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stated that 'all executory contracts solvable in money, whether under seal or not, made after the depreciation of said currency before the first day of May, 1865, and yet unfulfilled (except official bonds; and penal bonds payable to the State) shall be deemed to have been made with the understanding that they were solvable in money of the value of said currency, subject, nevertheless, to evidence of a different intent of the parties to the contract; therefore,

Sec. 1. Be it enacted, etc., That the following scale of depreciation be and the same is hereby adopted and established as a measure of value of one gold dollar in Confederate currency for each month, and the fractional parts of the month of December, 1864, from the first day of November, 1861, to the first day of May, 1865, to wit:

Scale of Depreciation of Confederate currency, the Gold Dollar being the Unit and Measure of Value from November 1, 1861, to May 1, 1865. MONTHS, January

February

March.

April.

May. June..

July..

1861. 1862. 1863. 1864. 1865.
$1.20 $3.00 $21.00 $50.00
1.30 3.00 21.00 50.00
1.50 4.00 23.00 60.00
1.50 5.00 20.00 100.00
1.50 5.50 19.00
1.50 6.50 18.00
1.50 9.00 21.00
1.50 14.00 23.00

2.00 14.00 25.00
2.00 14.00 26.00
30.00

August.

September.

October....

November..

December..

$1.10 2.50 15.00 1.15 2.50 20.00

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66

66 66

49.00

20 to 30 Ratified the 12th day of March, A. D. 1866. Upon this. Ordinance and these Statutes, as construed by the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in Robeson v. Brown, 63 N. C., 555, and Terrell v. Walker, 66 N. C., 245, the appellants rest their whole defense. They insist that, as the bonds sued on bear date May 1, 1862, they must, necessarily, be deemed payable in Confederate Treasury Notes, and be scaled to an equivalent amount in lawful currency; and as they were sold in South Carolina, to the Exchange Bank, the amount of depreciation as fixed by the law of South Carolina, as of May 1, 1862, viz.: $1.87, should be adopted as the true standard, instead of the law of North Carolina, which fixes the rate at $1.50 to $1 on that day.

The appellees insist that the defense, arising under such statutes, cannot avail the appellants for the reasons:

1. That said Ordinance and statutes are void, being contrary to the Constitution of the Unit

ed States.

2. That the bonds sued upon are not within the meaning and intent of said statutes; and, 3. That the facts proven by appellants repel any and every presumption that said bonds were payable in Confederate Treasury Notes.

On the first head: "The law of a contract forms its obligation; and this obligation consists in the power and efficacy of the law which it applies to, and enforces the performance of the contract or the payment of an equivalent for non-performance.' Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat., 259.

The expressed terms of contract are, in general, few and brief. Those implied are greater in number, more extended, and found only in the law itself. Yet the implied are as necessary and important as those expressed.

The appellants intended to make and put in circulation negotiable instruments; and one of the indispensable requisites to negotiability is, that "they must be for the payment of money and of money only." Chit. Bills, 152.

Confederate Treasury Notes were never recognized as money, or even made legal tenders in the payment of debts; to interpolate, by construction, the word "Confederate" before dollars in the bonds, would at once destroy their negotiability. The word "dollars” used in the bonds is not attended with any ambiguity, and no court would be at a loss to instruct the jury, without proof to the contrary, that it meant the unit of value in the United States, and of the Confederate States which had adopted the same. "Payment is ordinarily to be made in money or coin according to its true value and denomination, and the holder is not bound to accept anything but such money or coin at its true and proper value." Chit. Bills, ch. 9, 433.

Where the denomination used in the contract is that of a lawful currency in use in the country where payable, the law presumes that the lawful currency was intended.

Stevens v. Smith, 4 Dev. (N. C.) 292. Second Point. That these bonds are not within the intent and meaning of the said Ordinance and statutes.

