Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/122

 and misbehavior of the Bank, at this period, entailed upon it that political suspicion and hostility which were the moving forces in the Bank war of Jackson's time. The two chief expectations of the public from the Bank,—the equalization of the exchanges, and the prompt performance of fiscal services for the government,—had proved so onerous to the Bank that it had given up the attempt to satisfy them. The bitter disappointment and dissatisfaction of the public in respect to these matters are also expressed in the passages just quoted. The concessions which Crawford had made in April to the petitions of Cheves became known in August. A particular refusal by the branch at Chillicothe to honor a draft of Governor Cass of Michigan for $10,000, which he needed in order to fulfill the stipulations of an Indian treaty, occasioned especial bad feeling. All the old fashioned, Jeffersonian republicans, who had suppressed their prejudices and convictions in obedience to expediency, now turned fiercely against the Bank. What had they obtained for their violation of "principle"? The germ of the great Jackson anti-Bank party was planted here. "It is now talked of as rank nonsense to expect that this institution should give us a currency of equal value in all parts of the republic; but who will be bold enough to say that, without an expectation and a promise of doing this, the Bank would have been chartered? It was this and this only which dragged the act through Congress, over prostrate consciences, if I may be allowed the expression, and the Constitution of the United States."

The whole local bank interest seized upon this dissatisfaction and fanned it zealously. Also the would-be popular leaders came forward with their quack remedies. "The political empirics," said Adams, "are already as busy as spiders in weaving their tangles for Congress and the national Executive." The banks seized eagerly upon the chance to turn attention from their own misdoings by complaints of the tyranny of the great Bank. One outcome of this feeling and these efforts was that several States tried to tax the Bank of the United States out of existence. February 11, 1818, Maryland laid a stamp tax on notes of any bank doing business in the State and not by or with the authority of the same. The tax was ten cents on a $5 note and varying amounts on other denominations. It might be commuted for $15,000. The Bank of the United States paid no heed to this law. In the case at law which resulted, the tax was held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. It was held that the Bank was constitutionally endowed with a right to establish branches in any State. These branches were not taxable by the State, but real estate owned by the Bank, or the proprietary interest of citizens of the State in it, might be taxed like other property; Congress has power to charter a national bank as one means of carrying on the fiscal operations of the national government; the States cannot by taxation impede Congress in the exercise of any of its constitutional powers; if the end is legitimate and within the scope of the