Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/114

 sum which at the expiration of the charter would pay to the State the capital value of shares so set off to it. The State was to re-invest the dividends from each bank in shares of that bank, until it should own one-sixth of the capital. The bank, if necessary, was to make new shares to meet this provision. All former charters were extended to 1843, if the banks should respectively accept this act. When the State should own one-sixth of a bank, the dividends were to go into the available revenue of the treasury. Banks which came into this scheme were not to be taxed. Any bank which violated it was to forfeit its charter. The act was to be construed "benignly and favorably." For some years afterwards this act was treated as a general banking law.

In 1816 and 1817 bank charters were rapidly multiplied. In that of the Bank of Hamilton it is first provided that the capital shall be paid up in "money of the United States;" in that of Galipolis it is first provided that the Governor shall send a commissioner to see that $20,000 is actually in hand, half in specie and half in United States Bank notes, before it may begin.

The Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of was incorporated September 6, 1814, and the Bank of Vincennes, September 10th. The following mysterious paragraph from a law of December 26, 1815, seems to show that the Territory was infested by persons who were issuing notes without authority. "If any person or persons in this Territory shall sign, issue, pass, exchange, or circulate any due bill, promissory note, bank note, or instrument of writing for the payment of any money or property, or performance of any covenant or contract, purporting to be the act of any bank, company, secret society, or set of men in this Territory other than is or are expressed by name, upon the face of such due bill, promissory note, bank note, or instrument of writing, so as to gain a credit and trust in some unknown person, company, or set of men, to the holder of such note, due bill, or instrument of writing, besides the signer or signers thereof," he shall be fined three times the sum in the note and be liable to the noteholder for the amount. This is not to affect any bank chartered by this Territory, and any one may recover what he can in payment of "bank notes of any secret company or set of men" or of any other paper; but it applies to the bank notes of the Indiana Manufacturing Company at Lexington, Indiana. Passing any counterfeit bank note knowingly was to be punished by a fine of three times the value, and twenty-five to fifty lashes on his or her bare back.

The Bank of Vincennes was adopted as the State Bank of Indiana, until October 1, 1835, by a law of January 1, 1817. An additional capital of $1 million was to be raised, of which $375,000 was reserved for the State. Arrangements were made for receiving subscriptions all over the State. Branches were to be established. The Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank might become a branch. Three State directors were to be elected by the Legislature, and a greater number when the State should subscribe more, but never more than five out of fifteen. The greatest amount which it might be called upon to lend the State was $50,000 for five years. No director might borrow more