Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/362

 States practising all the arts of legislative intrigue and corruption, because it was in the last stages of financial rottenness; and on the other side, the Legislature of a great State making demands on the Bank, which would have been sure to ruin a solvent institution, in order to try to carry on its "improvements" without taxation. It required folly and vice on both sides to bring to pass such a piece of legislation. In such an arena and under such circumstances, the lobbyists of course were triumphant masters, and the testimony shows that those who were employed were experts, that they had a definite aim to accomplish, and that they accomplished it. The Bank Committee, that is, Handy, drew from the Bank, in this connection, $131,175.

This intrigue is singularly interwoven with a political intrigue, in which the Bank party are working to give the State to Van Buren; and the jealousy of New York is another strand which is interwoven through the whole. The Governor of the State was in alliance with the Bank party and assisting them. The leading men in Pennsylvania at this time had all reached a conviction of some desperate necessity, in respect to the financial affairs of the State, the city of Philadelphia, and the Bank of the United States, which compelled the best of men to consent to measures which, at another time, they would have considered base and criminal.

The outcome of the legislative struggle was the joint resolutions of April 3, 1840, by which all the chartered banks were required to resume January 15, 1841, or forfeit their charters; but any one might "proceed to recover and collect in gold or silver coin the liabilities of, and the penalties recoverable from, any of said banks, according to the common law in force in this Commonwealth, and not otherwise." This clause was the pride of the lobbyists. There were no penalties by the common law, and the "not otherwise" was intended to cut off all the statutory penalties.

The courts, however, did not take the view of this device which the schemers expected. It was held that the Legislature never could have intended to appoint a remedy which did not exist, or, in that way, to prescribe a denial of justice. Hence a demand was assumed to have been made, since it was not denied, and twelve per cent. was awarded from the time of commencing suit.

The next section of the act prescribed the method of ascertaining that a bank did not redeem and the method of enforcing forfeiture. No such law had ever been enforced except in case of absolute bankruptcy, and the action of the courts on several cases brought by Kuhn showed that they felt called upon by some considerations of public policy to construe all the laws beneficently in favor of the banks. It was further provided that banks which had suspended since October 9, 1839, or should do so before January 15, 1841, must lend to the State, pro rata of their capital, within one year, not over $3 millions at not over five per cent.; the sum to be expended on the