1230 A STATE CANNOT PUNISH AN OFFENCE the rule thus laid down might be abrogated by repealing the prohibitory clause. Whatever the rule may be where the breach is solely of a law of Congress, we have seen that acts which are injurious both to a State and to the United States may be forbidden by both; and the existence of a federal law rendering an offence criminal will not preclude the enactment of a similar statute by a State. Under these circumstances the State courts may take cognizance of the offence in the latter aspect, although they would have no jurisdiction over it in the former. But for this principle treason could seldom be punished by a State, because treason against a State is generally also treason to the Union. A false oath taken in the course of a judicial proceeding in a State court is not less an offence against the peace and dignity of the State because the court is administering an act of Congress, and the guilty party might be tried and sentenced for the same cause in a circuit court of the United States. In Rumpf v. The Commonwealth, Gibson, J., said that the act of 13 Geo. II. chap. 7, and the colonial statute of Feb. 3, 1743, brought the naturalization of foreigners within the cognizance of the courts of Pennsylvania, and there was nothing in the Constitution of the United States to abrogate the authority thus conferred, or preclude the State courts from applying the rule laid down by Congress. Their jurisdiction depended on the laws of the State, but they might administer the laws of the United States, which were also the law of Pennsylvania. Naturalization was eminently a judicial act, as presenting a cause to be heard and decided on evidence, and depending on whether the applicant was or was not legally entitled to admission as a citizen. False swearing in the course of such a proceeding was consequently perjury under the common law of Pennsylvania, and might be punished as such by indictment. That it was also an 1 Fox v. Ohio, 5 Howard, 410; The United States v. Manigold, 9 Howard, 560; Moore v. Houston, 3 S. & R. 569; 5 Wheaton, 1. See ante, p. 1151. 2 Rumpf v. The Commonwealth, 30 Pa. 475. AGAINST THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES. 1231 offence against the federal government did not preclude the exercise of jurisdiction by the State. When a man stood in such a relation to two sovereignties that the same act was a breach of the duty which he owed to each, punishment might be inflicted by both, and his liability to chastisement by one could not be set up as a defence against the other. It was notwithstanding decided in The Commonwealth v. Felton 1 that where Congress in incorporating a bank declare that the embezzlement of its funds shall be a misdemeanor, and prescribe the penalty, an act of assembly providing for the punishment of every one who participates in such an offence will be invalid, even as regards the accessories, although the act of Congress only relates to the principal. It is not easy to reconcile this judgment with the decision in Ohio v. Fox, that circulating false or spurious coin is punishable by the States as well as the United States; and there can be no doubt, as was held in The State v. Tuller,2 that if the General Government has exclusive jurisdiction of offences committed in the internal management or administration of a national bank, the State courts may take cognizance of any wrong that is committed in the course of its transactions with third persons or the community at large. 1 101 Mass. 204. 2 34 Conn. 280. LECTURE LVII. Congress Authorized to Coin Money and regulate the Value thereof. — A Promise to pay Ten Silver Dollars Numerical, and may be fulfilled by the tender of an Eagle, or of any Coins that will together make up the Sum. Payment to be made in whatever Money is Lawful when the Time arrives. Contracts to pay a given Number of Dollars distinguished from Contracts for the Delivery of Bullion or Specific Coins. -Bank-notes issued with the Sanction of the Government, Money in the ordinary acceptation of the Term. — One Metal may be Substituted for another, or the Intrinsic Value of the Coin lessened relatively to Past Contracts as well as Future. — Is Printing Coining? and can Paper be Used instead of Metal?—The Debates in the Federal Convention not a Sure Guide in the Interpretation of the Constitution. The power to Borrow carries with it an Implied Right to issue Bills of Credit, but not to render them a Legal Tender or to exact Forced Loans. - Can Paper Money be made a Legal Tender under the Right to declare War or the Right to Tax? - The Power to Regulate Commerce relates directly to the Means by which Trade is prosecuted, and includes the Currency not less than Telegraphy or Navigation. — The Power to Coin Money is enabling, and does not preclude a recourse to other Means. - The Framers of the Constitution unwilling to Sanction or Prohibit Paper Money. The Implied Powers are as much a part of the Expressed Powers as if they were conferred in Terms. - Congress or a State Legislature may, in the exercise of their Powers, incidentally impair Property or Contracts. By Article I., section 8, Congress are empowered to coin. money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures. By the tenth section of the same Article, no State shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender for the payment of debts. The act of July 11, 1862, provides that the notes of the United States shall be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private. Was this act valid under the above clauses, or any other clause bearing on the subject? The inquiry is an interesting one, not only as regards the point involved, but THE POWER TO COIN MONEY ABSOLUTE. 