Acting upon the same views, congress took measures for the establishment of a mint, exercising thereby the power to coin money, and has continued to exercise the same power, in the same way, until the present day. It established the dollar as the money unit, determined the quantity and quality of gold and silver of which each coin should consist, and prescribed the denominations and forms of all coins to be issued. Until recently no one in congress ever suggested that that body possessed power to make anything else a standard of value. Statesmen who have disagreed widely on other points have agreed in the opinion that the only constitutional measures of value are metallic coins, struck as regulated by the authority of congress. Mr. Webster expressed not only his opinion but the universal and settled conviction of the country when he said: "Most unquestionably there is no legal tender, and there can be no legal tender in this country, under the authority of this government or any other, but gold and silver, either the coinage of our mints or foreign coin at rates regulated by congress. This is a constitutional principle, perfectly plain and of the very highest importance. The states are prohibited from making anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, and although no such express prohibition is applied to congress, _yet as congress has no power granted to it in this respect but to coin money and regulate the value of foreign coin_, it clearly has no power to substitute paper or anything else for coin as a tender in payment of debts and in discharge of contracts." And this court, in _Gwin_ v. _Breedlove_, said: "_By the constitution of the United States gold and silver coin_ made current by law _can only be tendered_ in payment of debts." And in _The United States_ v. _Marigold_, this court, speaking of the trust and duty of maintaining a uniform and pure metallic standard of uniform value throughout the Union, said: "The power of coining money and 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_." The present majority of the court say that legal tender notes "have become the universal measure of values," and they hold that the legislation of congress, substituting such measures for coin by making the notes a legal tender in payment, is warranted by the constitution. But if the plain sense of words, if the contemporaneous exposition of parties, if common consent in understanding, if the opinions of courts avail anything in determine the meaning of the constitution, it seems impossible to doubt that the power to coin money is a power to establish a uniform standard of value, and that no other power to establish such a standard, by making notes a legal tender, is conferred upon congress by the constitution.