ARTICLE V.

SEC. 1 so amended as to empower the "county authorities established and authorized by law," instead of the county "commissioners," to exempt from capitation tax in special cases.

SEC. 4. Strike out this section, as follows: "The General Assembly shall, by appropri ate legislation and by adequate taxation, provide for the prompt and regular payment of the interest on the public debt; and after the year 1880 it shall lay a specific annual tax upon the real and personal property of the State, and the sum thus realized shall be set apart as a sinking fund, to be devoted to the payment of the public debt."

ARTICLE XI.

Section ten is amended so that all the deaf mutes, the blind, and the insane of the State shall be cared for by the State, but only such of them as have less property than the homestead and personal property exemption would cover, to be a charge to the State.

ARTICLE XIV.

Section seven strikes out that "no person shall hold more than one lucrative office under the State at one time," &c., and provides that no person holding a Federal or a State office (with certain petty exceptions) shall be eligible to a seat in either house of the Legislature. Add a section (section 8) providing that occuSEC. 6 so amended that the General As-pants of abolished or changed offices shall exercise their functions until the necessary sembly may exempt from taxation any per- legislation is had. sonal property not exceeding $300 in value.

ARTICLE VII.

SEC. 1. That portion providing for the biennial election in each county of "five commissioners" stricken out, and this added: "The General Assembly shall provide for a system of county government for the several counties of the State."

SEC. 2 substitutes "county authorities, &c., established, &c., by law," for "commissioners," in prescribing certain duties, and strikes out that portion under which the register of deeds is ex officio clerk, &c.

SEC. 3 strikes out this section, relating to the division of each county by the commissioners into districts, and prescribes that the above-named "county authorities" shall make such subdivisions of the county, which are to be known as 66 precincts" instead of "townships," and have the same boundaries until altered. "They shall have no corporate powers. The township governments are also abolished.

Sections four, five, six, ten, and eleven, relating to this abolished township system, are stricken out, as also are such parts of sections eight and nine as refer to such townships.

ARTICLE IX.

Rhode Island.

The following amendments were submitted to popular vote in 1871, and rejected, a threefifths affirmative vote being required: ARTICLE.

SEC. 1. Instead of sections one and two of Article II of the Constitution, the following is adopted, viz:

Every male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who has had his residence and home in this State two years, and in the town or city in which he may offer to vote six months, next preceding the time of voting, who shall give evidence of his abil. ity to read the constitution, and whose name shall be registered in the town where he resides, on or before the last day of December in the year next preceding, and for at least seven days before he shall offer to vote, (except persons enumerated in section four of said Article II of said constitution,) shall have the right to vote in all questions in all legally organized town or ward meetings; provided that no person shall, at any time, be allowed to vote upon any proposition to impose a tax or for the expenditure of money, in any town or city, or upon the election of the city council for the city of Providence, unless he shall have paid a tax, within a year preceding upon his property, within the town or city where he shall offer to vote, valued at least at $134.* The ayes were 3,236; nays, 6,960. ARTICLE.

viz:

Section three, which provides that "each county of the State shall be divided into a convenient number of districts, in which one or more public schools shall be maintained at least four months in every year; and if the commissioners of any county shall fail to comply with the aforesaid requirements of this section, they shall be liable to indictment," is Instead of section three, of Article II, of stricken out, as also are sections thirteen, four- the constitution, the following is adopted, teen, and fifteen, which relate to the mode of election, powers, duties, organization, privi leges, &c., of the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina, and insert as section three that the General Assembly shall have the power to provide for the election of trustees of the university, in whom shall be vested all the privileges, rights, franchises, and endowments heretofore conferred upon the board of trustees of said university; and the General Assembly may make such regulations as may be expedient, for the management of said uni- abolish the real estate qualification as to naturalized versity.

No registry tax shall hereafter be assessed, nor shall the payment of such tax be required as a qualification of an elector.

The ayes were 3,787; nays 6,100.

ARTICLE.

No sectarian or denominational school or in

stitution shall receive any aid or support from the revenues of the State, nor shall any tax be

*The effect of this amendment would have been to

citizens.

