Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

granted to the United States without being prohibited to the individual States. Nowhere in the Constitution is the passage of bankruptcy laws prohibited to the government of the several States; and the right to pass such laws (under certain restrictions) has been freely exercised, except in those brief periods, during our history, when a national bankruptcy act has been in force. Most of the cases on this subject have arisen on the question of the constitutionality of State bankruptcy laws. This side of the question has been already treated in Chapter V. It need here only be repeated that State bankruptcy laws must yield to laws. on this subject passed by Congress, that they cannot affect debts existing at the time the law was passed, and that a discharge from bankruptcy under a State law is no bar in the courts of the United States or of another State against non-resident creditors."2

The power of Congress over this subject of bankruptcies is complete. The framers of the Constitution did not intend to limit this power to the passage of such kind of laws on the subject as were in force in England at the time. Congress has power to provide for either voluntary or involuntary bankruptcies. In re Klein, the Court said: "The ideas attached to the word (i. e., bankruptcy) in this connection, are numerous and complicated; they form a subject of extensive and complicated. jurisdiction; and the true inquiry is, 'to what limits is that jurisdiction restricted?"

"I hold it extends to all cases where the law causes to be distributed the property of the debtor among his creditors; this is its least limit. Its greatest is a discharge of the debtor from his contracts. And all intermediate legislation, affecting substance and form, but tending to further the great end of the subject-distribution and discharge-are in the competency and discretion of Congress.

"With the policy of the law, letting in all classes, others as well as traders; and permitting the bankrupt to come in volun

61 Sturgis v.

Crowninshield, 4

Wheaton, 122; Ogden v. Saunders,

12 Wheaton, 213.

63 Gilman v. Lockwood, 4 Wallace, 409.

631 Howard, 277.

tarily, and be discharged without the consent of his creditors, the courts have no concern; it belongs to the lawmakers.”

A comprehensive bankruptcy law passed under authority of this Constitutional provision is now in force in the United States. Its details do not properly come within the field of Constitutional Law.

§ 146. The power to coin money.-Clause 5: (The Congress shall have power-) "To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;"

The power to coin money and regulate the value thereof is made exclusive by the provision in the 9th section of the 1st article which provides that no State shall coin money or make anything but gold coin and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. Under the Articles of Confederation it was provided, that, "The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their authority or by that of the respective States." The States, however, retained the power of coining money under that instrument. This power was taken from the States by the Constitution. "That, by the Constitution, the currency, so far as it is composed of gold and silver, is placed under the exclusive control of Congress is clear; a State cannot do that which the Federal Constitution declares it shall not do. It cannot coin money. Here is an Act inhibited in terms so precise that they cannot be mistaken. They are susceptibie of but one construction, and it is certain that a State cannot incorporate any number of individuals, and authorize them to coin money.'

9964

The necessity of this power being given to the central government exclusively, is so great; and it has so clearly been granted by the Constitution that the result is that no case directly involving this clause has ever come before the Supreme Court and very seldom has this court had occasion to refer to it even indirectly. In Fox v. Ohio this power of coining money is de

64 Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Peters, 257.

655 Howard, 410.

fined as "the faculty in Congress of coining and stamping the standard of value upon what the government creates or shall adopt." Under the power to coin money and regulate its value, Congress may issue coins of the same denomination as those already current by law, but of less intrinsic value than those, by reason of containing a less weight of the precious metals.""

The power of Congress to give the legal character to notes issued by the United States government has been considered already under the power to borrow money.

[ocr errors]

$147. Fixing the standard of weights and measures.— Congress has in the past largely neglected the power given it to "fix the standard of weights and measures.' It has never attempted to make a uniform system of weights and measures obligatory, the farthest it has ever gone in this respect being to legalize the metric system by an Act of July 28, 1866. The effect of granting this power to Congress, has been held, however, to take from the states the power of legislating on this subject. The correctness of such a view is doubtful.

67

§ 148. Punishment for counterfeiting.—Clause 6. (The Congress shall have power-) "To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States:" This clause is probably unnecessary. The power to coin money carries with it the power to protect such coinage by punishing its counterfeiting. Especially would this be true. under the liberal interpretation of the implied powers of Congress given in McCulloch v. Maryland, and since followed. "The power of coining money and of regulating its value was delegated to Congress by the Constitution for the very purpose, as assigned by the framers of that instrument, of creating and preserving the uniformity and purity of such a standard of value; and on account of the impossibility which was foreseen of otherwise preventing the inequalities and the confusion necessarily incident to different views of policy, which in different communities would be brought to bear on this subject. The powers to coin money being thus given to Congress founded on public Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U.

S. 421, 449.

67 The Miamtinome, 3 Wall. (C. C.) 46, 17 Fed. Cas. No. 49, 521.

necessity, it must carry with it the correlative power of protecting the creature and object of that power. It cannot be imputed to wise and practical statesmen, nor is it consistent with common sense, that they should have vested this high and exclusive authority, and with a view to objects partaking of the magnitude of the authority itself, only to be rendered immediately vain and useless, as must have been the case had the government been left disabled and impotent as to the only means of securing the objects in contemplation." Under this clause Congress has power to punish persons who bring into the United States counterfeit money, and also those who counterfeit notes of foreign banks.70 This last power probably belongs to Congress under the power to define and punish "offenses against the laws of nations." This clause does not prevent the States from passing laws for the punishment of the crime of circulating counterfeit coin of the United States within the State; the two offenses of counterfeiting the coin, and passing counterfeit money, are essentially different in their character.71

[ocr errors]

§ 149. Post offices and post roads.-Clause 7: (Congress shall have power) "To establish post-offices and post roads."

The words here used are inadequate to express the true meaning of this clause and have always been given a very liberal interpretation. It has been said in relation to this clause: "To create and regulate the entire postal system in the country is the evident intent."72

"In carrying out this principal power, the mail operations of the United States are regulated. Postmasters are appointed and their duties prescribed; mail contracts are made and carriers of mail regulated; provisions are made for the punishment of depredations on the mail. These powers are incident to the main power."

2973

The power to establish post-roads means to designate routes for the mails which may be over any existing lines of travel.

[blocks in formation]

74

Congress does not have power, however, to construct new roads or bridges to be used as post-roads. Carriages carrying United States mail are exempt from the payment of toll on any toll roads.75

Congress has the power to determine what matter may be carried through the mail.76 It may also determine to whom mail may be delivered, and prohibit the delivery of any letters to such persons or corporations as in its judgment are making use of the mails for the purpose of fraud or deception, or for the dissemination of information of a character calculated to debauch the public morality. " This latter power is one of the most arbitrary ever given to any department of the United States Government, and one which, although generally used for the public good, has in some instances been badly abused.

77

Congress can forbid letters or literature in aid of any lottery scheme to be carried through the mails, even if the lottery is legal in the State where it is located ;78 and it may provide suitable penalties for any one sending such prohibited matter through the mail."

The powers conferred are not confined to the instrumentalities in use when the constitution was adopted. Congress in the exercise of its powers should keep pace with the progress of the country and adopt the regulations to the development of time. and circumstances, since the powers were conferred for the government of business for all time and under all circumstances. Congress, therefore, may establish telegraph lines, and in this is not limited in its operation to such military and post-roads as are on the public domain.80

The most extreme application of the power conferred by this section occurred in 1894, when in the decision in re Debs81 the

[blocks in formation]
« iepriekšējāTurpināt »