Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/339

 stockholders paid their debts to it with their stock at par, slipped out, founded another bank and began again.

.—The Marine and Fire Insurance Bank was forbidden, December 23, 1837, any longer to do banking unless it should renounce insurance, and agree to pay the note-holders ten per cent. damages in case of non-redemption. The next day the Central Bank was ordered to borrow for the State $725,000 with which to meet the expenses of 1837. December 26th, the Bank of Brunswick was allowed to increase its capital to any amount which it should expend on the Brunswick and Florida railroad, not to exceed $3 millions. At the same time the Central Bank was authorized to borrow $150,000, "to carry out their distributions to the several counties not yet provided for."

It was also enacted that no bank should issue any note payable otherwise than in gold or silver, upon which the Supreme Court of the State afterwards decided that a certificate of deposit payable "in current funds" was unlawful.

A free banking act, like that of New York, was enacted December 26, 1838. December 28th, the Central Bank was directed to extend the loan contracted by it the year before, or to borrow $600,000 for State expenses. Its charter was extended until 1850.

The charter of the Central Bank limited its issue to the amount of its capital, but an act of December 2, 1839, authorized it to issue twice the amount of its capital. It need not pay specie to the agent of any suspended bank. The stocks of the State in the Bank of Augusta, Planters' Bank, Bank of the State of Georgia, and Darien Bank were ordered to be sold for not less than par and the proceeds to be put in the capital of this bank. An appropriation act of the same day ordered this bank to put to the credit of the Treasurer enough to enable him to meet the warrants on him, "charging the same to the capital stock of said bank," and to furnish him with its own notes or current notes with which he might pay the current demands on him. December 23d, no bank officer of a suspended bank might sell any bill of exchange payable within the United States after March 1, 1840, for more than two per cent. premium, under penalty of imprisonment for between one and four years. This was repealed a year later. Banks were also ordered to report the indebtedness of directors and stockholders.

The Central Bank was ordered, December 19, 1840, to pay the scrip issued by the Western and Arlington railroad, except such as was made payable in State bonds. December 18th, all the banks were ordered to resume January 1, 1841, or their charters would be annulled. Also, if they failed to do so, their notes might no longer be received by the State Treasurer or the Central Bank, the notes of the latter alone being receivable for dues to the State and to itself. This act was held to have condoned suspension and saved the charters.