The question of striking out the words inclosed above in brackets, and inserting in their place the words "without due process of law," was submitted to a vote of the people of the State in November, 1870, and resulted affirmatively, as follows: against grand jury system, 48,894; for grand jury system, 18,606.

pelled in any criminal case to be a witness | keep ferries across streams at points wholly against himself, &c. within this State; fourth, for authorizing the sale or mortgage of real or personal property of minors or others under disability; fifth, for locating or changing any county seat; sixth, for assessment or collection of taxes, or for extending the time for the collection thereof; seventh, for granting corporate powers or privileges, except to cities; eighth, for authorizing the apportionment of any part of the school fund; ninth, for incorporating any town or village or to amend the charter thereof.

An amendment to add to Article IV the following words:

"SEC. 31. The Legislature is prohibited from enacting any special or private laws in the following cases: first, for changing the names of persons or constituting one person the heirat-law of another; second, for laying out, opening, or altering highways, except in cases of State roads extending into more than one county, and military roads to aid in the construction of which lands may be granted by Congress; third, for authorizing persons to

SEC. 32. The Legislature shall provide general laws for the transaction of any business that may be prohibited by section thirtyone of this article, and all such laws shall be uniform in their operation throughout the State "-was submitted to popular vote at the election in 1871, and was adopted-yeas, 54,087; nays, 3,675.

X.

THE "LEGAL-TENDER" DECISION OF 1871.

Supreme Court of the United States.

Nos. 10 and 17.-DECEMBER TERM, 1870.

William B. Knox, plaintiff in error, Phoebe G. Lee and Hugh Lee, her husband.

V8.

tiff in error,

V8.

George Davis. Mr. Justice Strong delivered the opinion of the Court.

place since their enactment, our decision mus cause, throughout the country, great business derangement, widespread distress, and the rankest injustice. The debts which have been In error to the Circuit contracted since February 25, 1862, constitute, Court of the United doubtless, by far the greatest portion of the States for the west-existing indebtedness of the country. They ern district of Texas. have been contracted in view of the acts of Thomas H. Parker, plain- In-error to the Supreme Congress declaring Treasury notes a legal Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of tender, and in reliance upon that declaration. Massachusetts. Men have bought and sold, borrowed and lent, and assumed every variety of obligations con templating that payment might be made with such notes. Indeed, legal-tender Treasury notes have become the universal measure of values. If now, by our decision, it be established that these debts and obligations can be discharged only by gold coin; if, contrary to the expectation of all parties to these contracts, legal tender notes are rendered unavailable, the Government has become an instrument of the grossest injustice; all debttors are loaded with an obligation it was never contemplated they should assume; a large percentage is added to every debt, and such must become the demand for gold to satisfy contracts that ruinous sacrifices, general distress, and bankruptcy may be expected. These consequences are too obvious to admit of question. And there is no well-founded distinction to be made between the constitutional validity of an act of Congress declaring Treasury notes a legal tender for the payment of debts contracted after its passage and that of an act making them a legal tender for the discharge of all debts, as well those incurred before as those made after its enactment. There may be a difference in the effects produced by the acts, and in the hardship of their operation, but in both cases

The controlling questions in these cases are the following: Are the acts of Congress, known as the legal-tender acts, constitutional when applied to contracts made before their passage; and, secondly, are they valid as applicable to debts contracted since their enactment? These questions have been elaborately argued, and they have received from the court that consideration which their great importance demands. It would be difficult to over estimate the consequences which must follow our decision. They will affect the entire business of the country, and take hold of the possible continued existence of the Government. If it be held by this court that Congress has no constitutional power, under any circumstances, orin any emergency, to make Treasury notes a legal tender for the payment of all debts, (a power confessedly possessed by every independent sovereignty other than the United States,) the Government is without those means of self preservation which, all must admit, may in certain contingencies become indispensable, even if they were not when the acts of Congress now called in question were enacted. It is also clear that if we hold the acts invalid as applicable to debts incurred, or transactions which have taken

