or substance, came only to this: that the Chief-Justice
brought into the Senate, under his judicial robes, no concealed weapons
of party warfare, and that he had not plucked from the Bible, on which
he took and administered the judicial oath, the commandment for its
observance.

Not long after Mr. Chase's accession to the bench there came before the
court a question, in substance and in form, as grave and difficult as
any that its transcendent jurisdiction over the validity of the
legislation of Congress, has ever presented, or, in any forecast we can
make of the future, will ever present for its judgment; I mean the
constitutionality of that feature and quality of the issues of United
States notes during the war, which made them a legal tender for the
satisfaction of private debts. This measure was one of the great
administrative expedients for marshaling the wealth of the country, as
rapidly, as equally, and as healthfully, to the energies of production
and industry, as might be, and so as seasonably to meet the
immeasurable demands of the public service, in the stress of the war.
That it was debated and adopted, with full cognizance of its critical
character, and with extreme solicitude that all its bearings should be
thoroughly explored, and upon the same peremptory considerations, upon
which the master of a ship cuts away a mast or jettisons cargo, or the
surgeon amputates a limb, was a matter of history. Mr. Chase, as
Secretary of the Treasury, with a reluctance and repugnance which
enhanced the weight of his counsels, approved the measure, as one of
necessity for the fiscal operations of the Government, which knew no
other seasonable or adequate recourse. Upon this imposing and
authoritative advice of the financial minister, the legal-tender trait
of the paper issues of the Government was adopted by Congress, and
without his sanction, presumptively, it would have been denied.

And now, when, after repeated argument at the bar, and long
deliberations of the court, the decision was announced, the determining
opinion of the Chief-Justice, in an equal division of the six associate
justices, pronounced the legal-tender acts unconstitutional, as not
within the discretion of the political departments of the Government,
Congress, and the Executive, to determine this very question of the
necessity of the juncture, as justifying their enactment.

The singularity of the situation struck everybody, and greatly divided
pu