Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/272

 section provides that this corporation "together with all other banking institutions in this State, shall at all times be obliged to redeem their notes in specie." If any one of them refuses to do so, the cashier must endorse on the note the date of refusal, under a penalty of $500, recoverable by the holder; the note so endorsed was to bear interest at twelve and one-half per cent. per annum, from the date of endorsement until paid. February 26th, the Commercial Bank of Columbus was incorporated with a capital of $1 million. On the same day the Mississippi Railroad Company was incorporated. Banking was not explicitly included in its functions, but it might issue bonds secured by mortgages, given by the stockholders on their own estates, of double value. On the following day, the Tombigbee Railroad Company and the Aberdeen and Pototoc Railroad Company were incorporated, both with banking privileges; and on the same day the Commercial and Railroad Bank of Vicksburg was authorized to add $2 millions to its capital, in order to build a railroad to some undefined place on the northern boundary of Madison county. On the same day also the Commercial Bank of Natchez was founded, with $2 millions capital. On the same day also the Yazoo Railroad Company was incorporated, but banking is not discernible in its powers.

The first proposition for the Union Bank of Mississippi was made in 1835. It was imitated and borrowed with only a few petty variations from the Louisiana Union Bank. The act incorporating it was passed January 21 1837; capital, $15.5 millions; subscriptions to be taken in each county; citizens and landowners alone to subscribe; the State to issue bonds to the bank, payable in four sections, in twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty years, endorsable and negotiable by the bank, principal and interest to be paid by the bank; the stockholders to give mortgages to secure their subscriptions; the land, if already mortgaged, being received as security only for the residue after subtracting twice the existing mortgage; to last forty years; the Legislature to elect five directors out of thirteen; the stockholders, on subscribing, to pay $10 on each share in cash; three commissioners in each designated district to appraise the lands mortgaged for the stock; no notes under $10; all profits of the bank to accumulate until the first section of the State bonds is paid (twelve years); then any surplus, after paying these bonds, to be divided amongst the stockholders; then the profits to accumulate again until the second section of the State bonds should be payable, with a division of any surplus amongst the stockholders, and so on, but the State to have as a bonus one-tenth of the net gains of the bank; never to suspend under fifteen per cent. penalty; the parent board to make rules for the branches; the capital to be exempt from taxation; the bank might sell lands mortgaged to it for stock or loans and was to be a preferred creditor; the Governor to deliver the bonds pro rata as the subscriptions went on. The State was entitled to a loan of $200,000, and each stockholder was