State and Federal Bills of Credit, Etc. [pp. 455-485]

1853.1 Bills of Credit. 459
Secondly-because it conflicts with the spirit of the General and
State Governments, and the genius of our public institutions.
In order to estaNish the first of these po~tions, it seems essential,
in the outset, that we should seek the precise and true meaning of
the term "Bills of Credit," as used in the Constitution; and for this
purpose it becomes necessary to look somewhat into past ideas, particularly into those ideas and forms of expression relating to the
subject, existing at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, or
immediately preceding.
It has been well and pertinently said by Mr. lush cc Story, in the
dissenting opinion delivered by him in the case of Briscoe vs. The
Bank of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and in which a similar
issue was involved, (see 11th Peters, page 330,) that "the true
nature and objects of the prohibition in the Constitution of the United States, as well as its language, can properly be ascertained only
by a reference to history;-to the mischiefs existing, and which had
existed when the Constitution was formed;-and to the meaning
then attached to the phrase`Bills of Credit,' by the people of the
United States." We also find in the same volume and c~se, one of
the learned counsel for the plaintiffs in error, in reference to the same
point, saying, with no less pertinence, that "the past mischief is an
essential part of the interpretation of the future remedy." Indeed,
how could this be otherwise? Forms of language are but the outer
garments of ideas, and ideas change with the times-with the hour
that passes-through the irresistible action of physical cause-of
the unresisting laws of antecedents and consequences-of that which
%s progressively creating, or giving birth to that w~ich is to come.
Nothing-physically, morally, mentally-" abideth in one stay."
Change, as to all things, is eternal. Ideas thus momentarily assuming new characteristics, necessarily, as they arise, clothe themselves in new garbs. The philosophy of ~anguage is as simple as
the philosophy of nature, if, in truth, it be not the same. Neither
the ideas of the present time, nor their forms of expression, are
identical with those of times past. We should in vain search for
the constitutional meaning of the phrase "Bills of Credit," as used
in the Constitution, in the dictionary of idea and phrase of the present day. We might, perchance, through a dexterous and forced