Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/160

 No positive evidence has been found as to the course of prices in the State from 1820, but nothing indicates that the issues of the Bank of the Commonwealth raised prices in the interest of debtors. In general, the history of currency in this country shows that the doctrine that prices will respond promptly and proportionately to changes in the amount of the currency (or even, more strictly, of the money of account), cannot be accepted without important limitations.

In 1827, the old court Chief Justice, Boyle, resigned and Bibb, new court, took his place. In 1828 Owsley and Mills, old court, resigned and Governor Metcalf re-appointed them. The Senate, which was then in the hands of the relief party, refused to confirm them. They had been members of the Court which had declared the relief laws unconstitutional in 1823, and this action was an expression of the relentless animosity with which they were pursued by the relief party. Two other anti-relief men, Robertson and Underwood, were appointed and confirmed. Bibb then resigned; whereupon the other two Judges declared the new court acts null and void. In 1829, Robertson was made Chief Justice and Buckner, anti-relief, was appointed, making the Court complete again.

In 1828, the parties were still relief and anti-relief, but the ideas had changed somewhat. The banking and currency parts of the relief creed had sunk out of sight and the political elements remained. A relief man was a State rights man and strict constructionist who wanted to set limits to the supposed encroachments of the federal power, especially the judiciary.

If the amounts of Commonwealth notes reported burned, in Niles' Register, from time to time, during 1823, are added, the total is $2,171,000, although the amount to be burned in that year had been limited by the Legislature to $750,000. In November, 1823, it was reported that the Legislature had resolved to issue no more, and that one-sixth of the total issue had been burned. The total issue, up to October, 1825, was reported as $2,943,620, of which $1,436,239 were still out. Notes to the amount of $420,000 were reported as withdrawn, boxed, and sealed by order of the Legislature. The specie and specie funds of the bank were $16,000. The amount ordered burned by the Legislature, from year to year, by the resolutions which are to be found in the Session Laws from 1825 to 1834, is $1,775,414. The last order is that all which is taken in shall be burned. In 1828, on the other hand, the Legislature allowed $1,000 of the notes of this Bank to be taken from the Treasury by the Cumberland Hospital to pay for new buildings. The note in Briscoe's case was made in 1830, so that the Bank must have been doing business then. By an act of that year, January 29th, the president and directors were ordered to withdraw branches which did not pay, which had been mismanaged, and which the interests of the State required should be withdrawn. An agent was to go to such branches and do the business, including the renewal of notes half-yearly. If the