Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/237

 CH. XXXIII.] of common circulation. It would be preposterous to suppose, that the constitution meant solemnly to prohibit an issue under one denomination, leaving the power complete to issue the same thing under another. It can never be seriously contended, that the constitution means to prohibit names, and not things; to deal with shadows, and to leave substances. What would be the consequence of such a construction? That a very important act, big with great and ruinous mischief, and on that account forbidden by words the most appropriate for its description, might yet be performed by the substitution of a name. That the constitution, even in one of its vital provisions, might be openly evaded by giving a new name to an old thing. Call the thing a bill of credit, and it is prohibited. Call the same thing a certificate, and it is constitutional.

§ 1359. But it has been contended recently, that a bill of credit, in the sense of the constitution, must be such a one, as is, by the law of the state, made a legal tender. But the constitution itself furnishes no countenance to this distinction. The prohibition is general; it extends to all bills of credit, not to bills of a particular description. And surely no one in such a case is at liberty to interpose a restriction, which the words neither require, nor justify. Such a construction is the less admissible, because there is in the same clause