mone}^ regulate the value 
 thereof and of foreign coin, is, that by providing for this last 
 case" (/. e. as to foreign coin) "the Constitution has su])plied 
 a material omission in the Articles of Confederation. The 
 authority of the existing Congress is restrained to the regula- 
 tion of coin struck by their own authority or that of the re- 
 8j)ective States. It must be seen at once, that the proposed 
 uniformity in the value of the current coin might lie destroj'cd 
 by subjecting that of foreign coin to the different regulations 
 of the fiitrcrent States." 
 
 In the 43d number of the same work, from the same pen, is 
 tlie language following: "The right of coining monc}', which 
 is here taken from the States, was left in their hands by the 
 Confederation, as a concurrent right with that of Congress, 
 
16 
 
 under an exception in ftivor of the exclusive right of Congress 
 to reguhite the alloy and value. In thia instance, also, the new 
 provision is an improvement on the old. While the alloy and 
 value de])eiided on the general authority, a right of coinage in 
 the particular States could have no other eifect than to multi- 
 ply expensive mints and diversify the forms and weights of the 
 circulating pieces. The latter inconveniency defeats one pur- 
 pose for which the power was originally sulDmitted to the 
 Federal hcadj and as far as the former" (i. e., State mints) 
 "might prevent an inconvenient remittance of gold and silver 
 to the central mint for recoinage, the end can be as well 
 attained by local mints established under the general au- 
 thority." 
 
 Now, taking this exposition as our guide (and surely it is 
 worthy of all acceptation), who will pretend to say that 
 <'coin" — "to coin money" — in the sense of the Constitution, 
 refers to anything, undev the heavens, but metallic currency? 
 And, I add, of gold and silver onl}^? For that alone could a 
 State make a legal. tender, when constituted current coin by 
 the regulation or stamp of the Federal head, and that alone 
 could the Federal head coin, or adopt, with a regulated value, 
 as the constitutional currency; and the exclusive thing fit to 
 be, and constitutionally pronounced to be, a legal tender in 
 payment of debts. Look at the words italicized — "alloy," 
 *' weights," •' pieces," " gold and silver;" what doubt can there 
 be, that a paper medium, or currency, or standard of value, no 
 matter of what form or from what authority, is as effectually 
 excluded from all idea concerning the act of coining as the skin 
 of a beast or a leaf of tobacco ? " 
 
 Yet, in the face of this reasoning and authority, in contempt 
 of the voice of history that proclaims aloud the meaning of the 
 language in question, and proclaims that gold and silver coin 
 was the ^' monej^" which Congress was to provide, and that 
 only, listen to the language of the writer for the Whig : Quoth 
 he, " Who will deny that Congress ma}^ stamp the Treasury 
 notes, and thus make them money?" It is probable my readers 
 will join me in asking a division of the question; and we shall 
 unite in allowing that Congress may starnp Treasury notes, but 
 I surmise we shall equally join in utterly denying that Congress 
 can thereby, or by any other means, make them money — i.e., 
 
17 
 
 the money which the Constitution empowered Congress to coin. 
 People may. call a variety of devices money, and use them in 
 lieu of mone}'; and dictionaries maj- reflect this voluntary 
 popular language and conduct ; and they may, in ji])ecial cir- 
 cumstances, and for certain jieriods. perform the office of moncj-. 
 But, is it a species of logic that can challenge our respect, 
 which seeks *to convert a substitute for a specific thing into that 
 very thing — that calls the shadow the substance — the repre- 
 sentative the constituent — a promise to pay payment? Surely 
 he read^ in vain our annals, touching constitutional regulations 
 of money — coining money, establishing a standard of value for 
 commerce and contracts — who does not see, that it was the 
 special, identical, exclusive end of them all. to extinguish and 
 forever eradicate the pretension of a promise to pay money to 
 become itself money ; no matter by w;honi — government, or 
 corporation, or individual — the promise might be issued. The 
 evidence of tliis truth is scattered broadcast over all the re- 
 cords of all discussions relating to the subject, indulged by 
 those who conti'ived, and those who adopted, the Constitution 
 of 17S7-'0. 
 
 Cato. 
 
 . :no. vii. 
 
 I flatter mj'self those who have doJie me the honor of reading 
 my observations thus far, will require no more of reasoning or 
 authority to produce an undoubting conviction that, under the 
 power to coin monej', etc., Congrcf^s has no pretence of author- 
 ity to manufacture and emit an}- species of paper as money. 
 For, though what I have said, and the quotations I have made 
 of what others have said, applies to. the Constitution of the 
 United States, it would seem simpl}- preposterous to contend 
 that the same words and phrases in our Constitution have a 
 meaning any wise different from that thcj' import in Lincoln's 
 (if, indeed, he has any Constitution at all). Certainly the ex- 
 perience as to paper money, so called, which this generation 
 has been able to add lo that of ante-revolutionarj- times and 
 post-revolutionary times up to 1789, has but fortified the incen- 
 
 «, 
 
18 
 
 tivcs leading the men of 1787-9, and for a stronger reason 
 ought to lead us to abhor a paper currency as a standard of 
 value, or as "inoiiey" in any sense; nor have our lessons, taught 
 by our experience, brought us to esteem the paper promises 
 to pay, emitted by a Federal government, as any fitter to be 
 called money, or to be a tender, in payment of specie lent and 
 promised to be repaid, than such promises emitted by a State, 
 or a bank of issue chartered by it. IS or do I think that Wor- 
 cester's Dictionary Avill be clothed with the potent dignity of 
 having instructed the framei-s or ratifiers of our Constitution, 
 in new and veay mischievous views of the definition of com, 
 coining, money, and legal tender. 
 
 Neither the precise point I am considering — i. e., whether Con- 
 gress can -make anything but gold and silver current coin a. legal 
 tender in payment of debts — nor the exigency of my argument to 
 vindicate the negative, can make it necessary for me to estab- 
 lish the proposition that (,'ongress cannot emit " bills of credit." 
 The reason is this: It may be granted that Congress may 
 emit "bills of credit," and it may be true, also, that people 
 may choose to make them current, as and for money, so long- 
 as people have faith in them and please so to do ; and yet, the 
 question will still remain in statu quo : Can Congress make 
 them a legal tender? My proposition is distinctly, this: That 
 by the Constitutions of the quondam United States and of 
 the Confederate States, no govern nient. State or Federal, can 
 make anything but gold and silver current coin money; that 
 neither government can make anything else a legal tender in 
 payment of debts; no matter whether or not either or both 
 governments may emit " bills of credit." 
 
