On 3 March, 1825, Congress passed an Act, 4 Stat. 121, providing
for the punishment of persons who shall bring into the United
States, with intent to pass, any false, forged, or counterfeited
coin, and also for the punishment of persons who shall pass, utter,
publish, or sell any such false, forged, or counterfeited coin.
Congress had the constitutional power to pass this law. Under
the power to regulate commerce, Congress can exclude, either
partially or wholly, any subject falling within the legitimate
sphere of commercial regulation, and under the power to coin money
and regulate the value thereof Congress can protect the creature
and object of that power.
The doctrines asserted by this Court in the case of
Fox v. State of
Ohio, 5 How. 433 are not inconsistent with that now
maintained.
The record in the case is so very short that the whole of it may
be inserted.
"UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"
"
Northern District of New York, ss."
"At a circuit court of the United States begun and held at
Albany for the Northern District of New York, in the Second
circuit, on the third Tuesday of October, in the year of our Lord
1848, and in the seventy-third year of American Independence."
"Present, the Honorable Samuel Nelson and Alfred Conking,
Esquires."
"
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. PETER MARIGOLD"
"
State of the Pleadings"
"This is an indictment against the defendant, charging him,
under the twentieth section of the act of Congress entitled 'An act
more effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes
against the United States, and for other purposes,' approved March
3, 1825 --"
"1st. With having brought into the United States, from a foreign
place, with intent to pass, utter, publish, and sell as true,
certain false, forged, and counterfeit coins, made, forged, and
counterfeited in the resemblance and similitude of certain gold and
silver coins of the United States, coined at the mint, he knowing
the same to be false, forged, and counterfeit, and intending
thereby to defraud divers persons unknown."
"2d. With having uttered, published, and passed such counterfeit
coins, with intent to defraud &c. "
Page 50 U. S. 561
"To this indictment the defendant demurs, and George W. Clinton,
attorney of the United States for the said district, who prosecutes
in this behalf, joins in demurrer."
"This cause coming on to be argued at this term, the following
questions occurred:"
"1st. Whether Congress, under and by the Constitution, had power
and authority to enact so much of the said twentieth section of the
said act as relates to bringing into the United States counterfeit
coins."
"2d. Whether Congress, under and by virtue of the Constitution,
had power to enact so much of the said twentieth section as relates
to uttering, publishing, passing, and selling of the counterfeit
coins therein specified."
"On which said several questions the opinions of the judges were
opposed."
"Whereupon, on motion of the said attorney, prosecuting for the
United States in this behalf, that the points on which the
disagreement has happened may, during the term, be stated under the
direction of the judges, and certified under the seal of the court
to the supreme court, to be finally decided -- it is ordered that
the foregoing state of the pleadings and statement of the points
upon which the disagreement has happened, which is made under the
direction of the judges, be certified, according to the request of
the attorney, prosecuting as aforesaid, and the law in that case
made and provided."
The case came up to this Court upon this certificate.
The clauses in the Constitution of the United States and the act
of Congress were the following.
By the fifth and sixth clauses of the eighth section of the
first Article of the Constitution, it is declared that Congress
shall have power, among other things, "to coin money, regulate the
value thereof and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights
and measures"; "to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the
securities and current coin of the United States." 1 Stat. 14.
By the twentieth section of the Crimes act of 3 March, 1825 4
Stat. 121, it is enacted
"That if any person or persons shall falsely make, forge, or
counterfeit, or cause or procure to be falsely made, forged, or
counterfeited, or willingly aid or assist in falsely making,
forging, or counterfeiting, any coin in the resemblance or
similitude of the gold or silver coin which has been, or hereafter
may be, coined at the mint of the United States, or in the
resemblance or similitude of any foreign gold or silver coin which
by the law now is or hereafter
Page 50 U. S. 562
may be made, current in the United States, or shall pass, utter,
publish, or sell, or attempt to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or
bring into the United States from any foreign place with intent to
pass, utter, publish, or sell, as true, any such false, forged, or
counterfeited coin, knowing the same to be false, forged, or
counterfeited, with intent to defraud any body politic or
corporate, or any other person or persons whatsoever; every person
so offending shall be deemed guilty of felony, and shall on
conviction thereof be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand
dollars, and by imprisonment and confinement to hard labor not
exceeding ten years, according to the aggravation of the offense.
"
Page 50 U. S. 565
MR. JUSTICE DANIEL delivered the opinion of the Court.
The case is clearly and succinctly stated in the following
abstract from the record:
"At a Circuit Court of the United States, begun and held at
Albany, for the Northern District of New York, in the Second
circuit, on the third Tuesday of October, in the year of our Lord
1848, and in the seventy-third year of American Independence."
"Present, the Honorable Samuel Nelson and Alfred Conkling,
Esquires."