the fundamental question, that which tests the constitution than there are in construing a validity of the legislation, is, can Congress statute, a will, or a contract. We do not constitutionally give to Treasury notes the expect to find in a constitution minute details. character and qualities of money? Can such It is necessarily brief and comprehensive. It notes be constituted a legitimate circulating prescribes outlines, leaving the filling up to be medium, having a defined legal value? If they deduced from the outlines. In Martin vs. can, then such notes must be available to ful- Hunter, 1 Wheaton, 326, it was said, "the fill all contracts (not expressly excepted) solv- Constitution unavoidably deals in general able in money, without reference to the time language. It did not suit the purpose of when the contracts were made. Hence it is not the people in framing this great charter of strange that those who hold the legal-tender our liberties to provide for minute specificaacts unconstitutional when applied to con- tions of its powers, or to declare the means tracts made before February, 1862, find them- by which those powers should be carried selves compelled also to hold that the acts are into execution." And with singular clearinvalid as to debts created after that time, and ness was it said by Chief Justice Marshall, in to hold that both classes of debts alike can be McCullough vs. The Bank of Maryland, 4 discharged only by gold and silver coin. Wheaton, 405: "A constitution, to contain an The consequences of which we have spoken, accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which serious as they are, must be accepted, if there its great powers will admit, and of all the is a clear incompatibility between the Consti- means by which it may be carried into exetution and the legal-tender acts. But we are cution, would partake of the prolixity of a unwilling to precipitate them upon the coun- political code, and would scarcely be emtry unless such an incompatibility plainly braced by the human mind. It would probappears. A decent respect for a coördinate ably never be understood by the public. Its branch of the Government demands that the nature, therefore, requires that only its great judiciary should presume, until the contrary outlines should be marked, its important obis clearly shown, that there has been no trans-jects designated, and the minor ingredients gression of power by Congress-all the mem- which compose those objects be deduced from bers of which act under the obligation of an the nature of the objects themselves." oath of fidelity to the Constitution. Such has these are correct principles, if they are proper always been the rule. In Commonwealth vs. views of the manner in which the Constitution Smith, (4 Bin., 123,) the language of the court is to be understood, the powers conferred upon was: 'it must be remembered that for weighty Congress must be regarded as related to each reasons, it has been assumed as a principle, other, and all means for a common end. Each in construing constitutions, by the Supreme is but a part of a system, a constituent of one Court of the United States, by this court, and by every other court of reputation in the United States, that an act of the Legislature is not to be declared void unless the violation of the Constitution is so manifest as to leave no room for reasonable doubt;" and, in Fletcher vs. Peck, (6 Cranch, 87,) Chief Justice Marshall said "it is not on slight implication and vague conjecture that the Legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers and its acts to be considered void. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other." It is incumbent, therefore, upon those who affirm the unconstitutionality of an act of Congress to show clearly that it is in violation of the provisions of the Constitution. It is not sufficient for them that they succeed in raising a doubt.

66

If

whole. No single power is the ultimate end for which the Constitution was adopted. It may, in a very proper sense, be treated as a means for the accomplishment of a subordinate object, but that object is itself a means designed for an ulterior purpose. Thus the power to levy and collect taxes, to coin money and regulate its value, to raise and support armies, or to provide for and maintain a Navy, are instruments for the paramount object, which was to establish a Government, sovereign within its sphere, with capability of selfpreservation, thereby forming an union more perfect than that which existed under the old Confederacy.

The same may be asserted also of all the non enumerated powers included in the authority expressly given "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the specified powers vested Nor can it be questioned that when investi- in Congress, and all other powers vested by gating the nature and extent of the powers the Constitution in the Government of the conferred by the Constitution upon Congress, United States, or in any department or officer it is indispensable to keep in view the objects thereof." It is impossible to know what those for which those powers were granted. This non-enumerated powers are, and what is their is an universal rule of construction applied nature and extent, without considering the alike to statutes, wills, contracts, and consti- purposes they were intended to subserve. tutions. If the general purpose of the instru- Those purposes, it must be noted, reach bement is ascertained, the language of its pro-yond the mere execution of all powers definvisions must be construed with reference to that purpose and so as to subserve it. In no other way can the intent of the framers of the instrument be discovered. And there are more urgent reasons for looking to the ultimate purpose in examining the powers conferred by a

itely intrusted to Congress, and mentioned in detail. They embrace the execution of all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. It certainly was intended to confer upon the Government