 It niay turn out, upon a proper investigation, to Avhich I do 
 not now apply myself, that though the Congress of the United 
 States could not constitutionally issue or " emit" bills of credit, 
 yet that the Confederate Congress can. Of that, hereafter. I 
 am quite convinced that it was an usurpation on the part of 
 the former to issue any such currency, directly or indirectly, 
 as money, or with a view to perform the functions of money. 
 I am quite aware there were various Opinions expressed on 
 this subject, both eai'ly and late, by men of deservedly promi- 
 nent consideration. Our own Charles Pinckney took the affirm- 
 ative in May, 1788. He said, in our convention, then, "if 
 
19 
 
 paper money should become neeessary, tlie c^eneral ^.overn- 
 
 r?/w ,7T/'' '""'' of emittin. it; and CouUnental 
 pape., well funded must ever answer tl.e purpose better than 
 State paper." A. J. Dalhis, while Secretary of the Treasury 
 HI 181D, assumed that Congress had the power to emit bills of 
 credit "as a necessary implication from positive provisions" 
 (said he). He had specified, in immediate connection with this 
 observation, only the positive provision to coin monev III 
 admitted that such a power had been exercised only in a quali- 
 fied and limited manner-referring to bills of the Bank of the 
 United States, and Treasury notes issued during the war of 
 181.. Such currency was declared receivable alone in payment 
 to the United States. Mr. Crawford, Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, "^ 1S20 seemed to have direct reference \o the observa- 
 t on of Mr. Dallas when he said : " Coinage, and the regulation 
 ot money, have, in all nations, been considered one of the 
 highest acts of sovereignty. It may well be doubted, however 
 whether a sovereign 1)ower over the coinage necessarily gives 
 the nght to establish a paper currency. The power to eltab- 
 i.sh such a currency ought not only to be unquestionable, but 
 unquestioned. Any doubt about the legality of the exercise of 
 such an authority could not fail to mar any system that human 
 ingenuity could devise." 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, the Coryphaeus of the - sappers and 
 miners of the Constitution of the United States, who was 
 Vrnnus ^nter par^, Judge Marshall himself occupying a position 
 m h.s rear-Hamilton, brilliant in intellect, subtle in expe- 
 dient, of resolute purpose, zealous and persevering for consoli- 
 '-"•'"on, of unblenching courage, never (so far as I have read) 
 ncily affirmed the right of Congress to issue bills of credit- 
 ic admonished, earnestly, against such act by Congress, mak- 
 ng use of this remarkable language (vide -Reports on the 
 Finances," vol. 1, p. 64): "The emitting of paper money by 
 •he authority of government is wisely prohibited to the individ- 
 »ai Stales, by the National Constitution, and the spirit of that 
 )rohibition ought not to be disregarded by the Government 
 'f he I nited States. Though paper emissions, under a gen- 
 ra authority, might have some advantages not applicable, 
 tid be free from some disadvantages which are applicable to 
 he like emissions by the States separately, yet they are of a 
 
20 
 
 nature so liable to abuse-and it may even be affirmed so cer- 
 taiiTof bcin-r abused— that the wisdom of the government will 
 be shown in" never trusting itself with the use of so seducing , 
 and dangerous an expedient." He discovered wisdom and 
 safety in' using an agency to do indirectly what he abhorred 
 to do' directlv-/. c^, a chartered bank-which was to be based 
 on specie and government stocks, restrained by the limits ot 
 Bound trade, and the liability to pay specie on demand, or at a 
 fixed day. for its issues. And yet, even Hamilton never dared 
 to suggest, and a Congress of Federalists never dared to ex- 
 ceed a provision beyond that of making such bills of credit 
 receivable in dues to the Federal government. No wonder 
 Hamilton clothed himself in a crafty ambiguity in alluding to 
 the power to issue bills of credit, or a paper currency (which 
 were equivalent ideas with the men of that day). He knew, 
 what L have before revealed, that the Convention of '87 had 
 expressly refused this power to Congress, by nearly an unani- 
 mous vote, on specific motion; and he knew the meaning of 
 that vote, as thus interpreted by Luther Martin, in a responsi- 
 ble, deliberate report to his Legislature: "By our original Ar- 
 ticles of Confederation, the Congress have power to borrow 
 money and emit bills of credit on the credit of the United 
 States; agreeably to which was the report on this system as 
 made by the Committee of Detail. AVhen we came to this part 
 of the report, a motion was made to strike out the words ' to 
 emit bills of credit;' against the motion we urged that it would 
 be improper to deprive the Congress of that power; that it 
 would be a novelty unprecedented to establish a government 
 which should not have such authority. That it was impossible 
 to look into luturity so far as to decide that events might not 
 bJvppen that should render the exercise of such a power abso- 
 lutely necessary; and that wo doubted whether, if a war 
 should take place, it would be possible for this country to de- 
 fend itself without having recourse to paper credit, in which 
 case there would be a necessity to become a prey to our ene- 
 mies or violate the Constitution of our government; and 
 that, considering the administration of the government would 
 be principally in the hands of the wealthy, there could be little 
 reason to fear an abuse of the power, or an unnecessary or 
 injurious exercise of it. But, sir, a majority of the Convention 
 
21 
 
 being wise beyond every event, and being willing to risk any 
 political evil rather than admit thr idea of a paper e^nissiort in 
 any possible ca.^., refused to trunt this authority to a government 
 on which they were lavishing the most unlimiterl powers of 
 Without exploring farther this eolhUeral, but not unimportant 
 taxation," etc., " and they erased that clause from the system." 
 subject, how could any man venture to affirm that the Con 
 gress of the United States ever had the authority to issue a 
 single bill of paper money? It appears to me no man can so 
 atfirm who (having proper information) did not design to cab- 
 bage for the Federal head what was not its right /what on 
 grave, serious debate, was explicitly denied ; denied expressly 
 for the purpose of extinguishing what was felt 'universally as 
 a horrible curse, and was so in iacl— paper money! It is plain 
 now why Hamilton was so tender-footed in treadin^r this 
 ground in 17<,0, and why he still did not explicitlv yield it 
 He meant to give up nothing that could-when time and its 
 emergencies, when ambiguities, forge tt^.i In ess, or ignorance, 
 Av4ien party organization and passion, temporary interests, 
 when the citadel had been gradually approached by the - sap- 
 pers and miners" with that tremendous instrument in mis- 
 chievous hands, the " necessary and proper" clauses-render it 
 safe to claim what had been denied, as the then living genera- 
 tion knew, but could not proclaim when their voices were 
 hushed. It is then proved that the Congress at Washington 
 could not righteously emit paper money; a fortiori, they could 
 not make it a legal tender in payment of debts. 
 
