Assume that the views here expressed are correct, and it matters not whether the contract was made before or after the act of congress was passed, as it necessarily follows that congress cannot, under any circumstances, make paper promises, of any kind, a legal tender in payment of debts. Prior to the decision just pronounced it is conceded that the second question presented in the record was never determined by this court, except as it is involved in the first question, but it is admitted by the majority of the court that the first question, that is the question whether the acts under consideration are constitutional as to contracts made before their passage, was fully presented in the case of _Hepburn_ v. _Griswold_, and that the court decided that an act of congress making mere paper promises to pay dollars a legal tender in payment of debts previously contracted is unconstitutional and void. Admitted or not, it is as clear as anything in legal decision can be that the judgment of the court in that case controls the first question presented in the cases before the court, unless it be held that the judgment in that case was given for the wrong party and that the opinion given by the chief justice ought to be overruled. Attempt is made to show that the second question is an open one, but the two, in my judgment, involve the same considerations, as congress possesses no other power upon the subject than that which is derived from the grant to coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin. By that remark it is not meant to deny the proposition that congress in executing the express grants may not pass all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying the same into execution, as provided in another clause of the same section of the constitution. Much consideration of that topic is not required, as the discussion was pretty nearly exhausted by the chief justice in the case of _Hepburn_ v. _Griswold_, which arose under the same act and in which he gave the opinion. In that case the contract bore date prior to the passage of the law, and he showed conclusively that it could never be necessary and proper, within the meaning of the constitution, that congress, in executing any of the express powers, should pass laws to compel a creditor to accept paper promises as fulfilling a contract for the payment of money expressed in dollars. Obviously the decision was confined to the case before the court, but I am of the opinion that the same rule must be applied whether the contract was made before or after the passage of the law, as the contract for the payment of money, expressed in dollars, is a contract to make the payment in such money as the constitution recognizes and establishes as a standard of value. Money values can no more be measured without a standard of value than distances without a standard of extent, or quantities without a standard of weights or measures, and it is as necessary that there should be a