Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/355

 it failed, the mortgages for the stock and the mortgages for the loans, with the guarantee of the State to the bondholders, and of the stockholders to the State, were found to make an inextricable snarl. A Governor, in 1854, said: "It was never intended that the people should be taxed to pay the bonds or the interest on them." This was naïvely true, but it implied that the loss, if the scheme did not succeed, was to be thrown on the purchasers of the State bonds. Fifteen hundred and thirty bonds were actually issued for the bank and five hundred more, a little later, for another branch. The latter issue was hypothecated with the North American Trust and Banking Company of New York for a loan, on which the actual amount received was $121,336. That bank failed and the collateral was sold, passing into the hands of Holford of London.

The number of acres mortgaged to the bank was 187,810, appraised at $3,380,772. Ten years later they were said to be worth about $2 millions. There were two hundred and eighty stockholders.

The Bank of the State of Arkansas was incorporated November 2, 1846; $1 million capital, to be raised by State loan; president and twelve direiors to be elected by joint ballot of the Legislature; also a president and nine directors for each branch; lowest note, $5; never to issue more than three times the capital; to begin when $50,000 in coin paid in, and to establish a new branch for every $5o, ooo paid in; each branch to be independent in its business; the funds and revenues of the State to constitute the capital; trust funds might be placed in it for not less than a year and get the same dividend "as other stock belonging to said institution." Not more than half, nor less than a quarter, of the means were to be used in the counties, in proportion to "representation," in loans on real estate for five years. The number of bonds actually sold for this bank was 1,169.

The federal surplus revenue, which had been intended for the Bank of the State of Arkansas, was paid in drafts on the Agricultural Bank and the Planters' Bank of Mississippi. After great difficulty, instead of $382,333, which was the State's quota, the bank obtained only $286,757. The former amount was due to the United States in specie, but out of the amount which Arkansas obtained, only $91,167 was specie. The rest was in the notes of suspended banks in Ohio; Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The bank put these notes afloat in Arkansas, and issued post-notes of its own. Of demand notes it issued only $8,310.

January 12, 1838, the directors of the Fayetteville branch resolved that as they received no compensation, the bank should lend them, on their notes at twelve months, $10,000 each, being the limit set in the charter. They were also to be allowed to renew their notes until all the debts should be called in. This branch was operating on a bare capital of $110,000, and these directors took $90,000 out of it. January 1, 1839, the bank was very strong and began to pay specie on its notes and post-notes; but each branch paid out the notes of others, keeping the circulation far away from the point of redemption. The Fayetteville branch suspended again October 31st.