With regard to the construction of statutes, the first point with the judge is, to discover if possible the true intention of the Legislature, and then make judicial decision conform to the spirit of the Act. "Every statute ought to be expounded not according to the letter, but according to the meaning: Qui hæret in litera, hæret in cortice. The enlarged interpretation of a law will penetrate the soul and spirit of a law, and reach the intent and meaning of a legislator." Potter's Dwarr., 175.

"A thing which is in the letter of a statute is not within the statute, unless it be within the intention of the maker." Potter's Dwarr., 180.

The Ordinance and statutes now under consideration, evidently contemplate only the ordinary every day transaction between man and man, in limited spheres, and to which each party may testify by affidavit, and juries may do justice in different localities. They expressly relate to only two classes of cases: the one, debts incurred for the purchase of property at fictitious values, the actual value of which can be readily ascertained, and then form a standard for regulating the two debts: and the other, debts incurred and still due for some special amount of Confederate money borrowed, the actual value of which in lawful money may be ascertained by referring to the scaling table, at the date of the loan.

These bonds now in suit, payable to bearer, with coupons attached, were intended to be negotiable, and take rank with bank bills, with state and government bonds, the consuls and exchequer bills of England, the bonds of the King of Prussia, and the Government of Naples.

Can. & Banking Co. v. Fisher, 1 Stock. Ch., 667; Delafield v. Illinois, 2 Hill, 159; Gordier v. Mieville, 3 B. & C., 45; Wookey v. Pole. 4 B.

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of North Carolina. The bonds were secured by
a trust deed of the railroad, buildings and fran-
chise of the Company executed to the appel-
lants, Wilson and Mitchell.
The deed stipu-
lated that, in case the Company failed to pay
the principal and interest on the bonds as they
became due, the trustees should, upon request
of the holders of the bonds or of their guaran-
tor, proceed to sell the property, or so much
thereof as might be necessary, and apply the

If the scale laws are applied to these bonds, results are attained which show that they could not have been in the contemplation of the Legislature. Third Point. Even if the Ordinance and stat-proceeds of the sale to the payment of the bonds. utes shall be deemed constitutional, and the bonds within their operation, the parol and other relevant testimony introduced under the Ordinance and statutes is fully sufficient to repel the presumption that they were issued, payable in Confederate money.

The complainants are the holders and owners of $25,000 of these bonds and the Company having failed to pay either principal or interest, they requested the trustees to proceed and sell the property covered by the trust deed, and to distribute the proceeds pursuant to its provisions. With this request the trustees declined to comply, alleging as a reason that the parties differed as to the amount to be paid; the holders asserting that the bonds were payable to their full amount in legal currency of the United States, and the Railroad Company contending that the bonds were solvable in Confederate notes, and were subject to be scaled to equivalents in legal currency. The present suit was accordingly brought, to enforce the executions of the trusts of the deed.

The question presented, and the sole question under the pleadings, is, whether the bonds of the Railroad Company were solvable in Confederate notes or in the legal currency of the United States. The company, in its answer, expresses a readiness to pay in legal currency the equivalent of the bonds, if their values be estimated upon the assumption that the bonds were payable in Confederate notes.

