Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/265

 five per cent. thirty-year bonds were to be sold to raise the whole. At the next session, December 23d, the Governor was directed to appoint three Commissioners annually to examine the Bank of the State at Tuscaloosa as other commissioners already examined the branches. The president of the Bank of the State was to receive the dividends on the stock owned by the State in the Bank of Mobile, and pay the semi-annual interest on the bonds issued for that stock; any surplus to go to the sinking fund.

The surplus revenue distributed to the States in 1837 was deposited by this State in the Bank of the State and branches.

Thus Alabama had everything prepared for the millenium just as the judgment day dawned.

The whole amount of bonds issued by Alabama for banks was $15.4 millions. The State Treasurer reported that there was no record of some of the bonds in any department. In 1837, there were seven banks in all, in which the State owned $10.1 millions stock, of which $6.8 millions were in the Bank of the State and branches. The circulation of the State, November 1, 1836, was $7 millions; February 1, 1837, $10 millions; May 1, 1837, $5.5 millions. At the last date the Bank of the State and branches had $9 of circulation to $1 of specie; the demand liabilities were to the cash assets as 18. to 1. The circulation of the two stock banks was to their specie as 3 1-2 to 1; their immediate liabilities to their cash assets as 7 to 1. The profits of all the banks from November to May were nearly ten per cent.

The notes of the Bank of the State were decided not to be bills of credit by the Supreme Court of the State, and by the Supreme Court of the United States. The latter case, Dartington vs. the Bank of Alabama, is a reaffirmation of Briscoe's case.

LOUISIANA.—"A Bank of the State of Louisiana" was chartered April 7, 1824; capital $4 millions; half by the State; the installments of the private subscriptions extended over two years; State subscription in five per cent. bonds at $100 of bonds for $83 1-3 of stock; bonds payable to the bank and assignable by it; the bank to pay the interest on the bonds out of the State dividends and the surplus to be a sinking fund for the principal; if the dividends were less than the interest, the bank was to pay the deficiency and be repaid by the State; the Governor and Senate to appoint six out of thirteen directors; the directors to choose the president; half the capital to be loaned on land; never to suspend under twelve per cent. penalty; to have five branches, the directors of which to be appointed by the directors of the mother bank. In a supplementary act of April 10th, it was ordered that $5 should be paid in cash on each share, and $15 in a promissory note with endorsement. Nothing is said of its relation to the former Bank of the State of 1818. In a supplementary act of November 30th it is called the Bank of Louisiana.