Hall v. Jordan

Messrs. R. Johnson and J. H. Imbree, for the plaintiff in error: It is a matter of universal knowledge that there has always been a difference between the value of what are called 'legal tender notes' and of coin. At times, as in the summer of 1864, one day in which it required $285 of notes to buy $100 of gold,2 ** this difference has been immense; and it has been frequently great. Now, the question is, may parties at a time when gold and silver have in fact no currency–when the notes of the government are the sole currency of the country, or certainly of all that part of it where the parties to this transaction lived–may parties put in their deeds the value, in gold, of the property sold, and then pay stamps on that value? the real thing which passes between them being, all the while, not gold, but paper; not $13,000 in coin, but a greater amount in notes; more or less greater according as the discount on paper in the market may be higher or lower. We submit that they cannot, because a contrary rule will tend directly to frauds upon the revenue. In cases of large deeds or of large mortgages the temptation will be prevailing.