e lawmakers evidently
requires it. But this construction of the word in the present case is
not only unnecessary, but, in my opinion, repugnant to the whole scope
of the bill, which, so far from commanding the public officers to
receive bank notes in cases not required by the existing laws,
introduces several new prohibitions on the receipt of such notes.

Nor do I think this one of those cases in which a choice is given to the
debtor to pay in one or other of two descriptions of currency, both of
which are receivable by law. Such a choice was given by the land law of
the 10th of May, 1800, section 5, between specie and the evidences of
the public debt of the United States then receivable by law, and also
by the joint resolution of the 30th of April, 1816, between "the legal
currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank
of the United States, as by law provided and declared." The option given
by that resolution continued in force so long as the laws providing and
declaring that Treasury notes and notes of the Bank of the United States
should be receivable in payments to the United States, and ceased when
those laws expired. The distinction between that description of paper
currency which is by law expressly made receivable in payment of public
dues, and the notes of the State banks, which were only _permitted_ to
be received, is plainly marked in the resolution of 1816. While the
former are placed on the same footing with the legal currency, because
by previous laws it had been so "_provided and declared_" the latter
were left to be received or not received, at the discretion of the
Secretary of the Treasury, except that he was restricted from allowing
any to be received which were not payable and paid on demand in the
legal currency. The bank notes spoken of in the bill before me, having
never been made receivable by law, must be regarded as belonging to the
latter class, and not to the former; and there can therefore be no
greater obligation under the present bill, should it become a law, to
receive them in payment than there was to receive the paper of the
State banks under the resolution of 1816.

As to the difference between this bill and the joint resolution of 1816,
the bill differs from that resolution in the following particulars:

First. It says nothing of Treasury notes and the notes of the Bank of
the United States, which by the resolution of 1816 are recognized as
having been made