Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/26

 18 prerogative belongs to the crown; and, in former ages, it was greatly abused; for base coin was often coined and circulated by its authority, at a value far above its intrinsic worth; and thus taxes of a burthensome nature were laid indirectly upon the people. There is great propriety, therefore, in confiding it to the legislature, not only as the more immediate representatives of the public interests, but as the more safe depositaries of the power.

§ 1114. The only question, which could properly arise under our political institutions, is, whether it should be confided to the national, or to the state government. It is manifest, that the former could alone give it complete effect, and secure a wholesome and uniform currency throughout the Union. The varying standards and regulations of the different states would introduce infinite embarrassments and vexations in the course of trade; and often subject the innocent to the grossest frauds. The evils of this nature were so extensively felt, that the power was unhesitatingly confided by the articles of confederation exclusively to the general government, notwithstanding the extraordinary jealousy, which pervades every clause of that instrument. But the concurrent power thereby reserved to the states, (as well as the want of a power to regulate the value of foreign coin,) was, under that feeble pageant of sovereignty, soon found to destroy the whole importance of the grant. The floods of depreciated paper money, with which most of the states of the Union, during the last war, as well as the revolutionary war with England, were inundated, to the dismay of the traveler and