Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/133

 as it might agree to credit. This arrangement could not be maintained in 1818, when the crisis came on. The Bank could not receive notes of banks which would not redeem. The banks complained of its demands. The Bank refrained from issuing its own notes and refused to receive for the credit of the Treasurer of the United States anything but specie or its own notes. Thus the debtors for the public lands became liable to pay specie for all their debt. Crawford regarded this state of things as creating a political peril which the Executive was bound to avert, if possible, and this is his defense of his interference to favor banks with the use of the public money, that they might favor the debtors to the Treasury for public lands.

The Bank of England through this period and long afterwards, received country bank notes for revenue, but did not become responsible to the Exchequer for the amounts until the notes were converted into coin or Bank of England notes.

February 6th, 1819, the charter of the Bank of Kentucky was extended to 1841. No more branches were to be established except by a vote of two-thirds of the State directors and two-thirds of the stockholders' directors, with the assent of the Legislature. The stockholders were to appoint one visitor and the Legislature another, to inspect and examine the bank. The present stockholders may withdraw after December 3, 1821. After May, 1819, no bank was to issue any note for less than $1.

"In the early part of 1819, the price of all articles produced in the Western States fell so low as scarcely to defray the expense of transportation to the ports from whence they were usually exported to foreign markets. This condition of things, which had not been anticipated when the debt for the public lands was contracted, produced the most serious distress at the moment, and excited alarming apprehensions for the future."