Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/109

 other banks might be sold and the proceeds turned into this one. The State might issue $300,000 of six per cent. stock, the proceeds to go into the funds of this bank. The notes were to be receivable by the State. Five commissioners were to be appointed in each district to appraise the lands on which loans were wanted. In an explanatory act, a year later, it was enacted that no other bank should issue notes under $5, which gave this bank a monopoly of small notes. December 21, 1814, the Bank of the State was required to issue notes under $1, and no one but the chartered banks was to be allowed to issue circulating paper. The city of Charleston was given until January 1, 1816, to call in its bills of credit. The Bank of the State was authorized to deal in inland exchange, December 15, 1815. At this time, also, the connection of the State with the old "State Bank" was dissolved, except by virtue of the stock which it still held. The Bank of the State was charged, December 17, 1816, with the liquidation of the old loan office of the State, which was still dragging along a load of bad debts. It was to sell the land which had been mortgaged to that office, but was not to call up in any one year more than one-third of the debt. The effect of the war finance is seen in an act of December 17, 1817, that all the banks in the State may invest not over half their capital in stocks of the State or the United States.

In 1819, October 1st, the directors of the Bank of the State of South Carolina published an anti-bullionist argument against resumption. It did not resume until 1823. The United States Bank at Charleston used its paper.

.—The Bank of the State of Georgia was chartered December 16, 1815, with a capital of $1,500,000, $600,000 of which was to be reserved for the State until January 1, 1817; the State to appoint six out of fifteen directors; to organize when $250,000 in specie paid in; the circulation never to exceed three times the capital; to last until 1835. The Governor was at once authorized to act upon the right reserved to the State. He was to make the subscription as well as he could, so as to give the next Legislature a chance to appropriate for it. The Governor in his message of 1816, tells how this bank was organized. It was forbidden to go into operation until $250,000 were on hand in specie. The State had to come forward and subscribe the requisite amount from its own part of the capital. This it did in notes of the Augusta and Planters' Banks. Instead of presenting these for redemption, the Governor entered into a negotiation with those banks to "advance" the specie on "a deposit of their own notes." No doubt therefore this bank was organized after the fashion of others at the time, by borrowing specie long enough to defeat the law.

December 18, 1816, the Governor was ordered to assign to the branch of the Bank of the State at Milledgeville a room in the State-house, to be used as its banking office. December 19th, it was enacted that no unincorporated association should thereafter issue a note for $2 and above. In case