ical effect mere recommendations to the State legislatures, it was
the action of the latter which made these policies effective. On
November 22, 1777, for example, Congress recommended to the States that
they take steps "to regulate and ascertain the price of labour,
manufactures, [and] internal produce."[1249] A month later the same body
further recommended "to the respective legislatures of the United
States, forthwith to enact laws, appointing suitable persons to seize
and take, for the use of the continental army of the said States, all
woolen cloths, blankets, linens, shoes, stockings, hats, and other
necessary articles of clothing, * * *"[1250] Responding to such
appeals, or acting on their own initiative, the State legislatures
enacted measure after measure which entrenched upon the normal life of
the community very drastically. Laws were passed forbidding the
distillation of whiskey and other spirits in order to conserve grain
supplies;[1251] fixing prices of labor and commodities, sometimes in
greatest detail;[1252] levying requisitions upon the inhabitants for
supplies needed by the army;[1253] and so on. In one instance a statute
authorized the erection of an arms manufactory for the United
States;[1254] in another, Negro Slaves were impressed for labor on
fortifications.[1255] The fact that all this legislation came from the
State legislatures whereas the war power was attributed to the "United
States in Congress assembled" served to obscure the fact that the
former was really an outgrowth of the latter.

CIVIL WAR LEGISLATION

The most pressing economic problem of the Civil War was that of finance.
When Congress found itself unable to raise money to pay the soldiers in
the field, it authorized the issuance of Treasury notes which, although
not redeemable in specie, were made legal tender in payment of private
debts. Upon its first consideration of this measure, the Supreme Court
held it unconstitutional. It concluded that even if the circulation of
such notes was facilitated by giving them the quality of legal tender,
that result did not suffice to make the expedient an appropriate and
plainly adapted means for the execution of the power to declare and
carry on war.[1256] Three of the seven Justices then constituting the
Court dissented from this decision,[1257] and it was reversed within a
little more than a year, after two vacancies in the membership of the
Court had been filled. One of the grounds rel