''Hepburn v. Griswold'', 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 603 (1870), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case in which the Chief Justice of the United States,

Salmon P. Chase Salmon Portland Chase (January 13, 1808May 7, 1873) was an American politician and jurist who served as the sixth chief justice of the United States. He also served as the 23rd governor of Ohio, represented Ohio in the United States Senate, a ...

, speaking for the Court, declared certain parts of the Legal Tender Acts to be unconstitutional. Specifically, making

United States Notes A United States Note, also known as a Legal Tender Note, is a type of paper money that was issued from 1862 to 1971 in the U.S. Having been current for 109 years, they were issued for longer than any other form of U.S. paper money. They were k ...

legal tender was unconstitutional. The

lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...

originated when one Mrs. Hepburn attempted to pay a debt to Henry Griswold on a

promissory note A promissory note, sometimes referred to as a note payable, is a legal instrument (more particularly, a financing instrument and a debt instrument), in which one party (the ''maker'' or ''issuer'') promises in writing to pay a determinate sum of ...

, which was made five days prior to the issuance of United States Notes that the case questioned. Griswold sued Hepburn in the

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

Chancery Court The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equ ...

on the note and refused Hepburn's tender of United States Notes to satisfy his claim. She then tendered the notes into the Chancery Court, which declared her debt satisfied. The Court of Errors of Kentucky reversed the chancery court's judgment, and Hepburn appealed to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the judgment of the Court of Errors. The Supreme Court found that the

US federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a f ...

was authorized to coin money, but that power was distinct from the power to make paper

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...

, which was not authorized under the

US Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...

. It also found that the treatment of notes as legal tender represented an impairment to enforcing the obligations of contracts. The Constitution prohibits the several states from impairing the obligations of contracts. The Court found no similar constraint upon the federal government, but it held that such an impairment would violate the spirit of the Constitution. The dissenting opinion argued that the government was threatened by the war and that making the notes legal tender provided the government with the necessary supplies to continue to fight the war. The majority opinion affirmed that the government holds the power to wage war but that making notes legal tender was not a necessary consequence of that power. It continued that making United States Notes legal tender was unnecessary to fighting a war. All that the federal government needed to do was to make them "receivable for government dues". That argument is similar to the theory of

chartalism In macroeconomics, chartalism is a heterodox theory of money that argues that money originated historically with states' attempts to direct economic activity rather than as a spontaneous solution to the problems with barter or as a means with whi ...

. The majority opinion was explicitly overruled by ''

Knox v. Lee ''Knox v. Lee'', 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) 457 (1871), was an important case for its time in which the Supreme Court of the United States overruled ''Hepburn v. Griswold''.. In ''Knox v. Lee'', the Court held that making paper money legal tender through ...

'' and other

Legal Tender Cases The ''Legal Tender Cases'' were two 1871 United States Supreme Court cases that affirmed the constitutionality of paper money. The two cases were '' Knox v. Lee'' and '' Parker v. Davis''. The U.S. federal government had issued paper money known ...

, , in which Chase dissented.

External links

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Summary of ''Hepburn v. Griswold'' at Teogatha Law
{{Money and central banking within the contemporary United States (pre–1913) United States Constitution Article One case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Chase Court Overruled United States Supreme Court decisions 1870 in United States case law Banknotes of the United States History of Louisville, Kentucky

See also

Further reading

External links