Statement of the Case.

tion, or attempt to collect revenue, or to compel the collecting officers to receive anything in payment of taxes other than as provided in chapter forty-one, Acts of Assembly, approved January twenty-six, eighteen hundred and eightytwo, or in any case arising out of the collection of revenue in which the applicant for the writ or process has any other remedy adequate for the protection and enforcement of his individual right, claim and demand, if just." Acts 1881-82, p. 342.

On March 15, 1884, the general assembly passed a general act in reference to the assessment of taxes on persons, property and incomes, Acts 1883-84, c. 450, p. 561, the one hundred and thirteenth section (p. 603) of which required that all school taxes should be paid "only in lawful money of the United States."

On January 21, 1886, Acts 1885-86, c. 46, p. 37, an act was passed providing that in a suit in respect to coupons tendered in payment of taxes, no expert testimony should be receivable, and that the bonds from which the coupons were cut should be produced, if demanded, as a condition precedent to the right of recovery.

Section 399 of "The Code of Virginia," which was a revision and reënactment of the general statutes of the State, adopted May 16, 1887, reads: "It shall not be lawful for any officer charged with the collection of taxes, debts or other demands of the State to receive in payment thereof anything else than gold or silver coin, United States Treasury notes or national bank notes."

On May 29, 1892, the plaintiff in error filed his petition in the Circuit Court of the city of Norfolk to establish the genuineness of certain coupons tendered in payment of taxes. The proceeding was had under the act of 1882, and no question is made of a full compliance with the terms of that statute. Judgment was rendered in his favor by the Circuit Court of the city of Norfolk, which judgment was, on March 23, 1894, reversed by the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State, 90 Virginia, 597, and a judgment entered in favor of the Commonwealth, dismissing the petition of the plaintiff and award

Opinion of the Court.

ing to the Commonwealth costs. On June 13, 1894, a writ of error was allowed, and the case brought to this court.

Mr. Richard L. Maury and Mr. William A. Maury for plaintiff in error. Mr. Matthew F. Maury was on their brief.

Mr. A. J. Montague and Mr. Henry R. Pollard for defendant in error. Mr. R. Taylor Scott, attorney general of the State of Virginia, filed a brief for same.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

Perhaps no litigation has been more severely contested or has presented more intricate and troublesome questions than that which has arisen under the coupon legislation of Virginia. That legislation has been prolific of many cases, both in the state and Federal courts, not a few of which finally came to this court. Hartman v. Greenhow, 102 U. S. 672; Antoni v. Greenhow, 107 U. S. 769; Virginia Coupon cases, 114 U. S. 269; Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 270; Carter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 317, 322; Moore v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 338, 340; Marye v. Parsons, 114 U. S. 325; Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U. S. 550; Chaffin v. Taylor, 116 U. S. 567, 571; Royall v. Virginia, 116 U. S. 572; Royall v. Virginia, 121 U. S. 102; Sands v. Edmunds, 116 U. S. 585; Stewart v. Virginia, 117 U. S. 612; In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443; McGahey v. Virginia, 135 U. S. 662.

For the first time in the history of this litigation has any appellate court, either state or Federal, distinctly ruled that the coupon provision of the act of 1871 was void. After the passage of the act of March 7, 1872, which in terms required all taxes to be paid in cash, the case of Antoni v. Wright came before the Court of Appeals of Virginia, 22 Gratt. 833, and on December 13, 1872, was decided. Elaborate opinions were filed, and the court held the act of 1871 valid, and the act of 1872 void as violating the contract embraced in the coupon provision of the act of 1871. This decision was reaffirmed in

Opinion of the Court.

Wise Bros. v. Rogers, 24 Gratt. 169, decided December 17, 1873; Clark v. Tyler, 30 Gratt. 134, decided April 4, 1878, and again in Williamson v. Massey, 33 Gratt. 237, decided April 29, 1880. In Greenhow v. Vashon, 81 Virginia, 336, decided January 14, 1886, the act requiring school taxes to be paid in cash was sustained, and such taxes excepted from the coupon contract on the ground of a specific command in the state constitution in force at the time of the passage of the funding act. There was no direct decision that the coupon provision was entirely void, although the intimation was clear that such was the opinion of the judges then composing the court.

