Monopolies -- United States; Railroads and state -- United States
Support to that view may also be drawn from the last words of the clause
giving congress the unrestricted power to regulate the value of foreign
coin, as it would be difficult if not impossible to give full effect to
the standard of value prescribed by the constitution, in times of
fluctuation, if the circulating medium could be supplied by foreign
coins not subject to any congressional regulation as to their value.
Exclusive power to regulate the alloy and value of the coin struck by
their own authority, or by the authority of the states, was vested in
congress under the confederation, but the congress was prohibited from
enacting any regulation as to the value of the coins unless nine states
assented to the proposed regulation.
Subject to the power of congress to pass such regulations it is
unquestionably true that the states, under the confederation as well as
the United States, possessed the power to coin money, but the
constitution, when it was adopted, denied to the states all authority
upon the subject, and also ordained that they should not make anything
but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.
Beyond all doubt the framers of the constitution intended that the money
unit of the United States, for measuring values, should be one dollar,
as the word dollar in the plural form is employed in the body of the
constitution, and also in the seventh amendment, recommended by congress
at its first session after the constitution was adopted. Two years
before that, to-wit, July 6, 1785, the congress of the confederation
enacted that the money unit of the United States should "be one dollar,"
and one year later, to-wit, August 8, 1786, they established the
standard for gold and silver, and also provided that the money of
account of the United States should correspond with the coins
established by law.
On the 4th of March, 1789, congress first assembled under the
constitution, and proceeded without unnecessary delay to enact such laws
as were necessary to put the government in operation which the
constitution had ordained and established. Ordinances had been passed
during the confederation to organize the executive departments, and for
the establishment of a mint, but the new constitution did not perpetuate
any of those laws, and yet congress continued to legislate for a period
of three years before any new law was passed prescribing the money unit
or the money of account, either for "the public offices" or for the
courts. Throughout that period it must have been understood that those
matters were impliedly regulated by the constitution, as tariffs were
enacted, tonnage duties imposed, laws passed for the collection of
duties, the several executive departments created, and the judiciary of
the United States organized and empowered to exercise full jurisdiction
under the constitution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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