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 the coinage clauses of the Constitution, including the prohibition on the States. Webster also found it in the power to regulate commerce. Chase, C. J., in 12 Wall. 574, 575, puts the power to emit bills on the borrowing clause, and the power to regulate commerce; and as to the power to exclude from circulation all but government notes, he says that it “might perhaps be deduced from the power to regulate the value of coin”; and that “this was the doctrine of the Veazie Bank v. Fenno, although not fully elaborated in that case.”

Now, in furnishing the currency, what may the government do with it? Why may it not, as a question of legal power, make it do the full and usual office of money; that is, make the tender of it the legal equivalent of a tender of metallic money? If, as we see reason to believe, this was not prohibited, and not inconsistent with any provisions of the Constitution; and if, at the same time, it was a power which had been frequently exercised by those legislative bodies with which the framers of the instrument were most familiar, and was generally deemed by them to go along with that power of furnishing a paper currency, which they did confer upon Congress; if, like the power of conferring upon coin the legal-tender quality, it be a power which naturally, and according to the usage of nations, is included in that complete