In this court the decisions have been uniform and positive in favor of the validity of the act of 1871. There has been no dissonance in the declarations, from the first case, Hartman v. Greenhow, 102 U. S. 672, 679, decided at the October term, 1880, in which, referring to this act, the court said, by Mr. Justice Field, "a contract was thus consummated between the State and the holder of the new bonds, and the holders of the coupons, from the obligations of which she could not, without their consent, release herself by any subsequent legislation. She thus bound herself, not only to pay the bonds when they became due, but to receive the interest coupons from the bearer at and after their maturity, to their full amount, for any taxes or dues by him to the State. This receivability of the coupons for such taxes and dues was written on their face, and accompanied them into whatever hands they passed. It constituted their chief value, and was the main consideration offered to the holders of the old bonds to surrender them and accept new bonds for two thirds of their amount," to McGahey v. Virginia, 135 U. S. 662, 668, decided at the October term, 1889, in which Mr. Justice Bradley, delivering the unanimous opinion of the court, observed: "We have no hesitation in saying that the act of 1871 was a valid act, and that it did and does constitute a contract between the State and the holders of the bonds issued under it, and that the holders of the coupons of said bonds, whether still attached thereto or separated therefrom, are entitled, by a solemn engagement of the State, to use them in payment of state taxes and public dues.

Opinion of the Court.

This was determined in Hartman v. Greenhow, 102 U. S. 672, decided in January, 1881; in Antoni v. Greenhow, 107 U. S. 769, decided in March, 1883; in the Virginia Coupon cases, 114 U. S. 269, decided in April, 1885, and in all the cases on the subject that have come before this court for adjudication. This question, therefore, may be considered as foreclosed and no longer open for consideration. It may be laid down as undoubted law that the lawful owner of any such coupons has the right to tender the same after maturity in absolute payment of all taxes, debts, dues and demands due from him to the State."

Since the decision of the Court of Appeals of Virginia, in Antoni v. Wright, 22 Gratt. 833, that the act of 1872, providing for the payment of taxes in cash only was unconstitutional, the general assembly of Virginia has from time to time passed acts tending to embarrass the coupon holder in the exercise of the right granted by the funding act. Some of these acts appear in the statement preceding this opinion, but for a more full review of the legislation and the course of decision reference may be had to the opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley in the several cases reported under the title of McGahey v. Virginia, supra.

We are advised by the opinion of the Court of Appeals of Virginia, in 22 Gratt. 833, that the debt-two thirds of which was proposed to be refunded and most of which was, in fact, refunded-amounted to $40,000,000 of principal. These refunding bonds, amounting to many millions of dollars, have passed into the markets of the world, and have so passed accredited, not merely by the action of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, but by the repeated decisions of her highest court, as well as of this court, for substantially a quarter of a century, to the effect that such coupon provision was constitutional and binding. Now, at the end of twenty-seven years from the passage of the act, we are asked to hold that this guarantee of value, so fortified as it has been, was never of any validity, that the decisions to that effect are of no force and that all the transactions which have been had based thereon rested upon nothing. Such a result

Opinion of the Court.

is so startling that it at least compels more than ordinary consideration.

We pass, therefore, to a consideration of the specific question presented in this record. First. It is insisted that the decision of the Court of Appeals was right, and that the coupon provision was void. It were a waste of time to repeat all the arguments which have been heretofore presented, and we content ourselves with reiterating that which was said by Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the entire court, in McGahey v. Virginia, 135 U. S. 662, 668: "This question, therefore, may be considered as foreclosed and no longer open for consideration. It may be laid down as undoubted law that the lawful owner of any such coupons has the right to tender the same after maturity in absolute payment of all taxes, debts, dues and demands due from him to the State."

Secondly. It is insisted that whatever may be our own opinions upon the case, we are to take the construction placed by the Court of Appeals of Virginia upon the act as the law of that State. While it is undoubtedly the general rule of this court to accept the construction placed by the courts of a State upon its statutes and constitution, yet one exception to this rule has always been recognized, and that in reference to the matter of contracts alleged to have been impaired. This was distinctly affirmed in Jefferson Branch Bank v. Skelly, 1 Black, 436, 443, in which the court, speaking by Mr. Justice Wayne, gave these reasons for the exception: "It has never been denied, nor is it now, that the Supreme Court of the United States has an appellate power to revise the judgment of the Supreme Court of a State, whenever such a court shall adjudge that not to be a contract which has been alleged, in the forms of legal proceedings, by a litigant, to be one, within the meaning of that clause of the Constitution of the United States which inhibits the States from passing any law impairing the obligation of contracts. Of what use would the appellate power be to the litigant who feels himself aggrieved by some particular state legislation, if this court could not decide, independently of all adjudication by the Supreme Court of a State, whether or not the