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634 The Judiciary during Reconstruction. [i869-7i legal status of the Southern States during the Reconstruction period, Chief Justice Chase committed the Court squarely to the Congressional theory of the situation. A State so the Court held in Texas v. White, 1869 is an indestructible part of an indestructible Union. Secession does not destroy the State, but suspends its legal rights ; and to restore these is the duty of Congress under the clause guaranteeing a Republican form of government. Although in this case, and in White v. Hart, three years later, the Court carefully refrained from any decision as to the Reconstruction Acts themselves, these opinions substantially ratified the Republican policy. Legally as well as practically Southern Re- construction was an accomplished fact. In the same years the financial situation was placed on a definite basis. In the existing state of public opinion immediate retirement of the " greenbacks " was out of the question ; but the Republicans in Congress passed a bill in the winter of 1869 pledging the faith of the United States to redeem its notes "at the earliest practicable period" in coin. Resumption was thus promised. Simultaneously the con- stitutional validity of the legal tender notes was established by the Supreme Court in a peculiar way. During Johnson's administration the Court showed in successive decisions a strongly antagonistic attitude toward the "greenbacks," culminating, early in Grant's term, in the famous case of Hepburn v. Griswold, in which Chase as Chief Justice delivered an opinion declaring unconstitutional the notes he had himself issued as Secretary of the Treasury eight years before. Almost im- mediately afterwards the membership of the Court was altered by resignations and the appointment of two new judges ; and within a year, in the Legal Tender Cases, the Court, by a majority of one, reversed its previous decision, and re-established the constitutionality of the "greenbacks." It was loudly asserted that Grant had packed the Court; but this was true only in so far that Grant appointed strong partisan Republicans as judges a policy perfectly inevitable in 1870. The prestige of the Court suffered with impartial persons; but the number of such persons was few at the time, and the country at large felt relieved by the decision. The rest of the financial programme was carried out, on the whole, with success. Internal taxation was steadily reduced, until by 1872 little remained beyond a few excises. The debt, the repudiation of which was threatened by Democrats and advocated by Johnson, was placed beyond danger of payment in depreciated paper, first by an " Act to strengthen the Public Credit," vetoed by Johnson, but repassed by Congress and signed by Grant on March 18, 1869, which pledged the faith of the country to the payment of its bonds in coin; and secondly by the Refunding Act of July, 1870. By this the Secretary was empowered to refund the " five-twenties," which all became redeemable about 1870, in bonds at 5, 4, and 4 per cent., running from ten to thirty years respect-