http://www.oyez.org/cases/1792-1850/1837/ U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, presented by The Oyez Project (www.oyez.org) en-us <p>By issuing notes and currency, did the bank violate the constitutional prohibition in Article I Section 10 that "[n]o State shall...emit Bills of Credit"?</p><p>The Court rejected Briscoe's argument. The clause prohibiting bills of credit applied to notes issued indirectly through a corporation. But the bank had issued the notes on its own credit, not on the credit of the state.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1792-1850/1837/1837_2/ <p>Does the New York law violate the Commerce Clause which vests all power over interstate and foreign commerce in Congress?</p><p>The Court upheld the state law. The justices ducked the Commerce Clause issue and invoked what was to become the state "police power" -- the right of a sovereign to take all necessary steps to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens. According to Barbour, who wrote the majority opinion, a state is as competent "to provide precautionary measures against the moral pestilence of paupers, vagabonds, and possible convicts, as it is to guard against the physical pestilence, which may arise from unsound and infectious articles imported." The Court reversed Miln in 1941. (See Edwards v. California)</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1792-1850/1837/1837_0/