United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Bank v. Supervisors, 74 U.S. 7 Wall. 26 26 (1868)

Bank v. Supervisors

74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 26

Syllabus

1. United States notes issued under the Loan and Currency Acts of 1862 and 1863, intended to circulate as money and actually constituting, with the national bank notes, the ordinary circulating medium of the country, are, moreover, obligations of the national government, and exempt from state taxation.

2. United States notes are engagements to pay dollars; and the dollars intended are coined dollars of the United States.

This case, brought here by the Bank of New York, differed from the preceding in two particulars: (1) that the board of supervisors, which in the other cases allowed and audited the claims of the banking associations, refused to allow the claim made in this case; and (2) that the exemption from state taxation claimed in this case was of United States notes, declared by act of Congress to be a legal tender for all debts, public and private, except duties on imports and interest on the public debt, while in the other cases it was of certificates of indebtedness. These United States notes, as is sufficiently known at the present, had become part of the currency of the country. Their form (with certain necessary variations for different denominations, place of payment &c) was thus:

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Page 74 U. S. 27

The mandamus in the state court was directed, in the case now before the Court, to the board of supervisors instead of to the officers authorized to issue bonds, as in the cases just preceding.

The judgment in the Court of Appeals sustained the action of the board refusing to allow the exemption set up, and the case was brought here by writ of error to that court.

Page 74 U. S. 28