Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/17



HE essential function of a bank is to facilitate transfers of capital. In the United States, however, the function of note issue has always occupied the chief place in public thought about banks. It is as note issuers that they have had their greatest share in the national life, and it is in this capacity that the historian has chiefly to deal with them.

The material for this history is very intractable. It bristles with details which defy attempts at condensation. There is a general history of banks which centers around the federal government; but we begin with thirteen commonwealths, in each of which banks, beside their shares in the general history, had a history of their own, and the number of commonwealths increases to thirty, before the present National Bank system was established.

Should the narrative be constructed on the chronology, or on the subdivisions of the subject, or on the State division? Each of these methods has its claims. In order to try to do justice to each of them, I have adopted the following construction of the work. Taken as a whole the treatment is chronological; it is not evolutional; for scarcely any genetic development can be traced. Six periods are marked off, which are based on the grander vicissitudes of the history. The chapters and sub-chapters are constructed on the analysis of the subject matter within the period. They allow the reader to pursue any one subject consecutively, if he so desires. The Table of Contents presents this chronological and analytical construction. From point to point surveys of the States are taken, which present the history of banks in the several States. The references in the Index, under the names of the States, will enable the reader to connect these detached sections into a history of the banks in any State.

The authorities on which I have relied are the Session Laws, Court Reports, State and Congressional documents. I have examined the Session Laws of all the States south and west of Maryland, from the beginning of