In the present case, the date of the bond is held to raise the presumption that Confederate money was intended; but the other parts of the bond are relevant to the question, and the very day of payment is sufficient of itself to repel that presumption. Ten years after May, 1862, the Railroad Company agrees to pay dollars. Confederate money was but an expedient for meeting the exigencies of the war, wholly temporary in its character, and by no one expected to endure for that length of time. Those Treasury Notes were not money, nor were they even absolute promises to pay money. They were drawn payable to bearer, six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States. It is absolutely incredible that any railroad company should make and issue its bonds payable in such conditional promises, at such long dates, with any hope of realizing anything by the sale of them. No one could be found who would invest even Confederate money in 1862, at its same value, to be repaid in like currency at the end of ten, twelve or thirteen years, when the value of that currency was then rapidly and steadily declining. To construe the word "dollars" used in these bonds to mean this Confederate money, leads to the reductio ad absurdum, which, in the exact sciences, is proof conclusive The treasury notes of the Confederate Govof the falsity of the proposition. Besides, the ernment were *issued early in the war [*556 bonds on their face declare that "They may be and, though never made a legal tender, they converted into the stock of said Company at soon, to a large extent, took the place of coin par, by the holder." The Company was organ- in the insurgent States. Within a short period ized in 1858, and the stock paid for in good and they became the principal currency in which lawful money, thereby affording an assurance business in its multiplied forms was there to the public that the bonds were of like esti- transacted. The simplest purchase of food in the mation. The usual heading of "The Confeder-market, as well as the largest dealings of merate States of America" has been studiously omitted from the bonds, and the name of the State of North Carolina alone affords an indication of the kind of currency meant; and that, by statute, was the same as the United States.

Mr. Justice Field delivered the opinion of the court:

In support of the position taken by the Company, and the trustees representing the Company, reliance is placed upon the decision of this court in Thorington v. Smith, 8 Wall. 1, 19 L. ed., 361, and the Ordinance of North Carolina of October, 1865, relating to contracts made during the war, and the Scaling Act of the State passed in 1866.

chants, were generally made in this currency. Contracts thus made, not designed to aid the insurrectionary government, could not, therefore, without manifest injustice to the parties, be treated as invalid between them. Hence, in Thorington v. Smith, this court enforced a contract payable in these notes, treating them as a currency imposed upon the community by a In May, 1862, the Atlantic, Tennessee and government of irresistible force. As said in a Ohio Railroad Company, a Corporation char- later case, referring to this decision, "It would tered by the State of North Carolina, issued its have been a cruel and oppressive judgment, if coupon bonds in sums of $500 each, to the all the transactions of the many millions of peoamount of $151,000, payable at different pe- ple composing the inhabitants of the insurrecriods, from November, 1869, to November, 1875, tionary States, for the several years of the war, with interest at the rate of six per cent. a year, had been held tainted with illegality because of payable semi-annually. The bonds were in- the use of this forced currency, when those dorsed and their payment guarantied by the transactions were not made with reference to Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad Com- the insurrectionary government." Hanauer v. pany, a Corporation also chartered by the State | Woodruff, 15 Wall., 448, 21 L. ed. 227.

The Confederate notes, being greatly increased in volume from time to time as the exigencies of the Confederate Government required, and the probability of their ultimate redemption growing constantly less, necessarily depreciated in value as the war progressed, until, in some portions of the insurgent territory, at the close of the year 1863, $20 in these notes, and at the close of the year 1864, $40 possessed only the purchasing power of $1 in lawful money.1 The precious metals, however, still constituted the legal money of the insurgent States, and alone answered the statutory definition of dollars, but in fact had ceased in nearly all, certainly in a large part of the dealings of 557*] parties, to be the measures of value. When the war closed, these notes, of course became at once valueless and ceased to be current, but contracts made upon their purchaseable quality, and in which they were designated as dollars, existed in great numbers. It was at once evident that great injustice would in many cases be done to parties if the terms used were interpreted only by reference to the coinage of the United States or their legal tender notes, instead of the standard adopted by the parties. The legal standard and the conventional standard differed, and justice to the parties could only be done by allowing evidence of the sense in which they used the terms, and enforcing the contracts thus interpreted. The anomalous condition of things at the South had created in the The Ordinance and Act require the courts, in meaning of the term "dollars" an ambiguity the construction of contracts made in the inwhich only parol evidence could in many in-surgent States between certain dates, to assume stances remove. It was, therefore, held in as a fact that the parties intended by the term Thorington v. Smith, where this condition of "dollars" Confederate notes, and understood things, and the general use of Confederate notes that the contracts were solvable in that currenas currency in the insurgent States were shown, cy; and they thus throw upon the party conthat parol evidence was admissible to prove testing the truth of the assumed fact the burthat a contract between parties in those States den of establishing a different understanding. during the war, payable in "dollars," was in It is contended by the complainants that the fact made for the payment of Confederate dol- Ordinance and statute in thus giving a suplars; the court observing, in the light of the posed conventional meaning to the terms used, facts respecting the currency of the Confederate in the absence of any evidence on the subject, notes, which were detailed, that it seemed instead of the meaning which otherwise would "hardly less than absurd to say that these dol- attach to the terms, impair the obligation of lars must be regarded as identical in kind and the contracts *between them and the [*559 value with the dollars which constitute the Railroad Company, and are, therefore, void. money of the United States." Upon this question we refrain from expressing any opinion. It is unnecessary that we should do so, for there is sufficient in this case to rebut the presumption required by the Ordinance and statute.

