any years later, to abrogate the clauses
in private contracts calling for payment in gold coin, even though such
contracts were executed before the legislation was passed.[1120] The
power to coin money also imports authority to maintain such coinage as a
medium of exchange at home, and to forbid its diversion to other uses by
defacement, melting or exportation.[1121]

THE PUNISHMENTS OF COUNTERFEITING

In its affirmative aspect this clause has been given a narrow
interpretation; it has been held not to cover the circulation of
counterfeit coin or the possession of equipment susceptible of use for
making counterfeit coin.[1122] At the same time the Supreme Court has
rebuffed attempts to read into this provision a limitation upon either
the power of the States or upon the powers of Congress under the
preceding clause. It has ruled that a State may punish the utterance of
forged coins.[1123] On the ground that the power of Congress to coin
money imports "the correspondent and necessary power and obligation to
protect and to preserve in its purity this constitutional currency for
the benefit of the nation,"[1124] it has sustained federal statutes
penalizing the importation or circulation of counterfeit coin,[1125] or
the willing and conscious possession of dies in the likeness of those
used for making coins of the United States.[1126] In short, the above
clause is entirely superfluous. Congress would have had the power which
it purports to confer under the necessary and proper clause; and the
same is the case with the other enumerated crimes which it is authorized
to punish. The enumeration was unnecessary and is not exclusive.[1127]

THE BORROWING POWER VERSUS THE FISCAL POWER

Usually the aggregate of the fiscal and monetary powers of the National
Government--to lay and collect taxes, to borrow money and to coin money
and regulate the value thereof--have reinforced each other, and,
cemented by the necessary and proper clause, have provided a secure
foundation for acts of Congress chartering banks and other financial
institutions,[1128] or making its treasury notes legal tender in the
payment of antecedent debts.[1129] But in 1935 the opposite situation
arose--one in which the power to regulate the value of money collided
with the obligation incurred in the exercise of the power to borrow
money. By a vote of eight-to-one the Supreme Court held that the
obligation assumed by the exercise of the latter was paramount,