 Cato. 
 
 No. VIII. 
 
 If it should be affirmed that a more plausible argument can 
 be framed in favor of the power of our Congress to make 
 and issue " paper money," than ever was or could be in behalf 
 of the Congress of the United States, it is presumed such argu- 
 ment is expected to be drawn from this provision in our Con- 
 stitution, to wit: " The government established by this Consti- 
 
tution is the successor of the Provisioiiiil government of the 
 Confederate States of America, and all the laws passed by the 
 latter shall continue in force until the same shall be repealed 
 or modified;" and fi'om the fact that a law of the Provisional 
 i^ovcrnment existed, partly executed and in process of execu- 
 tion, when the existing Constitution took elfect, authorizing 
 the issue of Treasury notes, in the similitude of paper money. 
 Several difficulties lie in the way of obtaining any aid from 
 this source. In the first place, only specific laws obtained 
 thereb}' an efficacy, protracted (at the utmost) only till they 
 were exhausted by their own action or limitation, and liable 
 always to cease to be at the pleasure of Congress. In the 
 second place, the clause quoted delegates no power whatever 
 to Congress, except to terminate or modify such laws when 
 their discretion should prompt the one or the other; and so 
 far as the clause is concerned, not a particle of authority is 
 delegated to imitate the example of the Provisional govern- 
 ment, and the Federal govei'ument is left still to seek for any 
 power to originate and enact any law in their charter, their 
 power of attorney, as though the clause under consideration 
 had never existed. In the third place, the governments, 
 under both Constitutions, were enjoined to perform the con- 
 tracts and engagements entered into by their respective predQ- 
 cessors, and the Continental Congress, as well as the sej^arate 
 iStates, had issued, and they were in circulation, "bills of 
 credit" — paper money; and what is more, various of such 
 issues, by either government, had been declared a legal ten- 
 der in payment of debts. In the Iburth place, the Provisional 
 government never made any of its paper issues such a legal 
 tender, and, therefoi'e, if its legislation respecting them should 
 "continue in force" to the end of time, they could never be- 
 come such a tender, unless our Congress could find, in some 
 other clause of the Constitution, a power to make them so. 
 This, of course, throws wholly out of consideration the clause 
 above cited in this discussion. 
 
 I surmise, that since the advocates of making the Treasury 
 notes a legal tender in payment of debts must be driven from 
 every other position by what I have already said, and by what 
 can be said in addition, the}^ will resort to the provision, em- 
 powering Congress '' to make all laws which shall be necessary 
 
28 
 
 (md proper" to cjirry into effect any power s])eci!illy delegated 
 to the Confederate government, or any department or officer 
 thereof. 
 
 Every one, who is likely to consider, with a view to ascer- 
 tain and follow the truth, the subject I am discussing, knows 
 but too Avell that this same provision in the Constitution we 
 have abrogated was made by the crafty, the ignorant, the per- 
 verted, the ambitious, the corrupt, banded together in a cru- 
 sade against reserved rights, and against the Constitution of 
 the United States — Pandora's Box, without Hope at the bot- 
 tom. It was the armory from which they drew the fatal 
 Aveapons that extinguished the ligaments and vitality of the 
 Union of '89, and introduced those infernal scenes that are 
 now before our eyes. I have no design to enter at large into 
 the unlimited field of dissertation which this topic opens to 
 anybody M'ho pleases to cultivate it; though I shall occupy it 
 to a very restricted degree. But I warn my countrymen that 
 the gigantic war now in full and horrible blast, into which we 
 have been driven by the jnost accursed race (who have the 
 power and the opportunity to throw otf their canting hypoc- 
 risy, and indulge their propensity to robbery, desolation, re- 
 venge, and slaughtei'), which has ever afflicted mankind, I 
 repeat, that this gigantic war presents the fittest atmosphere 
 to disseminate those poisons from the same Pandora's Box that 
 have proved so fatal to another Union and another Constitu- 
 tion. Our present circumstances continually present and rein- 
 force that fatal plea of necessity, which has so often been made 
 the panoply of stupendous iniquity, and is calculated to seduce 
 and drug into drowsiness the well-meaning, but too simple and 
 confiding; indeed, they abstract us all, more or less, from the 
 "lesser points of the law" — from the cautious scanning of evil 
 beginnings, which quiet times permit and encourage, and fix 
 us upon the contemplation of that stupendous panorama of 
 campaigns, sieges, and battles daily unwinding before us, ex- 
 hibiting, as chief spectacles, blood and carnage, devastation 
 and universal wailing, never paralleled; these circumstances 
 enable the " sappers, and miners" of the (Constitution to work 
 <liligently, undisturbed, in the .dark, as it were ; to sow in a 
 fruitful hoil the seeds of irrepsirable mischief^; and the still 
 small voice is unheard amid the din and tumult. In such cir- 
 
24 
 
 cumstances, then, I conjure those who can bend themselves 
 to the duty to scan the evil omens tliat portend calamity — 
 tirmi}' to resist the entering wedge that otherwise ma}" rivo 
 asunder the political fabric so recently contrived. 
 
