of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency of the United States, and that from and after the 20th day of February next no such duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money accruing or becoming payable to the United States as aforesaid ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the legal currency of the United States.”  According to the opinion given by me as a member of your Cabinet in the month of July last, and to which I still adhere, this resolution was mandatory only as it respected the legal currency of the United States, Treasury notes, and notes of the Bank of the United States, and in respect to the notes of the State banks, though payable and paid in specie, was permissive merely in the discretion of the Secretary; and in accordance with this opinion has been the practical construction given to the resolution by the Treasury Department.  It is known to you, however, that distinguished names have been vouched for the opinion that the resolution was mandatory as to the notes of all specie-paying banks; that the debtor had the right, at his option, to make payment in such notes, and that if tendered by him the Treasury officers had no discretion to refuse them.

It is thus seen that the laws now in force, so far as they positively enjoin the receipt of any particular currency in payment of public dues, are confined to gold and silver, except that in certain cases Virginia land scrip and Treasury certificates are directed to be received on the sale of public lands.  In my opinion, there is nothing in the bill before me repugnant to those laws.  The bill does not expressly declare and enact that any particular species of currency shall be receivable in payment of the public revenue.  On the contrary, as the provisions of the first and second sections are chiefly of a negative character, I think they do not take away the power of the Secretary, previously possessed under the acts of Congress, and as the agent of the President, to forbid the receipt of any bank notes which are not by some act of Congress expressly made absolutely receivable in payment of the public dues.

The above view will, I think, be confirmed by a closer examination of the bill.  It sets out with the assumption that there is a currency established by law (i. e., gold and silver); and it further assumes that the public revenue of all descriptions ought to be collected exclusively in such legal currency, or in bank notes of a certain character; and therefore it provides that the Secretary of the Treasury shall take measures to effect a collection of the revenue “in the legal currency of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency,” under certain restrictions, afterwards mentioned in the act.