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really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted to the government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity, would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department, and to tread on legislative ground. This court disclaims all pretensions to such a power.

After this declaration, it can scarcely be necessary to say, that the existence of state banks can have no possible influence on the question. No trace is to be found in the constitution of an intention to create a dependence of the government of the Union on those of the States, for the execution of the great powers assigned to it. Its means are adequate to its ends; and on those means alone was it expected to rely for the accomplishment of its ends. To impose on it the necessity of resorting to means which it cannot control, which another government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other governments, which might disappoint its most important designs, and is incompatible with the language of the constitution. But were it otherwise, the choice of means implies a right to choose a national bank in preference to state banks, and congress alone can make the election.

After the most deliberate consideration, it is the unanimous and decided opinion of this court, that the act to incorporate the Bank of the United States is a law made in pursuance of the constitution, and is a part of the supreme law of the land.

The branches, proceeding from the same stock, and being conducive to the complete accomplishment of the object, are equally constitutional. It would have been unwise to locate them in the charter, and it would be unnecessarily inconvenient to employ the legislative power in making those subordinate arrangements. The great duties of the bank are prescribed; those duties require branches, and the bank itself may, we think, be safely trusted with the selection of places where those branches shall be fixed; reserving always to the government the right to require that a branch shall be located where it may be deemed necessary.

It being the opinion of the court that the act incorporating the bank is constitutional; and that the power of establishing a branch in the State of Maryland might be properly exercised by the bank itself, we proceed to inquire:

2. Whether the State of Maryland may, without violating the constitution, tax that branch? .

We are unanimously of opinion, that the law passed by the legislature of Maryland, imposing a tax on the Bank of the United States, is unconstitutional and void.

NOTE. The most important discussions of the implied powers of Congress are those found in the legal tender cases. See Knox v. Lee, 12 Wallace, 457, and Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U. S., 421. See also James Wilson's Considerations on the Power to Incorporate the Bank of North America, Works (Andrews' edition), I, 549-577. Although a discussion of the inherent or implied powers of the Confederation, its reasoning is applicable to the implied powers of the government under the Constitution.

Bryce says of Marshall's opinion in this case (American Commonwealth, 3d Ed., I, 379, note), "This is really a working-out of one of the points of Hamilton's famous argument in favor of the constitutionality of a United States bank: 'Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power, and which are not precluded by restrictions and exceptions specified in the Constitution.' Works (Lodge's Ed.), vol. iii, p. 181."

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"It is unnecessary for me to point out the great influence which that decision of the Supreme Court has exercised over the material and financial prosperity of this country. Had the decision been, that there existed in this government no power to create a national currency, or to provide for a national banking system, the disastrous effects upon the business prosperity of the people can hardly be imagined. Those who are old enough to have gone through the State bank and wildcat systems of paper money prevalent a few years since in this country, can bear feeling testimony to the value of a so-called national bank system." Miller, Lectures on the Constitution of the United States, 391.

VII. EXECUTIVE POWERS.

In EX PARTE GARLAND, 4 Wallace, 333 (1866), the validity of an act of Congress requiring every person admitted to practice before a United States court to take an oath that he had never borne arms against the United States nor held office under any authority hostile to the United States was called in question. Mr. Justice Field said with reference to the nature of the pardoning power of the President,

"The Constitution provides that the President 'shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."

"The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the exception stated. It extends to every offense known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. This power of the President is not subject to legislative control. Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon, nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy imposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions.

"Such being the case, the inquiry arises as to the effect and operation of a pardon, and on this point all the authorities concur. A pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offense and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense. If granted before conviction, it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching; if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities, and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity.

"There is only this limitation to its operation: it does not re

1 Article II, § 2.

store offices forfeited, or property or interests vested in others in consequence of the conviction and judgment.2

"The pardon produced by the petition is a full pardon for all offenses by him committed, arising from participation, direct or implied, in the Rebellion,' and is subject to certain conditions which have been complied with. The effect of this pardon is to relieve the petitioner from all penalties and disabilities attached. to the offense of treason, committed by his participation in the Rebellion. So far as that offense is concerned, he is thus placed beyond the reach of punishment of any kind. But to exclude him, by reason of that offense, from continuing in the enjoyment of a previously acquired right, is to enforce a punishment for that offense notwithstanding the pardon. If such exclusion can be effected by the exaction of an expurgatory oath covering the of fense, the pardon may be avoided, and that accomplished indirectly which cannot be reached by direct legislation. It is not within the constitutional power of Congress thus to inflict punishment beyond the reach of executive clemency. From the petitioner, therefore, the oath required by the act of January 24th, 1865, could not be exacted, even if that act were not subject to any other objection than the one thus stated."

IN RE NEAGLE.

135 U. S., 1. Decided 1890.

MR. JUSTICE MILLER, on behalf of the court, stated the case as follows:

This was an appeal by Cunningham, sheriff of the county of San Joaquin, in the State of California, from a judgment of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of California, discharging David Neagle from the custody of said sheriff, who held him a prisoner on a charge of murder.

On the 16th day of August, 1889, there was presented to Judge Sawyer, the Circuit Judge of the United States for the Ninth Circuit, embracing the Northern District of California, a petition signed David Neagle, deputy United States marshal, by A. L. Farrish on his behalf. This petition represented that the said Farrish was a deputy marshal duly appointed for the Northern

24 Blackstone's Commentaries, 402;

6 Baeon's Abridgment, tit.

Pardon; Hawkins, book 2, c. 37, §§ 34 and 54.

District of California by J. C. Franks, who was the marshal of that district. It further alleged that David Neagle was, at the time of the occurrences recited in the petition and at the time of filing it, a duly appointed and acting deputy United States marshal for the same district. It then proceeded to state that said Neagle was imprisoned, confined, and restrained of his liberty in the county jail in San Joaquin County, in the State of California, by Thomas Cunningham, sheriff of said county, upon a charge of murder, under a warrant of arrest, a copy of which was annexed to the petition. The warrant was as follows:

"In the Justice's Court of Stockton Township.

"STATE OF CALIFORNIA,

County of San Joaquin,

88:

"The People of the State of California to any sheriff, constable, marshal, or policeman of said State or of the county of San Joaquin:

"Information on oath having been this day laid before me by Sarah A. Terry that the crime of murder, a felony, has been committed within said county of San Joaquin on the 14th day of August, A. D. 1889, in this, that one David S. Terry, a human being then and there being, was wilfully, unlawfully, feloniously, and with malice aforethought shot, killed, and murdered, and accusing Stephen J. Field and David Neagle thereof: You are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest the above-named Stephen J. Field and David Neagle and bring them before me, at my office, in the city of Stockton, or, in case of my absence or inability to act, before the nearest and most accessible magistrate in the county.

"Dated at Stockton this 14th day of August, A. D. 1889.

3 The Governor of California, on learning that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Mr. Justice Field, promptly wrote to the Attorney-General of the State, urging "the propriety of at once instructing the District Attorney of San Joaquin County to dismiss the unwarranted proceeding against him," as his arrest "would be a

"H. V. J. SWAIN, "Justice of the Peace.

burning disgrace to the State unless disavowed." The AttorneyGeneral as promptly responded by advising the District Attorney that there was "no evidence to impliIcate Justice Field in said shooting," and that "public justice demands that the charge against him be dismsised;" which was accordingly done.

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