 I am wholly at a loss to conceive the specifically granted 
 power to which that of declaring Treasury notes a legal tender 
 in payment of debts is '''a necessary and proper" incident. I 
 have shown (if 1 have established anything) that it has no con- 
 nection Avith the power to "coin monej'" — nay, that the power 
 to issue paper money at all has no such connection. It is 
 neither necessary nor proper that such notes shall be a legal 
 tender in payment of debts — nay, that they should be issued 
 at all — to carry into effect the poAver to "borrow money on the 
 credit of the Confederate States." Why. it is too plain to war- 
 rant argument, or to adniit ditfcrence of opinion, that when 
 government or individual exchanges a note promising io pay 
 money, the transaction imports the very reverse of borrowing 
 mone3^ Such a transaction is meant and operates to procure 
 the commodity desired, without the use of money at all on the 
 occasion — it is its explicit purpose and effect to supersede the 
 borrowing or use of money. This is exemplified by the action 
 of any government which has ever resorted to the expedient of 
 issuing "bills of credit" in the shape of paper money. Treasury 
 notes. Witness the war of li^l2, between the United States and 
 Britain, and that which is now flagrant. Different statutes 
 have been passed : one to authorize the borrowing of money ; 
 the other the issuing of Treasury notes — operations totally dis- 
 tinct, and so well understood to he by those wdio performed 
 them. When a government obtains a mule, a wagon, or one 
 hundred bushels of corn, anything it buys for certain promises 
 to pay money at a future time, it is not short of absurdity to 
 say that thereby any money is paid or borrowed. What follows? 
 This: that even the issuing and use of a paper currency, being 
 a promise to pay money, has no affinity or relation whatever to 
 the act of "borrowing money;" that this resort of government 
 is, therefore, wholly excluded from the categor}' of any powers 
 that may be incident, as necessary and pi'oper, or either, to the 
 principal power, "to borrow money;" and, a fortiori, the mak- 
 ing such currencJJ' a legal tender in payment of debts, it is not 
 within the limits of a sane imagination to connect, by the liga- 
 
25 
 
 ment of a hair, with incidental powers, as to borrowinc: moneJ^ 
 Then will we be referred to the power "to declare war — to 
 raise and maintain armies — to provide and maintain a navy" ? 
 Without stopping to argue so plain a point, as that Treasury 
 notes have nothing to do with declaring war, I shall assume, 
 for the sake of brevity, that they may be convenient, or, for 
 the sake of argument, '' necessary and proper" (I do not mean 
 to admit it) to "maintain" an array and navy; still, T utterly 
 deny that it is necessary and ]iroper to make them a legal ten- 
 der in payment of debts, in order to carry into effect such 
 powers. Throughout our whole political history lis one of the 
 United States, and since Ave renounced that relation, armies 
 and navies — the former upon a most magniticcnt scale — have 
 been "raised," "provided," "maintained," without declaring 
 Federal paper money a legal tender in payment of debts, or an}- 
 pretence to the power to do so, up to a very recent period. 
 The most zealous consolidationist — the bitterest contemner and 
 reviler of the reserved powers — the most ardent admirer of an 
 imperial central power, to be erected on the ruins of States 
 rights — the busiest architects of such a structure, from Alexan- 
 der Hamilton and his co-workers down to the Lucifers and 
 lesser devils of the dynasty of Abraham Lincoln, none ever 
 ventured upon such arrogant assumjition of power. These lat- 
 ter have indeed done so, having totally upset and trampled into 
 shreds their Constitution, having most naturally' invaded the 
 sanctity of contracts, toppled over the standard of value, and 
 recklessly introduced into their affairs generall}* the chaos and * 
 confusion of the infernal regions. Is this an example fit to be 
 cited or imitated this side the Susquehanna? Then, if these 
 Y>owers, now under review, have been successfully " carried 
 into effect," and repeatedly so executed, without declaring 
 Treasury notes a legal tender for debts — if (as we all rejoice to 
 know) we ourselves are gloriouslj'^ executing these powers (so 
 far, at least, as armies are concerned), without giving to Trea- 
 sury notes the disputed attribute, what more is wanting to 
 complete the demonstration, that to give them such an attri- 
 bute — the attribute of gold and silver current coin exclu- 
 sively — is not a "necessary and proper" incident to these 
 powers ? Cato. 
 
26 
 
 No. IX. 
 
 Suppose the advocates of the scheme of lifting Treasury 
 notes to the di;:^uit3^ of specie — the currency of the Constitu- 
 tion — should resort to the power to ''regulate commerce with 
 foreign nations, among the several States and with the Indian 
 tribes," and, for aught I know, it may be the favorite pedestal 
 upon which they may place their hopes. I have to answer: 
 Mrst: Treasury notes, whether a legal tender or not, are in no 
 wise " necessary and proper " to the existence of commerce at 
 all, either with foreign nations or among the several States. 
 Indeed, such an instrumentality, so far as it disj^laces the con- 
 stitutional currenc}^ (and it always does so, more or less, and 
 now totall}' supplants it), is a hinderance to commerce, and may 
 become a very vampire, that sucks up its life-blood. It never 
 can aid it, and never has aided it. Second : To make such cur- 
 rency a legal tender in payment of debts, would embarrass, 
 })erhaps destroy, /orcii/n commerce. If we are not to discredit 
 the testimony of our ancestors, of the constitutional and revo- 
 lutionary era, paper money did have that effect -between 1783 
 and 1789 ; and, indeed, the like effect during that period and 
 before, on the commerce ^'^ among the several States." For it 
 must be remembered, that certain issues of paper money by 
 the Continental Congress as well as the several States, or at 
 least various of them, were made a legal tender in payment of 
 debts; and the iniquities of Rhode Island in this field of fraud 
 Und public robbery gained for that contemptible State, always 
 a pestilential nuisance, an infamous notoriety, which is pub- 
 lished and declared in all the debates on the Constitution of 
 the United States that are extant. Third: It would afflict 
 commerce with the very evil which the specie provisions of the 
 Constitution were intended to cui'e and remove. Fourth s If 
 Treasury notes are not only not " necessary and pi'oper," but 
 baneful to commerce itself, much less is such a currency neces- 
 sary and proper, or even convenient or appropriate, for its 
 REGULATION — bccausc it is one thing to regulate the manner in 
 which commerce shall be conducted, and quite another to pre- 
 scribe the medium of exchanges which commerce shall adopt, 
 licsides, the Constitution prescribes the medium of exchanges, 
 and the " money " that shall effect them, where payment of 
 