1233 for the light thrown on the authority of Congress to determine what laws are 66 necessary and proper to carry the enumerated powers of the government into effect,” — a question which has never, since Chief-Justice Marshall's great judgment in McCulloch v. The Bank,1 been so elaborately examined as it was in The Legal Tender Cases.2 The federal government has in general no power under the Constitution to vary a contract, or substitute a different mode of performance for that which the contract prescribes. Contracts are governed by the law of the place where they are made, or the law of the place where they are to be performed; and the interpretation and effect of an agreement made and to be kept in a State will consequently, under ordinary circumstances, depend on the laws of the State, and not on those of the Union. Congress could not, for example, provide that a contract for merchandise might be satisfied by the delivery of kine, or that a tender of money should be a satisfaction of a contract for cattle. But when the act to be performed by the terms of a contract is the payment of money, the United States may, to the extent of their power of issuing money and regulating its value, say how and at what rate the payment shall be made. This results, first, from the authority which the Constitution has conferred upon Congress "to coin money and regulate the value thereof;" and next, from the terms of the contract itself, which, in stipulating for money, must be understood as meaning lawful money, or, in other words, such money as shall be lawfully issued by the only power which has authority to issue money under the Constitution. An agreement to pay in silver dollars may, accordingly, be fulfilled by a payment in gold, because gold dollars are by the law of the land, for all the purposes of payment, equivalent to silver.3 The material words in every such case are those which fix the numerical amount of the debt, and if this be tendered the creditor cannot refuse to receive it on the ground that the metal of which the pieces are composed is 1 4 Wheaton, 316. See ante, p 105. 2 8 Wallace, 603; 12 Id. 451; 110 U. S 421. 1234 PAYMENT MAY BE MADE IN ANY COINS different from that for which he stipulated; nor can a tender be objected to as insufficient because the currency has been debased since the debt was contracted, and the sum offered is less in weight or value than would have been due but for the change. If, indeed, the contract be for bullion, for so many pounds, ounces, and penny weights of gold or silver, the very thing contracted for must be offered, as in the case of other contracts for the delivery of merchandise. But when it is expressly, or by implication, for dollars, the only point open for consideration is whether the stipulated number of dollars has been paid; and no investigation will be made into their composition, or intrinsic value, except for the purpose of ascertaining whether they correspond with the legal standard, and are dollars within the meaning of the law.1 There are, no doubt, cases which lie so near the dividing line as to render it difficult to know whether the parties have bargained for weight and value, or simply for number, and to decide between a creditor who demands that the pieces tendered shall be assayed and weighed, and a debtor who insists that they shall be merely counted. Such a question may, for instance, arise with regard to the ground rents payable in coin of a stipulated weight and fineness, — which were, and indeed still are, not uncommon in Pennsylvania, — and in other cases which I cannot now pause to enumerate. But the difficulty, under such circumstances, is one of construction, and not of principle; and when the contract is unequivocally for dollars, a tender of such dollars as Congress have provided will fulfil the contract. It results from these considerations that the power of Con 1 A government may, notwithstanding, establish two different currencies, and leave the subjects free to choose in which they will keep their accounts, buy and sell, or become answerable in any other way. Such is the rule in the United States, where, under the interpretation given to the acts of Congress in Bronson v. Rodes (7 Wallace, 229), the duties on imported goods, and a large part of the public debt, are payable in gold and silver; and whether a debtor is bound to pay in specie, or in the notes which were made a legal tender by the act of 1862, depends on the terms of the agreement, although a promise to pay in lawful money must, where there are no specific words disclosing a different intent, be fulfilled in paper, and not in coin. |