Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/229

 CH. XXXIII.] paper money on the necessary confidence between man and man; on the necessary confidence in the public councils; on the industry and morals of the people; and on the character of republican government, constitutes an enormous debt against the states, chargeable with this unadvised measure, which must long remain unsatisfied; or rather an accumulation of guilt, which can be expiated no otherwise, than by a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of justice of the power, which has been the instrument of it. In addition to these persuasive considerations, it may be observed, that the same reasons, which show the necessity of denying to the states the power of regulating coin, prove with equal force, that they ought not to be at liberty to substitute a paper medium, instead of coin. Had every state a right to regulate the value of its coin, there might be as many different currencies, as states; and thus the intercourse among them would be impeded. Retrospective alterations in its value might be made; and thus the citizens of other states be injured, and animosities be kindled among the states themselves. The subjects of foreign powers might suffer from the same cause; and hence the Union be discredited and embroiled by the indiscretion of a single member. No one of these mischiefs is less incident to a power in the states to emit paper money, than to coin gold or silver.

§ 1353. The evils attendant upon the issue of paper money by the states after the peace of 1783, here spoken of, are equally applicable, and perhaps apply with even