27 
 
 debts is to be made, to wit, "gold and silver cuiTcnt coin." 
 Fifth : The argument that seeks root in the power to regulate 
 commerce, proves too much — " o'erleaps itself, and fiills on 
 t' other side." The poAver is, " to regulate commerce with for- 
 eign nations among the several States, and with the Indian 
 tribes." Now, if Treasury- notes are prescribed as necessary 
 and proper to the execution of this power, and they must also 
 be made a legal tender to execute it effoctually, then we have 
 Congress regulating commerce within a State — the internal com- 
 mei'ce of a State — a bald and unmitigated usurpation ; and 
 then, likewise, we should bave this e^raordinary fruit of the 
 clause granting implied powei's, to wh: first implication — 
 Treasurj^ notes as necessary and proper for executing the spe- 
 cific power; second implication — attaching to them a quality 
 to be a legal tender in payment of debts, in order to make the 
 Treasury notes effectual for their purpose, which is mounting 
 an incidental power upon another incidental poAver, piling 
 Pelion upon Ossa, and then, perhaps, Ave shall be treated to a 
 bill of pains and penalties if we scruple to admit, and act 
 accordingly, that a promise to pay specie is specie, no matter 
 Avhether the promissor be government or individual, solvent or 
 bankrupt. Where, upon the, basis of such conception, shall be 
 the end of that line of construction, that shall string sliadow 
 upon shadow, implication upon implication, until the incidental 
 clause of the Constitution sball become the Aaron's rod of tbat 
 instrument, as it did become in the Constitution Ave have abro- 
 gated, and gorge itself by swallowing up every otber poAver, 
 and Avith tltem the chartered rights of States and citizen ? 
 
 It appears to me that temerity itself Avill not resort to any 
 other specific power than one or the other of those I have men- 
 tioned as having the Slightest pretension to draw in its train, 
 as a necessary and proper incident to its effectual execution, 
 tbat of making paper money at all ; or, if made, of making it a 
 legal tender in payment of debts. 
 
 ' Hear what Mr. Jefferson has said as to the proper rule of 
 constructing the clause delegating the ]>ower to use means 
 •' necessary and proper." He Avrote, in February, 1791, under 
 the gravest oflScial responsibility, at the instance of General 
 Wasliington, Avhen he Avas called on to consider tlie charter of 
 the first bank by the Congress of the United States; and ho 
 
wrote on the occasion of the first grand conflict between the 
 consolidationists (the Federalists of that day) and those who 
 vindicated the reserved rights of the States, or of the people. 
 In his model State jjaper, with the terseness and vigor of style 
 that was peculiarly his, he says : " The Constitution allows 
 only the means which are ' necessary,' not those which are 
 merely ' convenient,' for effecting the enumerated powers. If 
 such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to 
 give any non-enumerated power, it will go to every one ; for 
 there is no one which iugenuity may not torture into a conven- 
 ience in some way or other, to some one of so long a list of enumer- 
 ated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, 
 and reduce the whole to one phrase. Therefore it was that the 
 Constitution restrained them to the necessary means — that is to 
 say, to those means without which the grant of power Avould 
 be nugatory." 
 
 I reproduce these words of sober wisdom from one of the 
 first minds of the revolutionary'- era, and (I think) of atiy era, 
 liecauso they are well weighed and well grounded ; and I also 
 believe the instruction to be drawn from them was never more 
 needed than it is now, and by no race of politicians (statesmen 
 are scarce) more than those who now bear sway. 
 
 Cato. 
 
 No. X. 
 
 At a time when a serious and unimpassioned discussion 
 would be heeded, other considerations of a more general na- 
 ture would be deemed very potent obstacles in the way of 
 those who would engraft the power of Congress to constitute 
 its paper money a legal tender in payment of debts, upon the 
 clause of the Constitution delegating the authority to use 
 auxiliary means, " necessary and proper " to carry into effect 
 primaiy, specified powers. I suggest some of such obstacles. 
 
 No primary, substantial, sovereign power, not enumerated 
 as granted in the Constitution, can be implied, under the head 
 of a mere means to an end. Since, then, it is not competent to 
 
29 
 
 a government to execute an end, it is a necessary result, that 
 it can employ no means, no mere auxiliary measure, tending 
 to attain that end. It will not be denied, that to make or pre- 
 scribe the money of a people — the standard of values in com- 
 uaerce — the solvent of debts — is a substantive, fundamental, 
 sovereign power. I trust I liave made it too manifest for con- 
 troversy, that Congress can make or prescribe no inoney, but. 
 gold and silver coin, by virtue of an}- express, specific grant 
 of power. No lawj-er will question the maxim, expressio 
 unius, exdusio alterhts ; where one mode of doing a thing is 
 prescribed to an agent, specificall}', every other mode of doing 
 it is excluded. The only mode prescribed to Congress in 
 which it can make ^' 'money," is by "coining" it. This has 
 been shown to apply solely to gold and silver, or the " precious 
 metals" — to "specie." The en-i prescribed to Congress is to 
 make this money, or adopt what another has made — that is, 
 < to make, or adopt, gold and silver current coin. Can anj- well 
 organized mind, one capable of comprehending logical or legal 
 congruity in argument, and offended at any process of thought 
 that presents disjointed and incongruous discussion, conceive 
 the idea as legitimate — that by implication merely from the 
 clause under consideration, Congress can effect an end, a great 
 and sovereign end; can make that money which the Constitu- 
 tion excludes as mone}' ? 
 
