That body determines the question of war, and it may therefore rightfully prescribe the means necessary for carrying on that war. Loan or tax is possible. It may adopt either, or divide between the two. If it determines in whole or in part on tax, that means an increase in the existing rate or perhaps in the subjects of taxation, and the judgment of Congress in respect thereto is not subject to judicial challenge. ...

In a general way these observations on the power of Congress to meet exigencies by increased taxation are not questioned by counsel, but it is specifically insisted that the power of imposing an excise once exercised is gone, even though the property may thereafter remain subject to ordinary taxation upon property as such.

But what is the difference in the nature of an excise and an ordinary property tax which forbids a repetition or increase in the one case and permits it in the other? They are each methods by which the individual is made to contribute out of his property to the support of the government, and if an ordinary property tax may be repeated or increased when the exigencies of the government may demand, no reason is perceived why an excise should not also be repeated or increased under like exigencies. Affirmed.

1 See McCray v. United States, 195 U. S. 27 (1904). — Ed.

CHAPTER II.

MONEY.

CRAIG v. MISSOURI.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1830.

[4 Peters, 410.]1

ERROR to the Supreme Court of Missouri.

In the Circuit Court of Chariton County the State of Missouri brought action against Craig and others on a promissory note. The general issue was pleaded; and the case was submitted to the court without the intervention of a jury. The court found that the consideration for the note was the loan by the State of the State's loan office certificates issued under the act of June 27, 1821. The court gave judgment for the State; and this judgment was affirmed by the Missouri Supreme Court.

Sheffey, for plaintiffs in error; and Benton, contra.

MARSHALL, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court.

The clause in the Constitution which this act is supposed to violate is in these words: "No state shall" "emit bills of credit."

What is a bill of credit? What did the Constitution mean to forbid?

In its enlarged, and perhaps its literal sense, the term "bill of credit" may comprehend any instrument by which a State engages to pay money at a future day; thus including a certificate given for money borrowed. But the language of the Constitution itself, and the mischief to be prevented, which we know from the history of our country, equally limit the interpretation of the terms. The word "emit," is never employed in describing those contracts by which a State binds itself to pay money at a future day for services actually received, or for money borrowed for present use; nor are instruments executed for such purposes, in common language, denominated "bills of credit." To "emit bills of credit," conveys to the mind the idea of issuing paper intended to circulate through the community for its ordinary purposes,

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1 The reporter's statement has not been reprinted. — ED.

as money, which paper is redeemable at a future day. This is the sense in which the terms have been always understood.

At a very early period of our colonial history, the attempt to supply the want of the precious metals by a paper medium was made to a considerable extent; and the bills emitted for this purpose have been frequently denominated bills of credit. During the war of our revolution, we were driven to this expedient; and necessity compelled us to use it to a most fearful extent. The term has acquired an appropriate meaning; and "bills of credit" signify a paper medium, intended to circulate between individuals, and between government and individuals, for the ordinary purposes of society. Such a medium has been always liable to considerable fluctuation. Its value is continually changing; and these changes, often great and sudden, expose individuals to immense loss, are the sources of ruinous speculations, and destroy all confidence between man and man. To cut up this mischief by the roots, a mischief which was felt through the United States, and which deeply affected the interest and prosperity of all, the people declared in their Constitution, that no State should emit bills of credit. If the prohibition means any thing, if the words are not empty sounds, it must comprehend the emission of any paper medium, by a State government, for the purpose of common circulation.

What is the character of the certificates issued by authority of the act under consideration? What office are they to perform? Certificates signed by the auditor and treasurer of the State, are to be issued by those officers to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars, of denominations not exceeding ten dollars, nor less than fifty cents. The paper purports on its face to be receivable at the treasury, or at any loan office of the State of Missouri, in discharge of taxes or debts due to the State.

The law makes them receivable in discharge of all taxes, or debts due to the State, or any county or town therein; and of all salaries and fees of office, to all officers civil and military within the State; and for salt sold by the lessees of the public salt works. It also pledges the faith and funds of the State for their redemption.

It seems impossible to doubt the intention of the legislature in passing this act, or to mistake the character of these certificates, or the office they were to perform. The denominations of the bills, from ten dollars to fifty cents, fitted them for the purpose of ordinary circulation; and their reception in payment of taxes,

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and debts to the government and to corporations, and of salaries and fees, would give them currency: They were to be put into circulation; that is, emitted, by the government. In addition to all these evidences of an intention to make these certificates the ordinary circulating medium of the country, the law speaks of them in this character; and directs the auditor and treasurer to withdraw annually one-tenth of them from circulation. Had they been termed "bills of credit," instead of "certificates," nothing would have been wanting to bring them within the prohibitory words of the Constitution.

And can this make any real difference? Is the proposition to be maintained that the Constitution meant to prohibit names and not things? That a very important act, big with great and ruinous mischief, which is expressly forbidden by words most appropriate for its description, may be performed by the substitution of a name? That the Constitution, in one of its most important provisions, may be openly evaded by giving a new name to an old thing? We cannot think so. We think the certificates emitted under the authority of this act are as entirely bills of credit, as if they had been so denominated in the act itself.

But it is contended, that though these certificates should be deemed bills of credit, according to the common acceptation of the term, they are not so in the sense of the Constitution; because they are not made a legal tender.

The Constitution itself furnishes no countenance to this distinction. The prohibition is general. It extends to all bills of credit, not to bills of a particular description. That tribunal must be bold indeed, which, without the aid of other explanatory words, could venture on this construction. It is the less admissible in this case, because the same clause of the Constitution contains a substantive prohibition to the enactment of tender laws. the Constitution, therefore, considers the emission of bills of credit and the enactment of tender laws as distinct operations, independent of each other, which may be separately performed. Both are forbidden. To sustain the one, because it is not also the other; to say that bills of credit may be emitted, if they be not made a tender in payment of debts; is, in effect, to expunge that distinct independent prohibition, and to read the clause as if it had been entirely omitted. We are not at liberty to do this.

The history of paper money has been referred to, for the purpose of showing that its great mischief consists in being made a

tender; and that therefore the general words of the Constitution may be restrained to a particular intent.

Was it even true, that the evils of paper money resulted solely from the quality of its being made a tender, this court would not feel itself authorized to disregard the plain meaning of words, in search of a conjectural intent to which we are not conducted by the language of any part of the instrument. But we do not think that the history of our country proves, either that being made a tender in payment of debts is an essential quality of bills of credit, or the only mischief resulting from them. It may, indeed, be the most pernicious; but that will not authorize a court to convert a general into a particular prohibition. . .

The certificates for which this note was given, being in truth "bills of credit" in the sense of the Constitution, we are brought to the inquiry:

Is the note valid of which they form the consideration?

It has been long settled, that a promise made in consideration of an act which is forbidden by law is void. It will not be questioned, that an act forbidden by the Constitution of the United States, which is the supreme law, is against law. Now the Constitution forbids a State to "emit bills of credit."

The loan of

these certificates is the very act which is forbidden. It is not the making of them while they lie in the loan offices; but the issuing of them, the putting them into circulation, which is the act of emission; the act that is forbidden by the Constitution. The consideration of this note is the emission of bills of credit by the State. The very act which constitutes the consideration, is the act of emitting bills of credit, in the mode prescribed by the law, of Missouri; which act is prohibited by the Constitution of the United States.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of... Missouri . . . is reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to enter judg ment for the defendants.1

1 Compare Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Peters, 257 (1837). - Ed.