The Ordinance of North Carolina, of October, 1865, recognized the difference between the standard of value existing in that State during the war, and usually referred to in the contracts of parties, and the legal standard adopted by the Government of the United States. It required that the Legislature should provide a scale of depreciation of the Confederate currency from the time of its first issue to the end of the war; and declared that all existing contracts solvable in money, whether under seal or not, made after the depreciation of that currency, before the first day of May, 1865, and then unfulfilled (except official bonds, and penal bonds, payable to the State), should "be deemed to have been made with the understanding that they were solvable in money of the value of the said currency;" but at the same time provided that it should be "competent for either of the parties to show, by parol or other relevant testimony, what the understanding was in regard to the kind of currency in which the same were solvable," and that in such case "the true understanding" should regulate the value of the contract. The Act of the Legislature of the State, passed in 1866, adopted a scale of depreciation of Confederate currency as required by the Ordinance, designating the value in such currency of the gold dollar on the first day of each month, from November, 1861 to April, 1865.

The decision upon which reliance is placed, as thus seen, only holds that a contract made during the war in the insurgent States, payable in Confederate notes, is not for that reason invalid, and that parol evidence, under the pecu- The understanding of the parties may be liar condition of things in those States, is ad- shown from the nature of the transaction, and missible to prove the value of the notes, at the the attendant circumstances, as satisfactorily time the contract was made, in the legal cur- as from the language used. A contract, for exrency of the United States. In the absence of ample, to pay $50 for a night's lodging at a such evidence the presumption of law would house of public entertainment, where similar be that by the term "dollars," the lawful cur accommodation was usually afforded for one rency of the United States was intended. This twentieth of that sum in coin, accompanied by case affords, therefore, no support to the posi-proof of a corresponding depreciation of Contion of the appellants here, for no evidence was federate notes, would leave little doubt that the produced by them that payment of the bonds parties had Confederate money in contempla558*] in Confederate *notes was intended by tion when the contract was made. In Thorthe Railroad Company when they were issued, ington v. Smith the land was sold for the nomor by the parties who purchased them. inal sum of $45,000, when its value in coin was only $3,000, a most persuasive fact to the conclusion that Confederate notes were alone intended in the original transaction. So, on the other hand, contracts made payable out of the Confederate States, or at distant periods, such as may be supposed to be desired as invest

1. According to the Scaling Act of North Caro lina one dollar in gold in that State was worth, at the close of 1863, $20, and at the close of 1864, $49 in Confederate notes. According to the Scaling Act of South Carolina one dollar in gold in that State was worth at those periods respectively, $13.90 and $22.22 in Confederate notes.

ments of moneys, or given upon a consideration | the Port of Indianola in the State of Texas, and of gold, would, in the absence of other circum stances, justify the inference that the parties contemplated payment in the legal currency of the country.