"
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. PETER MARIGOLD"
"
State of the Pleadings"
"This is an indictment against the defendant charging him, under
the twentieth section of the Act of Congress entitled 'An act more
effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes against
the United States, and for other purposes,' approved March 3, 1825
-- "
Page 50 U. S. 566
"1st. With having brought into the United States, from a foreign
place, with intent to pass, utter, publish, and sell as true,
certain false, forged, and counterfeit coins, made, forged, and
counterfeited in the resemblance and similitude of certain gold and
silver coins of the United States, coined at the mint, he knowing
the same to be false, forged, and counterfeit, and intending
thereby to defraud divers persons unknown."
"2d. With having uttered, published, and passed such counterfeit
coins, with intent to defraud &c."
"To this indictment the defendant demurs, and George W. Clinton,
attorney of the United States for the said district, who prosecutes
in this behalf, joins in demurrer."
"This cause coming on to be argued at this term, the following
questions occurred:"
"First. Whether Congress, under and by the Constitution, had
power and authority to enact so much of the said twentieth section
of the said act as relates to bringing into the United States
counterfeit coins."
"Second. Whether Congress, under and by virtue of the
Constitution, had power to enact so much of the said twentieth
section as relates to uttering, publishing, passing, and selling of
the counterfeit coins therein specified."
"On which said several questions, the opinions of the judges
were opposed."
"Whereupon, on motion of the said attorney, prosecuting for the
United States in this behalf, that the points on which the
disagreement has happened may, during the term be stated under the
direction of the judges, and certified under the seal of the court
to the supreme court, to be finally decided -- it is ordered, that
the foregoing state of the pleadings, and statement of the points
upon which the disagreement has happened, which is made under the
direction of the judges, be certified, according to the request of
the attorney, prosecuting as aforesaid, and the law in that case
made and provided."
The inquiry first propounded upon this record points obviously
to the answer which concedes to Congress the power here drawn in
question. Congress are, by the Constitution, vested with the power
to regulate commerce with foreign nations; and however, at periods
of high excitement, an application of the terms "to regulate
commerce" such as would embrace absolute prohibition may have been
questioned, yet, since the passage of the embargo and
nonintercourse laws, and the repeated judicial sanctions those
statutes have received, it can scarcely, at this day, be open to
doubt, that every subject falling within the legitimate sphere of
commercial regulation
Page 50 U. S. 567
may be partially or wholly excluded, when either measure shall
be demanded by the safety or by the important interests of the
entire nation. Such exclusion cannot be limited to particular
classes or descriptions of commercial subjects; it may embrace
manufactures, bullion, coin, or any other thing. The power once
conceded, it may operate on any and every subject of commerce to
which the legislative discretion may apply it.
But the twentieth section of the Act of Congress of March 3,
1825, or rather those provisions of that section brought to the
view of this Court by the second question certified, are not
properly referable to commercial regulations merely as such, nor to
considerations of ordinary commercial advantage. They appertain
rather to the execution of an important trust invested by the
Constitution, and to the obligation to fulfill that trust on the
part of the government -- namely the trust and the duty of creating
and maintaining a uniform and pure metallic standard of value
throughout the Union. The power of coining money and of regulating
its value was delegated to Congress by the Constitution for the
very purpose, as assigned by the framers of that instrument, of
creating and preserving the uniformity and purity of such a
standard of value, and on account of the impossibility which was
foreseen of otherwise preventing the inequalities and the confusion
necessarily incident to different views of policy, which in
different communities would be brought to bear on this subject. The
power to coin money being thus given to Congress, founded on public
necessity, it must carry with it the correlative power of
protecting the creature and object of that power. It cannot be
imputed to wise and practical statesmen, nor is it consistent with
common sense, that they should have vested this high and exclusive
authority, and with a view to objects partaking of the magnitude of
the authority itself, only to be rendered immediately vain and
useless, as must have been the case had the government been left
disabled and impotent as to the only means of securing the objects
in contemplation.
If the medium which the government was authorized to create and
establish could immediately be expelled and substituted by one it
had neither created, estimated, nor authorized -- one possessing no
intrinsic value -- then the power conferred by the Constitution
would be useless -- wholly fruitless of every end it was designed
to accomplish. Whatever functions Congress are by the Constitution
authorized to perform they are, when the public good requires it,
bound to perform, and on this principle, having emitted a
circulating medium, a standard of value
Page 50 U. S. 568
indispensable for the purposes of the community, and for the
action of the government itself, they are accordingly authorized
and bound in duty to prevent its debasement and expulsion, and the
destruction of the general confidence and convenience, by the
influx and substitution of a spurious coin in lieu of the
constitutional currency. We admit that the clause of the
Constitution authorizing Congress to provide for the punishment of
counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States
does not embrace within its language the offense of uttering or
circulating spurious or counterfeited coin the term counterfeit,
both by its etymology and common intendment, signifying the
fabrication of a false image or representation; nor do we think it
necessary or regular to seek the foundation of the offense of
circulating spurious coin, or for the origin of the right to punish
that offense, either in the section of the statute before quoted,
or in this clause of the Constitution. We trace both the offense
and the authority to punish it to the power given by the
Constitution to coin money, and to the correspondent and necessary
power and obligation to protect and to preserve in its purity this
constitutional currency for the benefit of the nation. Whilst we
hold it a sound maxim that no powers should be conceded to the
federal government which cannot be regularly and legitimately found
in the charter of its creation, we acknowledge equally the
obligation to withhold from it no power or attribute which, by the
same charter, has been declared necessary to the execution of
expressly granted powers and to the fulfillment of clear and well
defined duties.
