note could only be discharged by payment of the amount due thereon in gold.

"2d. The petition asks the aid of this court for the reason that the petitioners tendered the amount of the note described in the petition in United States treasury notes. Such tender is not good. There is no law of this State or of the United States making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in discharge of the contract set out in the petition. This contract was entered into on the 25th day of June, 1861. The law of Congress making United States treasury notes a legal tender in payment of debts does not apply to this contract, because it was not enacted until long after this contract was entered into, to wit, on the 25th day of February, 1862. To apply this law to this contract would be to make it a retrospective law, a law impairing the obligation of contracts, in violation of the Constitution of the United States."

This demurrer was overruled by the District Court, and it was decreed that the mortgage be cancelled and satisfaction thereof entered upon the record.

The case being appealed to the Supreme Court of Iowa, the decree of the lower court was affirmed and the case was brought to this court on writ of error.

The opinion of the Supreme Court of Iowa is reported in 23 Iowa, 331, where, however, the court does not give its reasons but refers to earlier cases, from which it appears that in the view of that court the insertion in the contract of specific terms as to the medium for payment did not change or increase the obligation of the maker to pay in any medium or currency declared by law to be a legal tender in the payment of debts, and that the enactment after the execution of the contract of the statute making treasury notes a legal tender, simply provided another medium for the payment of the debt already existing, which was specified to be so many dollars of a certain currency.]

MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the court.

The principal question presented in this case for our consideration is, whether a promissory note of an individual, payable by its terms in specie, can be satisfied, against the will of the holder, by the tender of notes of the United States declared by the act of Congress of February 25th, 1862, to be a legal tender in payment of debts.

[A portion of the opinion relating to a question of jurisdiction of the court is omitted.]

We proceed, then, to consider the merits of the case. The note of the plaintiff is made payable, as already stated, in specie. The use of these terms, in specie, does not assimilate the note to an instrument in which the amount stated is payable in chattels; as, for example, to a contract to pay a specified sum in lumber, or in fruit, or grain. Such contracts are generally made because it is more convenient for the maker to furnish the articles designated than to pay

the money. He has his option of doing either at the maturity of the contract, but if he is then unable to furnish the articles or neglects to do so, the number of dollars specified is the measure of recovery. But here the terms, in specie, are merely descriptive of the kind of dollars in which the note is payable, there being different kinds in circulation, recognized by law. They mean that the designated number of dollars in the note shall be paid in so many gold or silver dollars of the coinage of the United States. They have acquired this meaning by general usage among traders, merchants, and bankers, and are the opposite of the terms, in currency, which are used when it is desired to make a note payable in paper money. These latter terms, in currency, mean that the designated number of dollars is payable in an equal number of notes which are current in the community as dollars. Taup v. Drew, 10 How. 218.

This being the meaning of the terms in specie, the case is brought directly within the decision of Bronson v. Rhodes, 7 Wall. 229, where it was held that express contracts, payable in gold or silver dollars, could only be satisfied by the payment of coined dollars, and could not be discharged by notes of the United States declared to be a legal tender in payment of debts.

The several coinage acts of Congress make the gold and silver coins of the United States a legal tender in all payments, according to their nominal or declared values. The provisions of the act of January 18th, 1837, and of March 3d, 1849, in this respect, were in force when the act of February 25th, 1862, was passed, and still remain in force. As the act of 1862 declares that the notes of the United States shall also be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of debts, and this act has been sustained, by the recent decision of this court, as valid and constitutional, we have, according to that decision, two kinds of money, essentially different in their nature, but equally lawful. It follows, from that decision, that contracts payable in either, or for the possession of either, must be equally lawful, and, if lawful, must be equally capable of enforcement. The act of 1862 itself distinguishes between the two kinds of dollars in providing for the payment in coin of duties on imports and the interest on the bonds and notes of the government. It is obvious that the requirement of coin for duties could not be complied with by the importer, nor could his necessities for the purchase of goods in a foreign market be answered, if his contracts for coin could not be specifically enforced, but could be satisfied by an offer to pay its nominal equivalent in note dollars.

The contemporaneous and subsequent legislation of Congress has distinguished between the two kinds of dollars. The act of March 17th, 1862 (12 Stat. at Large, 370), passed within one month after the passage of the first legal tender act, authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase coin with bonds or United States notes, at such rates and upon such terms as he might deem most advantageous to

the public interest, thus recognizing that the notes and the coin were not exchangeable in the market according to their legal or nominal values.

The act of March 3d, 1863 (12 Stat. at Large, 719, § 4), amending the internal revenue act, required contracts for the purchase or sale of gold or silver coin to be in writing, or printed, and signed by the parties, their agents or attorneys, and stamped; thus impliedly recognizing the validity of previous contracts of that character without this formality. The same act also contained various provisions respecting contracts for the loan of currency secured by a pledge or deposit of gold or silver coin, where the contracts were not to be performed within three days.

Legislation of a later date has required all persons making returns of income, to declare "whether the several rates and amounts therein contained are stated according to their values in legal tender currency, or according to their values in coined money," and if stated "in coined money," it is made the duty of the assessor to reduce the rates and amounts "to their equivalent in legal tender currency, according to the value of such coined money in said currency for the time covered by said returns." 14 Stat. at Large, 147.

