Court : US Supreme Court
..... comprehend interminable contracts is that as paper money must unavoidably cease to circulate during the continuance of the contract, the parties must have measured their agreement by a more permanent standard. page 6 u. s. 25 very great respect is certainly due to this argument, but it cannot be denied that an agreement which is to subsist for a very ..... different parts of the clause with each other. but although the counsel for the appellee may not have established the literal construction for which they insist, yet so much weight is admitted to be in the argument that if they succeed in showing the case to be out of the mischief intended to be guarded against or out of ..... be completely fulfilled and from which the debtors or contractors may, in the language of the law, "be forever discharged." it will not be denied that there is much weight in this argument, but it does not appear to the court to be strictly correct. in searching for the literal construction of an act, it would seem to be .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... the preservation of the same, agreeably to the plan of the said city; to provide for the safe keeping of the standard of weights and measures fixed by congress, and for the regulation of all weights and measures used in the city; to provide page 19 u. s. 273 for the licensing and regulating the sweeping of ..... would justify the withdrawal of a judgment rendered in a state court on the constitution, laws, or treaties of the united states from this appellate jurisdiction. great weight has always been attached, and very rightly attached, to contemporaneous exposition. no question, it is believed, has arisen to which this principle applies more unequivocally than ..... provisions, the gauging of casks and liquors, the storage of gunpowder, and all naval and military stores, not the property of the united states, to regulate the weight and quality of bread, to tax and license hawkers and peddlers, to restrain or prohibit tippling houses, lotteries, and all kinds of gaming, to superintend the health .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority or by that of the respective states; fixing the standard of weight and measures throughout the united states; regulating the trade and management of all affairs with the indians, not members of any of the states: provided that the legislative right ..... question. the response must be, so far as the punishment of the plaintiff in error is concerned, in favour of the one or the other. not to feel the full weight of this momentous subject would evidence an ignorance of that high responsibility which is devolved upon this tribunal, and upon its humblest member, in giving a decision in this case .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... articles of confederation, as to coin money, regulate the value thereof, borrow money on the credit of the united states, fix the standard of weights and measures, and numerous others apparent on inspection. as the constitution was intended to be a supreme fundamental law and bond of union for ages to come, ..... united states," the terms used were such as had been long defined, well understood in policy, legislation, and jurisprudence, and capable of being referred to some authoritative standard meaning; otherwise the constitution would be open to such a construction of its terms as might be found in any history of a colony, a state, or their ..... with the meaning given to the term by themselves, while members of congress, before as well as after the adoption of the constitution, rather than any other standard of interpretation to be found elsewhere. these reasons are strengthened by a reference to other parts of the constitution, the terms of which are copied from the .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... eighth section of the first article of the constitution of the united states, viz., "1 to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures "; "to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the united states" does not prevent a state from passing a law to punish the ..... think it manifest that the language of the constitution, by its proper signification, is limited to the facts, or to the faculty in congress of coining and of stamping the standard of value upon what the government creates or shall adopt and of punishing the offense of producing a false representation of what may have been so created or adopted. the .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... constitution, it is declared that congress shall have power, among other things, "to coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures"; "to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the united states." 1 stat. 14. by the twentieth section of ..... 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, ..... the constitution authorized to perform they are, when the public good requires it, bound to perform, and on this principle, having emitted a circulating medium, a standard of value page 50 u. s. 568 indispensable for the purposes of the community, and for the action of the government itself, they are accordingly authorized and .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... and proper mode of operation and effect of the trial by jury, the language of lord coke should ever be kept in mind as furnishing the true and only true standard by which to measure this valuable institution. after giving his derivation of the terms "verdict" and "judgment," page 54 u. s. 144 this great common lawyer proceeds, ..... opposition to this authoritative declaration and influence of the court. nay, page 54 u. s. 142 it may be insisted that if the court, in passing upon the weight of the evidence, was acting within its legitimate sphere, the counsel would have been justly obnoxious to the imputation of indecorum, if not of contempt, in assailing before ..... it was executed. the case of captain gambier, to which we have just referred, is directly in point upon this question. and upon principle, independent of the weight of judicial decision, it can never be maintained that a military officer can justify himself for doing an unlawful act by producing the order of his superior. the order .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... and upon the further assumption that engagements to pay coined dollars may be regarded as ordinary contracts to pay money rather than as contracts to deliver certain weights of standard gold, it can be maintained that a contract to pay coined money may be satisfied by a tender of united states notes. is this a performance of ..... eagle should be two hundred and fifty-eight grains, and in the half-eagle and quarter-eagle, respectively, one-half and one-quarter of that weight precisely; and that the weight of standard silver should be in the dollar four hundred twelve and a half grains, and in the half-dollar, quarter-dollar, dimes, and half-dimes, exactly ..... treasurer, and by the treasurer to depositors, was still further narrowed. with these and other precautions against the emission of any piece inferior in weight or purity to the prescribed standard, it was thought safe to make the gold and silver coins of the united states legal tender in all payments according to their nominal or declared .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... a legal tender for debts contracted prior to its enactment a law of the description stated in the rule?" it is not doubted that the power to establish a standard of value by which all other values may be measured -- or in other words, to determine what shall be lawful money and a legal tender -- is in ..... incidental to, the power to regulate the value of coined money of the united states, or of foreign coins. this power of regulation is a power to determine the weight, purity, form, impression, and denomination of the several coins and their relation to each other, and the relations of foreign coins to the monetary unit of the ..... promises to pay impressed upon paper, prepared in convenient form for circulation and protected against counterfeiting by suitable devices and penalties. the former possess intrinsic value determined by the weight and fineness of the metal; the latter have no intrinsic value, but a purchasing value, determined by the page 75 u. s. 608 quantity in circulation, by .....
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
..... in most commercial transactions and the pound troy "for weighing gold and silver and precious stones, except diamonds." [ footnote 4/23 ] unrestricted power "to fix the standard of weights and measures" is vested in congress, but until recently congress had not enacted any general regulations in execution of that power. [ footnote 4/24 ] regulations upon the ..... blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity. associated as the grant to coin money and regulate the value thereof is with the grant to fix the standard of weights and measures, the conclusion, when that fact is properly weighed in connection with the words of the grant, is irresistible that the purpose of the ..... of power, admitting of very little discretion in its exercise, and is not equivalent, except to a very limited extent, to the power to fix the standard of weights and measures, as the money authorized by that clause of the constitution is coined money, and as a necessary consequence must be money of actual value, .....
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