It
is, however, my duty to remind you that very different opinions were
expressed in the course of the debates on the proposed law by some of
the members who took part therein. It would seem from these debates that
the bill, in some instances at least, was supported under the impression
that it would compel the Treasury officers to receive all bank notes
possessing all the characteristics described in the first and second
sections, and that the Secretary of the Treasury would have no power
to forbid their receipt. It must be confessed that the language is
sufficiently ambiguous to give some plausibility to such a construction,
and that it seems to derive some support from the refusal of the House
of Representatives to consider an amendment reported by the Committee of
Ways and Means of that House, which would substantially have given the
bill, in explicit terms, the interpretation I have put on it, and have
removed the uncertainty which now pervades it. Under these circumstances
it may reasonably be expected that the true meaning of the bill, should
it be passed into a law, will become a subject of discussion and
controversy, and probably remain involved in much perplexity and doubt
until it shall have been settled by a judicial decision.
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