The practice of the government has corresponded with the legisla tion we have mentioned. It has uniformly recognized in its fiscal affairs the distinction in value between paper currency and coin. Some of its loans are made payable specifically in coin, whilst others are payable generally in lawful money. It goes frequently into the money market, and at one time buys coin with currency, and at another time sells coin for currency. In its transactions it every day issues its checks, bills, and obligations, some of which are payable in gold, while others are payable simply in dollars. And it keeps its accounts of coin and currency distinct and separate.

If we look to the act of 1862, in the light of the contemporaneous and subsequent legislation of Congress, and of the practice of the government, we shall find little difficulty in holding that it was not intended to interfere in any respect with existing or subsequent contracts payable by their express terms in specie; and that when it declares that the notes of the United States shall be lawful money, and a legal tender for all debts, it means for all debts which are payable in money generally, and not obligations payable in commodities, or obligations of any other kind.

In the case of Cheang-Kee v. United States, 3 Wall. 320, a judgment for unpaid duties, payable in gold and silver coin of the United States, rendered by the Circuit Court for the District of California, was affirmed by this court.

It is evident that a judgment in any other form would often fail to secure to the United States payment in coin, which the law requires, or its equivalent. If the judgment were rendered for the payment of dollars generally it might, according to the recent deci

sion of this court, be paid in note dollars, and, if they were depreciated, the government would not recover what it was entitled to receive. If, on the other hand, the value of the coin was estimated in currency and judgment for the amount entered, the government, in case of any delay in the payment of the judgment, by appeal or otherwise, would run the risk of losing a portion of what it was entitled to receive by the intermediate fluctuations in the value of the currency. From considerations of this kind this court felt justified in sustaining the judgment of the Circuit Court for California, requiring its amount to be paid specifically in coin, as being the only mode by which the law could be fully enforced. The same reasoning justified similar judgments upon contracts that stipulated specifically for the payment of coin. The twentieth section of the act of 1792 (1 Stat. at Large, 250, § 20), establishing a mint and regulating the coins of the United States, in providing that the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, dimes, cents, and mills, and that all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept in conformity with this regulation, impliedly, if not directly, sanctions the entry of judgments in this form. The section has reference to the coins prescribed by the act, and when, by the creation of a paper currency, another kind of money, expressed by similar designations, was sanctioned by law and made a tender in payment of debts, it was necessary, as stated in Bronson v. Rhodes, to avoid ambiguity and prevent a failure of justice, to allow judgments to be entered for the payment of coined dollars, when that kind of money was specifically designated in the contracts upon which suits were brought.

It follows from the views expressed, that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Iowa must be reversed, and that court directed to remand the cause to the proper inferior court of the State for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion;

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY, dissenting.

And it is so ordered.

I dissent from the opinion of the court in this case for reasons stated in my opinion delivered in the cases of Knox v. Lee and Parker v. Davis, 12 Wall. 554. In all cases where the contract is to pay a certain sum of money of the United States, in whatever phraseology that money may be described (except cases specially exempted by law), I hold that the legal tender acts make the treasury notes a legal tender. Only in those cases in which gold and silver are stipulated for as bullion can they be demanded in specie, like any other chattel. Contracts for specie made since the legal tender acts went into operation, when gold became a commodity subject to market prices, may be regarded as contracts for bullion. all contracts for money made before the acts were passed must, in my judgment, be regarded as on the same platform. No difficulty can arise in this view of the case in sustaining all proper transactions for the purchase and sale of gold coin.

But

MR. JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting.

In the case of Bronson v. Rhodes I expressed my dissent on the ground that a contract for gold dollars, in terms, was in no respect different, in legal effect, from a contract for dollars without the qualifying words, specie or gold, and that the legal tender statutes had, therefore, the same effect in both cases.

I adhere to that opinion, and dissent from the one just delivered by the court.

BRISCOE v. THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS OF THE BANK OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY.

11 Peters, 257; 12 Curtis, 418. 1837.

M'LEAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This case is brought before this court, by a writ of error from the Court of Appeals of the State of Kentucky, under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789. 1 Stats. at Large, 85.

An action was commenced by the Bank of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, against the plaintiffs in error, in the Mercer Circuit Court of Kentucky, on a note for $2,048.37, payable to the president and directors of the bank; and the defendants filed two special pleas, in the first of which oyer was prayed of the note on which suit was brought, and they say that the plaintiff ought not to have, &c., because the note was given on the renewal of a like note, given to the said bank, and they refer to the act establishing the bank, and allege that it never received any part of the capital stock specified in the act; that the bank was authorized to issue bills of credit, on the faith of the State, in violation of the Constitution of the United States. That by various statutes the notes issued were made receivable in discharge of executions, and if not so received, the collection. of the money should be delayed, &c.; and the defendants aver that the note was given to the bank on a loan of its bills, and that the consideration, being illegal, was void.

The second plea presents, substantially, the same facts. To both the pleas a general demurrer was filed, and the court sustained the demurrer, and gave judgment in favor of the bank. This judgment was removed, by appeal, to the Court of Appeals, which is the highest court of judicature in the State, where the judgment of the Circuit Court was affirmed, and being brought before this court by writ of error, the question is presented whether the notes issued by the