Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/341

 The Governor, in his message of 1840, uttered the earliest and most bare-faced defense of repudiation to be found in the literature of that subject. "So far from there being bad faith or a want of honor or honesty in repudiating these bonds, it is entirely consistent with good faith thus to deal with them. They were obtained through a legislation partial and unjust. What right had a few hundred stockholders to make the whole people tributary to their schemes of moneyed aggrandizement? Why should the holders of these instruments be longer deceived? They possess bonds which they never can collect from the Territory. It is proper they should distinctly understand this truth. It is to their interest to take the security which the bonds and mortgages of individuals afford and relinquish 'the moonshine' in the shape of Territorial faith, which when they attempt to touch, will elude the grasp."

Default was made on the interest of the bonds which had been issued to the Bank of Pensacola, in January and July, 1840. The agent of the Bank of the United States in London paid the amount, $30,000, to save, as he said, the honor of the Territory. The United States Bank clique formed the Pensacola Association which took these bonds. They sold them, agreeing to pay the interest in London. Governor Call, in his message of 1842, described this transaction sarcastically, saying that Jaudon was one of those who were responsible on the endorsement, and hence that he was guarding his own honor, not that of the Territory. He went on to say that the bank, instead of building a railroad, as it was bound to do in consideration of the bonds, had removed and sold the materials for the railroad to the value of nearly $275,000. He ended by proposing that another bank should be founded on a specie basis.

The Union Bank petitioned the Legislature, in 1841, for permission to sell below par 704 territorial bonds which it held. The Committee on Banks reported favorably, connecting the concession with proposals for reorganizing the bank so as to separate the Loan Office from the bank. The Legislature peremptorily refused the petition.

The Bank of Pensacola became extinct in 1842. Its paper ceased to circulate; its assets had either been squandered or removed from Florida. In the same year the Union Bank ceased to pay the interest on the bonds issued to it. Its circulation had been reduced to $92,000; but was at two or three for one in specie. The Life and Trust Company's notes were still worse, but there were not many of them. It returned the one hundred and fifty bonds which it held. The Governor hoped that it would retire all the bonds issued for it.

.—The Bank of the State and its branches were authorized, June 22, 1837, to issue notes "of less denomination than $5." These banks were not to issue any notes under $5 nor receive any such, except their own,—that is, none from out of the State. June 30th, an act was passed with a preamble: "Whereas the Bank of the State of Alabama and its several branches have recently suspended specie payments, and whereas it is