The then minority admitted that in the powers relating to coinage, standing alone, there is not "a sufficient warrant for the exercise of the power" to make notes a legal tender, but thought them "not without decided weight, when we come to consider the question of the existence of this power as one necessary and proper for carrying into execution other admitted powers of the government." This weight they found in the fact that an "express power over the lawful money of the country was confided to congress and forbidden to the states." It seemed to them not an "unreasonable inference" that, in a certain contingency, "making the securities of the government perform the office of money in the payment of debts would be in harmony with the power expressly granted to coin money." We perceive no connection between the express power to coin money and the inference that the government may, in any contingency, make its securities perform the functions of coined money, as a legal tender in payment of debts. We have supposed that the power to exclude from circulation notes not authorized by the national government might, perhaps, be deduced from the power to regulate the value of coin; but that the power of the government to emit bills of credit was an exercise of the power to borrow money, and that its power over the currency was incidental to that power and to the power to regulate commerce. This was the doctrine of the _Veazie Bank_ v. _Fenno_, although not fully elaborated in that case. The question whether the quality of legal tender can be imparted to these bills depends upon distinct considerations. Was, then, the power to make these notes of the government--these bills of credit--a legal tender in payments an appropriate, plainly adapted means to a legitimate and constitutional end? or, to state the question as the opinion of the then minority stated it, "Does there exist any power in congress, or in the government, by express grant, in execution of which this legal tender act was necessary and proper in the sense here defined and under the circumstances of its passage?" The opinion of the then minority affirmed the power on the ground that it was a necessary and proper means, within the definition of the court, in the case of _McCulloch_ v. _Maryland_, to carry on war, and that it was not prohibited by the spirit or letter of the constitution, though it was admitted to be a law impairing the obligation of contracts, and notwithstanding the objection that it deprived many persons of their property without compensation and without due process of law. We shall not add much to what was said in the opinion of the then majority on these points. The reference made in the opinion just read, as well as in the argument at the bar, to the opinions of the chief justice, when secretary of the treasury, seems to warrant, if it does not require, some observations before proceeding further in the discussion.