In the present case the intention of the Railroad Company that the principal of its bonds should be paid in lawful money instead of Confederate notes may justly be inferred, we think, from the nature of the contracts, particularly the long period before they were to mature. When they were issued, in May, 1862, it could not have been in the contemplation of the parties that the war would continue from seven to thirteen years. It is well known that at that time it was the general expectation on all sides that the war would be one of short duration. The Confederate notes were only payable by their terms after a ratification of peace between the Confederate States and the United States. The bonds of the railroad were intended for sale in the markets of the world generally, and not merely in the Confederate States; 560*] *they were payable to bearer and, therefore, transferable by delivery. They state on their face that they may be converted into the stock of the Company, at par, by the holder. The declarations of the officers of the Company up to July, 1863, show that the Company treated the bonds as having an exceptional value, and not subject to the fluctuation of Confederate currency. Repeated declarations of the of ficers were made to that import.

There is sufficient in these circumstances to repel the presumption created by the Ordinance and Act of North Carolina, and that being rerelled, the ordinary presumption of law as to the meaning of the parties in the terms used must prevail.

With reference to the interest payable semiannually a different presumption cannot be allowed, as the interest must follow the character of the principal.

The other questions presented by counsel are not raised on the pleadings. Usury, as a defense, should have been specially pleaded or set up in the answer to entitle it to consideration.

Decree affirmed.

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the other from Brushear in the State of Louisiana, by the Port of Sabine in the State of Texas, and back to Brushear. Peete, the appellant, was health officer of the City of Galveston and, as alleged in the bill, "Under the pretense of collecting quarantine dues to defray the expenses of keeping up a quarantine at said port of Galveston, by force and threats to stop said steamship and fine and imprison the commanders, compelled your orator to pay for and on account of each steamer each time it entered the Port of Galveston, a tonnage duty of $5 for the first one hundred tons burden, and also quarantine duty of one and one half cents for each and every added ton burden over one hundred tons." The bill further alleged that Peete threatened to continue these illegal exactions, and asked for an injunction. The defendant, Peete, justified his action under the proclamation of the Governor of the state and the Mayor of the City establishing quarantine, and under section 7 of the Act amending "An Act Authorizing Quarantine on the Coast of Texas, and Elsewhere within the State." This section was as follows:

"There shall be collected by the examining health officer from every vessel arriving at each and every quarantine station, the following fees, to wit: for every vessel of one hundred tons burden or under, the sum of $5; from every vessel over one hundred tons burden, the sum of $5, and also, a further fee of one and one half cents for each and every ton. The aforesaid fees, collected as aforesaid, shall be reported to the proper authorities of the town or city at which such quarantine is established, and all the fees and fines, as hereinbefore provided for, shall be used to defray the expenses of keeping said quarantine."

The circuit court decreed an injunction as prayed, and the defendant appealed to this court.

Messrs. C. B. Sabin and A. H. Willie, for appellant.

Mr. P. Phillips, for the appellee, referred to Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., 203; Morgan v. Parham, 16 Wall., 472, 21 L. ed. 303; Passenger cases, 7 How., 283; Cox v. Collector, 12 Wall., 205, 218, 20 L. ed. 370, 375.

Mr. Justice Davis delivered the opinion of

the court:

Morgan, a citizen of New York, and the owner of two lines of steamers registered and enrolled in New York, running from ports in Louisiana to ports in Texas, and back to the ports in Louisiana, brought his bill in equity in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Texas, to restrain Peete, the health officer at Galveston, from the future collection of quarantine fees, which had been antine ground, under claim of authority by virexacted from all his vessels coming to the quartue of the legislation of Texas. This legislation, which had the approval of the Governor, on the 13th of August, 1870, declared that every vessel arriving at the quarantine station should pay the sum of $5 for the first hundred tons, and one and a half cents for each additional ton. The case was heard on bill and answer, and a decree rendered granting the injunction prayed for and making it perpetual.

The object of this appeal is to review that decision.