 Again: We shall all agree that the thing which is money 
 wnll pay a debt, and, of course, must be a legal tender for a 
 debt. Now, the Confederate Constitution does not prohibit a 
 State from issuing " bills of credit," or paper money, and it 
 does not grant that power to Congress. Yet the Constitution 
 does expressly prohibit a State to make anything but sj>ecie a 
 legal tender in payment of debts (the words are " gold and 
 silver current coin"). Is this not a demonstration that paper 
 money is not the money of the Constitution, and is not the 
 thing a creditor for dollars loaned is obliged to take, or can bo 
 made to take, until vaulting tyranny shall trample upon the 
 ashes of the Constitution, and of private rights y 
 
 Still farther: If Congress be allowed to imply this power (as 
 to a legal tender), it gains, b}- the political ledgerdemain of 
 construction, the power not raercl}' to " imjiair," but to vio- 
 late aod extinguish the obligation of contracts I If the people 
 
30 
 
 of these Confederate States meant to invest any government 
 with such a power, I, for one, pronounce that they are incapa- 
 ble of self-g'overnment ; that they know not, and feel not, the 
 elenientar}' maxims of political wisdom, of sound morals, or of 
 plain honesty. They would, thereby, allow a man, who had 
 received, upon loan, or by purchase, a dollar, or a dollar's 
 Avorth, of his neighbor, or of anj^body or corporation, to pay it 
 by something which promised to pay a dollar at some future 
 time, certain or uncertain, or (it may be) on some future con- 
 tingency; though his obli(jatio7i was, in express terms, to pay, 
 at a time fixed, as manj^ dollars as he got ; and though (it 
 might be) ha had been indulged far beyond the terms of his 
 contract, until causes, for which neither debtor nor creditor 
 could be held responsible, made it difficult for him to produce 
 the dollar. And because it was inconvenient, or involved some 
 sacrifice, perhaps, to keep his contract, why, he must be ab- 
 solved from it; or, by authority of government, tender a stone 
 when he promised bread. It is plain to any understanding, 
 that when any currency, substituted for money, has depre- 
 ciated from any cause whatever, the man who has anything 
 to sell receives from the purchaser a price enhanced in precise 
 pi'oportion to the depreciation of the currency received — it 
 being assumed that the relation of demand "and supply remains 
 the same. If the currency thus received be dej^reciated fifty 
 per cent, below the standai'd of specie, the debtor, who so sells 
 his commodity at the enhanced price of fifty per cent., would 
 be enabled to pay a debt he owed for sjiecie borrowed, or for 
 property bought, at the specie standard of value, with one half 
 the sum of money that he received from his creditor — if he be 
 allowed to force such a currency upon him. ISTow such rule 
 of justice, such a precept of morals, the people have absolutely 
 forbidden to be inscribed or inculcated by their several State 
 Legislatures ; they have not expressly vested silch a monstrous 
 power for mischief in the Confederate Legislature — though they 
 have a commanding voice in the former, and only a factional 
 one in the latter. Can it be believed that, by implication, this 
 people conceded to a paper currency, to be issued by the lat- 
 ter, a dignity and efficacy, denied to that which was exclu- 
 sively their own, which is wholly under their control, and 
 which, by our Confederate Constitution, each State. has an un-. 
 
31 
 
 challenged right to issue. Hear what Mr. Madison says in 
 the 44th No. " Federalist": 
 
 *' Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing 
 the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of 
 the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. 
 The two former are expressh' proliibited by the declarations 
 prefixed to some of the State Constitutions, and all of them are 
 prohibited by the spirit and scope of these fundamental char- 
 ters. Our own experience has taught us, nevertheless, that 
 additional fences against these dangers ought not to be 
 omitted. Very properly-, therefore, have the Convention 
 added this constitutional bulwark in favor of personal secu- 
 rity and private rights; and I am much deceived, if they have 
 not, in so doing, as faithfully consulted the genuine sentiments 
 us the undoubted interests of their constituents. The sober 
 people of America are wear}" of the fluctuating policy which 
 has diverted the public councils. They have seen with regret, 
 and with indignation, that sudden changes and legislative in- 
 terferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in 
 the hands of influential speculators, and snares to the more 
 industrious and less informed part of the community. They 
 have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the link 
 of a long chain of repetitions ; everj' subsequent interference 
 being naturally produced b}" the effects of the preceding. 
 They xQvy rightly infer, therefore, that some thorougli reform 
 is wanting, which will banish speculation on public measures, 
 insjiire a general prudence and industry, and give a regular 
 course to the business of society." 
 
 Says Story (referring to the same subject) : 
 
 " Severe as were the calamities of the war, tlie pressure of 
 them was far less mischievous than this slow but progressive 
 destruction of all our resources, all our industry, and all our 
 credit." 
 
 And shall such a tremendous power as, that to violate the 
 obligation of contracts be seized, by the Federal Legislature, 
 by the process of implication working such calamities as are 
 above set out, in its fitful but ever unjust spoilation of private 
 covenanted rights? Shall the long aftd busy finger of the 
 Federal power be introduced into the State courts, and ])rivate 
 contracts of A, B, and C, and thus by implication of authority 
 
32 
 
 to force a fraud and a falsehood into the plain language of a 
 contract? Is the same poison administered by one doctor any- 
 more acceptable than when another does the same office? 
 
 Cato. 
 
 '0 
 
 No. XI. 
 
 In one special way (and I do not approve that) the Confeder- 
 ate Congress niaj^ interfere with* the common law relations of 
 debtor and creditor; and that' is_, by "passing uniform laws on 
 the subject of bankruptcies." Although I hap2:)en to know that 
 one of the Confederate judges, now in office, under appointment 
 by the President and confirmation by the Provisional Congress, 
 stoutlj^ insisted that the Congress ought to have the power to 
 pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts, and although I 
 believe he would sustain sucjti laws to-day, and although I feci?' 
 there would be many of a^Z former party divisions in the valley 
 of the Mississippi, and probably elsewhere, ready to echo such 
 a doctrine, yet I Veaiture to defy them to surmount' the obsta- 
 cles I have alread}" thrown in their way (unless, like the writers 
 and orators jvJto have started my pen, they go lor a measure 
 " constitutional or not constitutional "), and I throw in their 
 path the insuperable obstacle "which the very clause of the 
 Constitution, abov-e partially quoted, supplies. Eead it in full: 
 
 "To establish uiMjIprm laws (^n the subject of bankruptcies, 
 throughout th^ Confederate Siates, but no law of Congress shall 
 'discharge any debt, contracted before the passage of the same." 
 
 This is enough for any- man \^HlO does not go for his scheme 
 of €he hour, ''constitutional or not constitutional." 
 
