Keith v. Clark/Dissent Waite

by Morrison Waite

United States Supreme Court

97 U.S. 454

Keith  v.  Clark

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE.

I am unable to give my assent to the judgment which has just been announced, and while concurring in much of what is said in the opinion of the majority of my brethren, am compelled to differ upon a single point, which, as I think, controls the decision of the case.

It is a conceded fact that the notes on which the suit is brought were issued by the bank while the State was in rebellion against the government of the United States. The bank, although organized for the transaction of a general banking business, was also the fiscal agent of the State. It was established in the name and for the benefit of the State, and the faith and credit of the State were pledged to give indemnity for all losses arising from any deficiency in the funds specifically appropriated as capital. The State was the only stockholder, and entitled to all the profits realized from the business.

It is an historical fact that the banks of the insurgent States, and especially those owned by the States, were used extensively in furtherance of the rebellion, and that all or nearly all their available funds were converted in one way or another into Confederate securities. None of the banks owned by the States survived the rebellion, and few were able to make any considerable showing of valuable assets.

At the close of the war, Congress saw fit to propose for adoption the fourteenth constitutional amendment, in which it was provided that 'neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, . . . but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.' This was done June 16, 1866 (14 Stat. 328), and the adoption of this and other amendments by the late insurgent States was afterwards made a condition to their admission to representation in Congress. Id. 429.

On the 26th of June, 1865, before this amendment was proposed, the people of Tennessee in convention assembled ordained that 'all laws, ordinances, and resolutions of the usurped State governments, passed on or after the sixth day of May, 1861, providing for the issuance of State bonds, also all notes of the Bank of Tennessee, or any of its branches, issued after the sixth day of May, 1861, and all debts created or contracted in the name of the State by said authority, are unconstitutional, null, and void, and no legislature shall hereafter have power to pass any act authorizing the payment of said bonds or debts, or providing for the redemption of said notes.' This goes somewhat beyond the requirements of the [[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|Fourteenth Amendment]]]], but to the extent it is a declaration that the debts of the insurgent State government contracted in aid of the rebellion should not be paid is certainly valid. On the 26th of July, 1866, Congress gave it that effect in the resolution admitting the State 'to her relations to the Union.' Id. 364.

Every law is presumed to be constitutional. We cannot declare a State law, and especially when in the form of a constitution, repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, unless it is manifestly so. We ought not reverse the judgment of a State court upon a question of Federal law, unless it is clearly wrong. The decisions of the highest court of a State are always entitled to respect in this tribunal, and should not be overruled under our constitutional power of review, except for imperative reasons.

If facts could exist that would support a law or a State constitution, we must presume they did exist when the law was passed or the constitution adopted, and that the action of the legislature or the people was intended to apply to them.

If the bills of the Bank of Tennessee were in fact issued in aid of the rebellion, they are void as obligations of the State. So the Constitution of the United States as amended provides, and so this court has decided in every case, where the question was raised, that has come here since the war closed. As I construe the ordinance of Tennessee, it is an authoritative declaration, in an appropriate form, by the people of the State, who were cognizant of the facts, that all the issues of the bank after May 6, 1861, were in furtherance of the rebellion. In this way the people, in effect, prohibited the tax-collectors and officers of the State from receiving such issues in payment of public dues. This drove the bill-holder to his suit under the act of March 21, 1873, for the recovery of his money. To this suit the State voluntarily submitted, for the purpose of having the validity of these obligations judicially determined, and in such a suit as, I think, the constitutional ordinance, taken in connection with known historical facts, is entitled at least to the weight of prima facie evidence that the declaration it impliedly makes is true. It is evidence that may be rebutted, but, until rebutted, sufficient to justify an officer in refusing to receive the bills as the obligations of the loyal people in payment of dues to the loyal government. If this were an application for a mandamus to compel the officer to receive the bills, and his answer was that the bills had been issued in aid of the rebellion, and he was prohibited by the Constitution of the State from receiving them, I cannot but think his answer would be deemed sufficient until overcome by proof. But the statutory remedy which is now being used is only a substitute for that by mandamus; and when the defendant, who is a tax-collector, sets up the Constitution of his State as his defence, and shows that the obligations sued upon were incurred while the State was engaged in rebellion against the United States, I think he, at least, puts upon the holder the burden of showing that they were not incurred in aid of the rebellion. The authoritative declarations of the people of a State, made in an appropriate manner under the forms of law, ought to be presumed to be true.

Suppose this were a suit upon a bond of the State issued during the rebellion, would it be insisted that we should reverse the judgment of the State court because it decided upon the faith of the constitutional ordinance that no recovery could be had without proof that the bond was issued for lawful purposes, and not in aid of the Confederacy? Clearly not, I think; and if not, why apply a different rule to suits upon these bills as State obligations incurred during the same time, and capable of being used for the same purposes. This is thought by some of my brethren to require the plaintiff in such an action to prove a negative before he can recover, but in my judgment it only requires him to overcome a prima facie case that has been made against him. If a State Constitution is not to be presumed to rest on facts which will support it, rather than such as will not, it seems to me nothing can be presumed. If the bills of this bank put out after May 6, 1861, were issued in aid of the rebellion; the constitutional ordinance in question, so far as it relates to them, is valid, and can stand; but if not, it is invalid, because prohibited by the Constitution of the United States, as impairing the obligation of contracts. Certainly, therefore, the presumption is that they were issued in aid of the rebellion, and until this presumption is overcome there ought to be, as I think, no recovery.