That the power to establish quarantine laws rests with the States, and has not been surrendered to the General Government, is settled in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., 203. The source of this power is in the acknowledged right of a State to provide for the health of its people, and although this power when set in motion may in a greater or less degree affect commerce, yet the laws passed in the exercise of this power are not enacted for such an object. They are enacted for the sole purpose of preserving the public health, and if they injuriously affect commerce, Congress, under the power to regulate it, may control them. Of necessity, they operate on vessels engaged in commerce, and 583*] may produce delay or inconvenience, but they are still lawful when not opposed to any constitutional provision, or any Act of Congress on the subject.

It is evident that the power to establish quarantine regulations cannot be executed without the State possesses the means to raise a revenue for their enforcement, but it is equally evident that the means used for this purpose must be of such a character as the restrictions imposed by the Federal Constitution upon the taxing power of the States authorize. We are not called upon in this case to go into the general subject

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of the limitations imposed by these restric-APPEAL from the District Court of the tions, because the tax in question is manifestly outside the jurisdiction of the State to impose; as it is a "duty of tonnage," within the meaning of the Constitution.

United States for the District of Louisiana. The case sufficiently appears in the opinion. Mr. C. H. Hill, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Messrs. R. H. Bradford and J. L. Bradford for appellees.

Mr. Justice Hunt delivered the opinion of the court:

On the 2d of March, 1867, 14 Stat. at L., 544, an Act was passed extending the time for filing a petition under the said Act of 1860 for three years from and after the passage of the Act.

This duty was doubtless imposed to raise revenue, but Chief Justice Marshall, in commenting on this subject in Gibbons v. Ogden, supra, says: "It is true, that duties may often be, and in fact often are, imposed on tonnage, with a view to the regulation of commerce; This is the case of a petition presented under but they may be also imposed with a view to the Act of 1860, 12 Stat. at L. 85, for the conrevenue; and it was, therefore, a prudent pre-firmation of a grant of land under the Spanish caution to prohibit the States from exercising Government. this power. This power cannot be exercised without the permission of Congress, and Congress has never consented that the States should lay any duty on tonnage. On the contrary, so apprehensive was Congress that its legislation in 1799, 1 Stat. at L., 619, directing the collectors of customs and officers commanding forts and revenue-cutters to aid in the execution of the quarantine and health laws of the States, rendered necessary on account of the prevalence of yellow fever in New York, might be construed into an admission of the right of the States to lay this duty, that it used the following words of exclusion: "That nothing herein shall enable any State to collect a duty of tonnage or impost, without the consent of the Congress of the United States thereto."

It is, however, not necessary to discuss this subject, as it has been recently fully considered 584*] by this court in the State *Tonnage Tax Cases, reported in 12 Wall., 204, 20 L. ed. 370. In these cases the law of Alabama levied a tax at so much per ton on all steamboats. The boats on which the tax was levied were owned by citizens of the State, and were employed exclusively in the internal commerce of the State, over which Congress has no control. This court, while conceding the full power of the State to tax the property of its citizens, held

On the first of March, 1870, the heirs of James Innerarity filed a petition alleging that, as heirs and representatives of Innerarity, they were entitled to a recognition of a Spanish patent of 20,000 arpents, made to one Ramos, which lands afterwards became the property of their ancestor. The court held, and rightly, that their petition was filed in time.

It now appears that the allegations of the petition were made in ignorance of the facts, and that Innerarity really had no claim in law or in equity to the land described. This necessarily disposes of the case as to his heirs.

The attempt to set up a claim under this petition, or a supplemental petition, by Innerarity's heirs in favor of the heirs of John Watkins, cannot be sustained. It does not appear that Watkins derived title from Innerarity, or that Innerarity ever had any title. The case is simply this: Innerarity's heirs have filed their petition in time, but have no title. Watkins' heirs have a title, but have not filed a petition for its allowance. Watkins' title cannot be interposed by the present petitioners. Such practice is unknown. If a suit be commenced by

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