Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/172

 15th, a law was passed to give the holders of notes for less than $100 an execution against the bank, with a process for discovering its property and garnishment against the debtors of the bank. On the same day the Bank of the State was authorized to issue $50,000 in notes under $1, to be distributed amongst the counties in the ratio in which the large notes were distributed. November 8, 1823, the same bank was authorized to issue $25,000 in notes for 50 cents and less. The smallest denomination mentioned is six and a quarter cents. November 27th the resumption law was repealed, and the banks were ordered to pay in specie one-quarter of each note presented between April, 1824, and January, 1825; one-third, between January, 1825, and October, 1825; one-half between that date and July, 1826; and after that, the whole. If the State Bank at Knoxville or the Nashville Bank do not pay specie, they shall be liable to six per cent. damages for delay, unless they agree to the conditions of this act about resumption.

October 23, 1823, a new stay law was passed. Executions were to be endorsed according to the existing law. If the creditor did not do this, three valuers were to be selected from the neighboring householders. If the property did not sell for three-quarters of the valuation, it was to be returned to the defendant. The plaintiff might then sue out another execution. The plaintiff may take slaves at three-quarters of their value, or they are to be returned to the defendant; so of land. This law is not to apply to specific contracts for specie or eastern funds, nor to cases where a bank is the defendant, nor to contracts made after April 1, 1823. It is not known that this law ever was tested, but the relief system in Tennessee is said to have declined even before this time, as above stated.

The following year we find the Bank of the State in full operation; new agencies are appointed in the new counties. December 3, 1825, it was enacted that upon application of any person, with security, to the agent of his county, it shall be the duty of the agent to lend from $10 to $500 from any money he has. When a note is reduced to $50 by payments, it shall not be lawful for the agent to demand the remainder in one payment, but in fractions, as before. In that year the Governor congratulated the State on the prospect of resumption. The premium on silver had fallen in a year from 25 to 4 or 5. "The earnest prayer of all should be that we may never again experience the evils of depreciated bank paper." He was confident that the managers of the banks were striving to resume. In 1826, the Nashville Bank did resume, but $260,000 were drawn from it in seventy days and it failed again, leaving only the Bank of the State. December 11th a law was passed in regard to the Nashville Bank which is so carelessly drawn that it is scarcely intelligible. The sense appears to be that, in order to prevent a depreciation of its notes, they are made receivable for State and college lands, if the college trustees agree, and the Bank of the State is to take them for one-half its loans called in. The notes of the Nashville Bank,