It has been argued that the doctrines ruled in the case of
Fox v. State of Ohio are in conflict with the positions
just stated in the case before us. We can perceive no such
conflict, and think that any supposition of the kind must flow from
a misapprehension of one or of both of these cases. The case of
Fox v. State of Ohio involved no question whatsoever as to
the powers of the federal government to coin money and regulate its
value, nor as to the power of that government to punish the offense
of importing or circulating spurious coin, nor as to its power to
punish for counterfeiting the current coin of the United States.
That case was simply a prosecution for a private cheat practiced by
one citizen of Ohio upon another within the jurisdiction of the
state by means of a base coin in the similitude of a dollar -- an
offense denounced by the law of Ohio as obnoxious to punishment by
confinement in the state Penitentiary. And the question, and the
only one, brought up for the examination of this Court was whether
this private cheat could be punished by the state authorities, on
account of
Page 50 U. S. 569
the immediate instrument of its perpetration having been a base
coin in the similitude of a dollar of the coinage of the United
States.
The stress of the argument of this Court in that case was to
show that the right of the state to punish that cheat had not been
taken from her by the express terms nor by any necessary
implication of the Constitution. It claimed for the state neither
the power to coin money nor to regulate the value of coin, but
simply that of protecting her citizens against frauds committed
upon them within her jurisdiction and indeed, as a means auxiliary
thereto, of relying upon the true standard of the coin as
established and regulated under the authority of Congress. In
illustration of the existence of the right just mentioned in the
state, and in order merely to show that it had not been taken from
her, it was said that the punishment of such a cheat did not fall
within the express language of those clauses of the Constitution
which gave to Congress the right of coining money and of regulating
its value or of providing for the punishment of counterfeiting the
current coin. It was also said by this Court that the fact of
passing or putting off a base coin did not fall within the language
of those clauses of the Constitution, for this fact fabricated,
altered, or changed nothing, but left the coins, whether genuine or
spurious, precisely as before. But this Court has nowhere said that
an offense cannot be committed against the coin or currency of the
United States or against that constitutional power which is
exclusively authorized for public uses to create that currency and
which for the same public uses and necessities is authorized and
bound to preserve it, nor has it said that the debasement of the
coin would not be as effectually accomplished by introducing and
throwing into circulation a currency which was spurious and
simulated, as it would be by actually making counterfeits --
fabricating coin of inferior or base metal. On the contrary, we
think that either of these proceedings would be equally in
contravention of the right and of the obligation appertaining to
the government to coin money, and to protect and preserve it at the
regulated or standard rate of value.
With the view of avoiding conflict between the state and federal
jurisdictions, this Court, in the case of
Fox v. State of
Ohio, has taken care to point out that the same act might, as
to its character and tendencies and the consequences it involved,
constitute an offense against both the state and federal
governments, and might draw to its commission the penalties
denounced by either, as appropriate to its character in reference
to each. We think this distinction sound, as we hold
Page 50 U. S. 570
to be the entire doctrines laid down in the case above
mentioned, and regard them as being in no wise in conflict with the
conclusions adopted in the present case.
We therefore order it to be certified to the Circuit Court
of the United States for the Northern District of New York, in
answer to the questions propounded by that court:
1st. That Congress had power and authority, under the
Constitution, to enact so much of the twentieth section of the Act
of March 3, 1825, entitled "An act more effectually to provide for
the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and for
other purposes," as relates to bringing into the United States
counterfeit coins.
2d. That Congress, under and by virtue of the Constitution,
had power to enact so much of the said twentieth section as relates
to the uttering, publishing, passing, and selling of the
counterfeit coin therein specified.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern
District of New York, and on the points or questions on which the
judges of the said circuit court were opposed in opinion, and which
were certified to this Court for its opinion, agreeably to the act
of Congress in such case made and provided, and was argued by
counsel. On consideration whereof it is the opinion of this Court
1st, that Congress had power and authority under the Constitution
to enact so much of the twentieth section of the Act of 3 March,
1825, entitled "An act more effectually to provide for the
punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and for
other purposes," as relates to bringing into the United States
counterfeit coins, and 2d that Congress, under and by virtue of the
Constitution, had power to enact so much of the said twentieth
section as relates to uttering, publishing, passing, and selling of
the counterfeit coins therein specified. Whereupon it is now here
ordered and adjudged by this Court that it be so certified to the
said circuit court.
