The Gold Clause Cases: Guided by the Constitution or Economic Pragmatism?

In this paper, we seek to resolve the apparent tension in the Gold clause cases where two opposing legal conclusions on constitutionality of the Joint Resolution invalidating Gold clauses ultimately lead to identical outcomes. Through analysis of the case and commentaries, we demonstrate that this tension can be resolved by understanding that (i) the court’s ruling on the constitutionality of the Joint Resolution was not a decisive factor in the outcome of either Gold Clause cases. Rather, (ii) interpreting the outcome of the cases as a result of the court’s implicit application of pragmatic approaches under the extraordinary economic circumstances produced under the context of Great Depression and the New Deal allows for a clear and coherent understanding of the reasoning behind the convergence of outcome in the Gold Clause cases despite the apparent divergence in the constitutional conclusion in the two cases