on the ground that exports would be a fruitful source of revenue. 395. PREFERENCES AS TO PORTS.-The Constitution was framed on the principle that the people of the different States are entitled to equal rights and privileges; and the prohibition of any preference of the ports of one State to those of another sprang from this principle. This is in the same line as the first clause of the previous section requiring all duties, imposts, and excises to be uniform throughout the United States. 396. ENTERING AND CLEARING.-These are technical terms relating to the custom house. For a ship to enter is to report her arrival, cargo, etc., to the custom house authorities; to clear is to obtain from the same authorities the necessary papers giving her leave to sail. All ships arriving from foreign ports must enter, all ships sailing to such ports must clear; but an American vessel can visit every American port in turn without entering or clearing at one of them. This rule freed our commerce from one of the troublesome restrictions of Colonial times, and made it truly National. Section 9, Clause 7.--No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. 397. CONGRESS CONTROLS THE TREASURY.-This clause is a limitation of the Executive Department. It puts the expenditure of the public funds in the hands of Congress, just as previous clauses put the raising of funds in its hands. The statement and account of receipts and expenditures are found in the Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances. The ordinary expenses of the government are provided for annually in general appropriation bills, viz.: River and Harbor, Agricultural, Army, Navy, Consular and Diplomatic, Indian, Miliitary Academy, Post Office, Deficiency, District of Columbia, Fortifications, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, Pension, and Sundry Civil Bills. In these bills the objects for which the appropriations are made, with the particular amounts, are minutely specified. The Deficiency Bill provides for expenditures not fully met by the regular appropriations for the year before. Section 9, Clause 8.-No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States; and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. 398. TITLES OF NOBILITY AND PRESENTS.-Titles of nobility belong to aristocratical and monarchical governments, and are repugnant to a republican society and government. Mr. Hamilton called their prohibition the corner-stone of republican government. The second prohibition of the clause is intended to prevent foreign states from influencing the officers of the government by giving them gifts and titles. In former times the policy of one nation was sometimes largely controlled by another in this way. English kings once did not disdain to accept largesses from the kings of France. Presents are sometimes made by foreign powers to officers of the United States out of compliment, but they either pass into the custody of the government, or Congress gives the officers permission to receive them. The above prohibitions relate to National officers merely. In 1809 Congress proposed, but the States did not ratify, the following Amendment to the Constitution: “If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive, or retain any title of nobility or honor, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office, or emolument of any kind whatever from any emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United Slates, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them." CHAPTER XII. THE LIMITATIONS OF THE STATES. ARTICLE I. 399. REASONS FOR SUCH LIMITATIONS.-Duly to limit the States was no less important than duly to limit the Union. In 1787 the States were strong, the Union weak. States had persistently neglected to discharge their duties under the Confederation. Hence it was almost as necessary positively to deny them powers the possession of which was inconsistent with a vigorous general government, as it was to add to the powers of that government. Section 10, Clause 1.-No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility 400. REASONS FOR THE PROHIBITIONS.-If a State could enter into treaties, alliances, and confederations, and grant letters of marque and reprisal, the Nation would thereby be drawn into difficulties, and the Union would soon be broken up. The exercise by the States of such powers would make them sovereign States. In fact, nearly all of the powers enumerated in this clause were denied to the States in the Articles of Confederation. 401. BILLS OF CREDIT.-The Supreme Court has defined bills of credit as "paper issued by the sovereign power containing a pledge of its faith, and designed to circulate as money." Congress and the States issued such money in large quantities in the Revolution. The intolerable evils that these bills produced were fresh in the minds of the men who framed the Constitution; and, to prevent the recurrence of similar evils, they voted down a proposition to authorize Congress to emit bills of credit, and prohibited the States from issuing them. According to Mr. Madison, the purpose was to give Congress the power to issue bills not having the legal-tender quality, but to prohibit the States absolutely. For the States to coin money, emit bills of credit, and make anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debt, would be repugnant to the sovereignty of the Union. Besides, their exercise of these powers would introduce endless confusion into the monetary system of the country, as is well illustrated by the history of the Confederation and of the State Banks. 402. STATE BANKS.-The States chartered banks which they authorized to issue bills or notes that circulated as currency, but they did not make these bills a tender in payment of debts. The constitutionality of these banks was often questioned. Still, the Supreme Court, in 1837, decided that State-bank issues were constitutional so long as no attempt was made to make them a tender. This was denying that such bills are bills of credit. The Court said: "If the legislature of a State attempts to make the notes of any bank a tender, the act will be unconstitutional." 403. THE OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT.-Chief Justice Marshall says a contract is "an agreement in which a party undertakes to do, or not to do, a particular thing." Accordingly, it creates duties and rights between two or more parties. The obligation of a contract is its binding force or sanction upon all the parties concerned. However, this obligation does not arise unless the contract is one that the law sanctions. Thus, a man who agrees to pay money without an equivalent 11. Briscoe v. the Bank of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, 11 Peters, 257. 2 1. Briscoe v. the Bank of the Commonwealth of Peters, 257. Kentucky, 11 is not bound to pay the money, because such a contract is not binding. A law impairing the obligation of a contract is a law that weakens or destroys its binding force. Two or more men entering into a contract do so with reference to the law as it is at the time, and no law should afterward interfere with what they have done. 404 THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.-Judge Cooley says no clause of the Constitution has been more prolific of litigation, and given rise to more animated, and at times, angry controversy than this one in relation to contracts. The best known case that has arisen under it is the Dartmouth College case. The New Hampshire legislature materially changed by law the terms and conditions of the charter of Dartmouth College, granted many years before. This law the Supreme Court set aside in 1818, on the ground that the charter was a contract between the State and the College corporation, and that the law impaired it. This decision, which has since been the great bulwark of vested rights in the United States, has been somewhat modified in recent decisions. 405. NO PROHIBITION ON CONGRESS.-Congress is not prohibited from impairing contracts. It was assumed that such a prohibition was not necessary. It has been held that the Legal-Tender Acts had that effect. The argument is that contracts requiring the payment of money, existing when these acts were passed in 1862-63, were made when gold and silver only were legal money; that these contracts called for coin, or its equivalent, to satisfy them; while the acts allowed them to be satisfied with depreciated paper money. Chief Justice Chase thus reasoned in 1868, but the Supreme Court did not take that view. 406. THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.-The phrase "laws impairing the obligation of contracts" is purely technical. It is the business of the courts to declare its meaning and to adjust it to other parts of our jurisprudence. The Statute of Limitations, which exists in all English-speaking countries, declares that certain rights shall cease if they are not asserted or prosecuted within a certain time. For example, title to land, under these conditions, lapses in twenty-one years. The Supreme Court has 14 Wheaton, 518. |