the power of self-preservation. Said Chief
Justice Marshall, in Cohens vs. The Bank of
Virginia, (6 Wheat., 414:) "America has chosen
to be, in many respects and to many purposes,
a nation, and for all these purposes her Gov-
ernment is complete; for all these objects it
is supreme. It can then, in effecting these
objects, legitimately control all individuals or
governments within the American territory."
He added, in the same case: แ
'A constitu-
tion is framed for ages to come, and is designed
to approach immortality as near as mortality
can approach it. Its course cannot always be
tranquil. It is exposed to storms and tem-
pests, and its framers must be unwise states-
men, indeed, if they have not provided it, as
far as its nature will permit, with the means
of self-preservation from the perils it is sure
to encounter." That would appear, then, to
be a most unreasonable construction of the
Constitution which denies to the Government
created by it the right to employ freely every
means, not prohibited, necessary for its pres-
ervation, and for the fulfillment of its ac-
knowledged duties. Such a right, we hold,
was given by the last clause of the eighth sec-
tion of its first article. The means or instru-
mentalities referred to in that clause, and
authorized, are not enumerated or defined. In
the nature of things enumeration and specifi-
cation were impossible. But they were left to
the discretion of Congress, subject only to the
restrictions that they be not prohibited, and
be necessary and proper for carrying into exe-
cution the enumerated powers given to Con-
gress, and all other powers vested in the Gov-
ernment of the United States, or in any depart-
ment or officer thereof.

in the conventions of the States, and proposed at the first session of the First Congress, before any complaint was made of a disposition to assume doubtful powers. The preamble to the resolution submitting them for adoption recited that the "conventions of a number of the States had, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added." This was the origin of the amendments, and they are significant. They tend plainly to show that, in the judgment of those who adopted the Constitution, there were powers created by it, neither expressly specified nor deducible from any one specified power, or ancillary to it alone, but which grew out of the aggregate of powers conferred upon the Government, or out of the sovereignty instituted. Most of these amendments are denials of power which had not been expressly granted, and which cannot be said to have been necessary and proper for carrying into execution any other powers. Such, for example, is the prohibition of any laws respecting the establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.

And it is of importance to observe that Congress has often exercised without question powers that are not expressly given or ancillary to any single enumerated power. Powers thus exercised are what are called by Judge Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution, resulting powers, arising from the aggregate powers of the Government. He instances the right to sue and make contracts. Many others might be given. The oath required by And here it is to be observed it is not indis- law from officers of the Government is one. pensable to the existence of any power claimed So is building a capitol or a presidential manfor the Federal Government that it can be sion, and so also is the penal code. This last found specified in the words of the Constitu- is worthy of brief notice. Congress is expressly tion, or clearly and directly traceable to some authorized "to provide for the punishment of one of the specified powers. Its existence may counterfeiting the securities and current coin be deduced fairly from more than one of the of the United States, and to define and punish substantive powers expressly defined, or from piracies and felonies committed on the high them all combined. It is allowable to group seas and offenses against the laws of nations." together any number of them and infer from It is also empowered to declare the punishthem all that the power claimed has been con- ment of treason, and provision is made for ferred. Such a treatment of the Constitution impeachments. This is the extent of power is recognized by its own provisions. This is to punish crime expressly conferred. It might well illustrated in its language respecting the be argued that the expression of these limited writ of habeas corpus. The power to suspend powers implies an exclusion of all other subthe privilege of that writ is not expressly given, jects of criminal legislation. Such is the nor can it be deduced from any one of the par- argument in the present cases. It is said ticularized grants of power. Yet it is pro- because Congress is authorized to coin vided that the privileges of the writ shall not money and regulate its value it cannot debe suspended except in certain defined contin- clare anything other than gold and silver to gencies. This is no express grant of power. be money or make it a legal tender. Yet ConIt is a restriction. But it shows irresistibly gress, by the act of April 30, 1790, entitled that somewhere in the Constitution power to "An act more effectually to provide for the suspend the privilege of the writ was granted, punishment of certain crimes against the Unieither by some one or more of the specifica- ted States." and the supplementary act of tions of power, or by them all combined. And March 3, 1825, defined and provided for the that important powers were understood by the punishment of a large class of crimes other people who adopted the Constitution to have than those mentioned in the Constitution, and been created by it, powers not enumerated, some of the punishments prescribed are maniand not included incidentally in any one of festly not in aid of any single substantive those enumerated, is shown by the amend-power. No one doubts that this was rightments. The first ten of these were suggested fully done, and the power thus exercised has