Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/240

 232 of 24 Geo. 2, ch. 53, is equally strong on this point. It prohibited any of the New-England colonies from issuing any new paper bills, or "bills of credit," except upon the emergencies pointed out in the act; and required those colonies to call in, and redeem all the outstanding bills. It then proceeded to declare, that after September, 1751, no "paper currency or bills of credit," issued, or created in any of those colonies, should be a legal tender, with a proviso, that nothing therein contained should be construed to extend to make any of the bills, then subsisting, a legal tender.

§ 1362. Another suggestion has been made; that paper currency, which has a fund assigned for its redemption by the state, which authorizes its issue, does not constitutionally fall within the description of "bills of credit." The latter words (it is said) appropriately import bills drawn on credit merely, and not bottomed upon any real or substantial fund for their redemption; and there is a material, and well known distinction between a bill drawn upon a fund, and one drawn upon credit only. In confirmation of this reasoning, it has been said, that the emissions of paper money by the states, previous to the adoption of the constitution, were, properly speaking, bills of credit, not being bottomed upon any fund constituted for their redemption, but resting solely, for that purpose, upon the credit of the state issuing the same. But this argument has been deemed unsatisfactory in its own nature, and not sustained by historical facts. All bills issued by a state, whether special funds are assigned for the redemption of them or not, are in feet issued on the credit of the state. If these funds should from any cause fail, the bills would be still payable by the state.