 Now, let u,8 grant, for the nwment, that Congress do make the 
 Confederate paper money a legjg,l tender in payment-of debts, 
 and that such a mandate.be rtot overthrown by the judiciary 
 (and I b,elieve the •I'resident can find a judiciary who would not 
 overthrow it, but he is not likely to find theni on the benches of 
 the States), -wjjiat then? It i's granted that the creditor (mainly 
 those very banka which have yielded their field of circulation to 
 the g(!!%etnmenty and, th(arefore,th.oir'- earnings) is despoiled of 
 
3S 
 
 his just debt to an amount in proportion to the depreciation of 
 the currency forced upon him below the standard of that wliich 
 he lent. But have the great public been benefited ? Is the 
 tax-paying wealth of the population ingreased, or their wealth 
 in an}' sense ? Have " the first principles of the social com- 
 pact " — "every principle of sound legislation" — escaped a 
 stab ? Is the paper currency fixed upon the basis of par value 
 witb current coin? By no means. Though Congress shout its 
 legislative mandates until it grows hoarse, the laws of trade 
 and commerce will ever prevail; until by foul and foolish legis- 
 lation faith, trade, commerce, shall be all extinguished. A vol- 
 ume of laws intended to fence around a paper currency, issued 
 by any government whatever, can give it no value extra-terri- 
 torially — I mean in foreign transactions. Nor can such a for- 
 midable mass of legislation compel or induce the man who has 
 a hog to sell to take the currenc}' for his hog, unless he pleases; 
 and he will not please, unless he places on his hog a price 
 enhanced proportionate to the depreciation of the currency 
 tendered. ■* 
 
 Then the only practical eftects of such legislation, as the 
 legal tender men advocate, is this : The govenjment degrades 
 itself by perpetrating the grossest injustice between man and 
 man : the debtor, who converts his commodities into the depre- 
 ciated currency, gains a temporar}' convenience and advantage 
 to the permanent injury of his creditor; the government fails, 
 at last, to bolster up w^hat no legislation can sustain; 8pecula- 
 tors upon public measures and individual igiiOrance or neces- 
 sity, swarm and rejoice in the cornint atmos2)lfCre thttt legisla- 
 tion, knavish or foolish, or both, as the case may be, has 
 created; we have that chaos come ^.ain, of the'memorable era 
 of "Continental money" and "State issues," \\4iich our ances- 
 tors have taxed their abilities to pictupe to us in hideous colors, 
 to the end that wq might be profited by the warnings of wis- 
 dom, confirmed by the experience^'of the fiery furnace; and 
 we shall prove deaf to its thunder-tbncs. Such is iq be the 
 finale of the wild scheme of those who havo^Moceasioned thoee 
 articles, if we shall become -the unhappy victims ^f th^pir 
 advice. : . » -" 
 
 The tenderness which has so, often been professed by legis||^ 
 live orators for debtors, as a class, has ev^ been suspicious to 
 
 *!■ 
 
34 
 
 my apprehension. I have been in the category of both debtor 
 and creditor — sometimes unable to pay in the former character, 
 and not paid in the latter. But, having long been in a situation 
 to have an instructed judgment, I cannot call to my recollec- 
 tion a single case in which a creditor wilfully and deliberately 
 persecuted an honest insolvent. Such cases there, no doubt,' 
 have been; within the sphere of my experience, they must have 
 been exceptions only to the general rule. I must, therefore, 
 think that the oratory (and the legislation it has produced), to 
 which I refer, has been the voice rather of the demagogue than 
 the statesman — of agrarianism than of wisdom. However that 
 may be, the debtor does not need the benefit of that legislation 
 which enables him to pay a dollar with fifty cents (in the shape 
 of a promise to pay), by reason of a rapacious appetite to 
 devour him on the part of his creditor, for the latter is re- 
 strained (in our State certainly, and I believe in all the rest) 
 by " stop laws." Whether such enactments be constitutional 
 or not, they have been acquiesced in ; and, therefore, a congres- 
 sional scheme to enable the debtor to convert a piece of paper 
 into a dollar, and thus cheat his creditor, under the august 
 authority of the legislative panoply, is not called for by the 
 tenderest regard for even the pet class of animated orators — 
 the dear lovers of the people. Under the stop laws, as they 
 are actually received, the debtor, who has his own estate proper 
 in enjoyment, as well as such as he has borrowed from his 
 creditor, and can't be disturbed by the latter, as to either — 
 who is lord of all he surveys — does not seem to need any fur- 
 ther legislative barrier against Shylock himself. Besides, a 
 debtor to-day may be a creditor to-morrow ; and then let him 
 remember "the poisoned chalice may be commended to his own 
 lips." Uato. 
 
 No. XII. 
 
 The currency of the Confederate government has utterly 
 supplanted gold and silver. Practically, nothing else can be 
 had as money. A creditor is obliged to take this or nothing. 
 It is the only medium of exchange. Those who depend wholly 
 
36 
 
 upon income for the necessaries of life — and they are legion 
 — the most helpless part of the community — widows and 
 orphans — those who live on salaries — those who, in the de- 
 cline and feebleness of life, have invested all thej^ have in 
 stocks or private loans — are obliged to take and offer the Con- 
 federate currency. It is depreciated (no matter from Avhat 
 cause), and the}^ have to pay, for everj- thing they get, the en- 
 hanced price equivalent to the depreciation. Isnot this enough 
 of burden for those classes to bear, placed upon their backs by 
 the debtor, who is driven to do so by the action of the govern- 
 ment — under its necessities, be it granted ? It would be, if 
 the power existed, but a wanton spoliation of those classes of 
 people to compel them to receive for the principal of their 
 loans any currency but that they lent. It is not a time for 
 reinvestments; commerce, external, does not exist; trade, in- 
 ternal, is circumscribed ; credit is placed in the condition of 
 extremest doubt and hazard by the casualties of gigantic war; 
 banks are, in a measure, suffocated, because, by their patriotic 
 acquiescence and active co-operation, the government at Rich- 
 mond occupies by its currency, already in plethoric amount, 
 the entire field that was formerl}' theirs ; and that enterprise, 
 which calls for and exercises the moneyed capital of the coun- 
 try, is paralyzed by that all-enguiphing cause which summons 
 to the defence of the country every energy in it. It would, 
 therefore, be iniquitous, upon grounds of abstract right, and 
 independent of constitutional barriers, to compel a creditor, 
 Avho does not demand that currency which is his due, or any 
 part of it, to take a currency not at all its equivalent; thus 
 despoiling him of a part of his estate; especially, too, when (as 
 has been shown) nobody but the debtor would derive any 
 benefit, and that temporary; when the general public interests 
 would not be advanced, and the specific design, to wit, that of 
 placing the government currenc}" at par value of specie, 
 would, infallibly, be disappointed. 
 
