The Western Democrat

IMPORTANT DECISION.—The High Court of Mississippi has decided that Confederate money and State Treasury notes were valid as a consideration during the war.

The following extract shows the purport of the decision:

"The currency was, for upwards of four years, almost exclusively the circulating medium of the country—issued by governments having complete power over the people, and exercising undisturbed political functions. It was the representative of their rights and property in all pecuniary transactions of a private character, and was at the time valuable and convertible into gold or silver coin to a considerable value. It answered all the purposes of a circulating medium among the people, and immense interests were acquired by means of it, under circumstances of the greatest good faith by both parties, and of large profit to the parties who received it: contracts of the highest obligation were entered into, in consideration of it, and by it food and clothing and other necessaries were obtained. Under such circumstances, to hold that such contracts were illegal and void, and that the parties acquired no legal rights under them, would be alike contrary to settled rules of law and to sound public policy."