 It is one thing to oppose an unconscientious, an ineffectual, 
 an unjust and injurious, and an unconstitutional measure, 
 aimed at the end of sustaining the Confederate notes upon a 
 position they cannot occupy ; and quite another thing to im- 
 peach the credit of the government by throwing distrust upon 
 its bills of credit, either because an odious speculation is de- 
 
36 
 
 signed, or there is a pui-pose to cut the sinews of war. Nobody- 
 can visit such conduct and such designs as the latter with 
 more unqualified detestation than I do. It is the redundancy 
 of the government issues, more than all other causes com- 
 bined, that graduates the comparative value of them. The 
 same causes Avould operate on gold and silver, under the same 
 circumstances, though, I imagine, never in the same degree; 
 for the metal has an intrinsic value; the paper none: the one 
 is money ; the other may or may not be its equivalent, but 
 cannot be until a contingency, specified in the promise, shall 
 arise in the future. Nevertheless, everybody knows that if the 
 government fails to redeem its promises to pay, in the end, be- 
 cause it may be exploded, then we and all we have must also 
 be ex})loded. He, therefore, is a sill}- enemy of the country 
 and of himself, who seeks to undermine or to cripple the credit 
 of the government. 
 
 To those who may think I have been beating the air — "turn- 
 ing up ocean's depths to drown a fly" — by discussing patiently 
 matters that seem to tliem axiomatic, I have to say, that they 
 see not the dangers that beset the Constitution. I have had 
 opportunities to discover that consolidationists abound in this 
 Confederacy — that they are, and not scantily either, repre- 
 sented in high places; that the scheme I have been discussing 
 and controverting is but the incipiency, one evil omen, of a 
 course of construction, exemplified by the Federalists of other 
 days, and their followers ever since ; all " sappers and miners " 
 of the Constitution, though under a vast variety of party desig- 
 nations ; the effect of which, if not the design, is to cut loose 
 from our moorings, to evade the restraints of the Constitution, 
 and substitute for it the will of a majority. We have, in the 
 Judiciary act of Congress, that fatal twenty-fifth section of its 
 predecessor of 1789, which draws to the footstool of the Su- 
 preme court ever}' question of conflict between the delegated 
 powers and the reserved rights; and this will preve the grave 
 of the reserved rights of the States, if the bench of the Su- 
 preme court (now soon to be filled) be occupied by those who 
 draw their inspirations from Marshall and Hamilton, instead of 
 Jeiferson and Eoan — who look with veneration and deference to 
 the proclamation of Jackson, rather than to the Virginia and 
 Kentucky resolutions of 1798. And who can predict what sort 
 
87 
 
 of material wifl be sought with wliich to construct that court ? 
 I confess I have my anxieties. Even while I write I find 
 another omen in the following language of a Eichmond news- 
 paper, of September 17, to wit : " His (Mr. Yancey's) speech 
 comes with refreshing effect after the appalling declaration of a 
 member of the House, that, in a certain contingenc}'^, ho would 
 be willing to cast aside the Constitution, and, as a necessary 
 consequence, to trample down the safeguards of public liberty, 
 and of the States, and of the people." I am afraid the teach- 
 ings of the not distant future may vindicate me from the im- 
 putation that I am over-zealous, over-suspicious, and over-anxi- 
 ous, in warning my countrymen to ''scan the evil omens — obsta 
 principiis.'' 
 
 I close this discussion, on my part, by recapitulating the 
 propositions I have endeavored to establish. They are as 
 follows : 
 
 1. That under the power to " coin money, regulate the value 
 thereof and of foreign coin," Congress has no power to declare 
 their "bills of credit" a legal tender in payment of debts." 
 
 2. That Congress has no power to declare what shall be such 
 a legal tender ; that the Constitution declares what shall alone 
 be such, since the prohibition upon the States, in that behalf, is 
 a negative pregnant. 
 
 3. That Congress has no authority to issue paper money at 
 all; a fortiori, none to declare it a legal tender in pa3'ment of 
 debts. 
 
 4. That if Congress may issue such a currency, it cannot also 
 make it a legal tender in payment of debts ; for the one power 
 is whoU}^ distinct from the other, and they have no connection 
 with each other. 
 
 5. That this has never been done under the Constitution of 
 the United States, wni\\ the last Congress, which sat at Wash- 
 ington, and which sat under the restraints of no Constitution. 
 
 G. That Alexander Hamilton himself and his followers, under 
 the quondam United States and their Constitution, never dis- 
 tinctly asserted the power of Congress to issue a paper cur- 
 rency; but that he earnestly advised against it as contravening 
 the "spirit" of the Constitution and full of danger; and he and 
 his followers never went farther than to make the bills of the 
 
38 
 
 Bank of the United States and the Treasury notes receivable in 
 dues to the Federal government. 
 
 7. That the exercise of the power in question, and the adop- 
 tion of the policy recommended, in and out of Congress, would 
 violate the first principles of the social compact ; the soundest 
 maxims of wise legislation; would perpetrate palpable injus- 
 tice between man and man, by subverting the obligation of 
 contracts; would, in sundry other respects, subvert also the 
 foundation upon which our Constitution rests; and would fail, 
 at last, to achieve the end in view. 
 
 8. That under all the views presented by the subject, to infer 
 or imply a power so potent for evil, and certainly not speciti- 
 cally delegated, from the clause in respect to *' necessary and 
 proper" auxiliary means to specified ends, would substitute 
 means for ends ; would utterly emasculate the Constitution, 
 and turn loose the government to depredate upon the rights of 
 the States, and the rights and liberty of the citizen, witli no re- 
 straint but the sword of revolution in perspective. 
 
 9. That there ai*e omens enough, now plainly visible in and 
 out of Congress, portending the advent of such a scene of 
 chaos, lawlessness, and ruin ; and that, therefore, this is the 
 season, the urgent occasion, to act out the primary maxim, 
 commended by all reason and experience to the constituency 
 of a republican government, to wit : ^^Eternal vigilance is the 
 price of liberty." Cato. 
 
» o