Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/412

 revulsion in September was due to the provision, in the law for reviving the banks, that the post-notes must be retired at that time. The remark was quoted of some participant in these vicissitudes: "We then touched bottom and we staid at the bottom until May, 1843."

An act to liquidate the property banks, April 5, 1843, provided that any stockholder might clear his liability by paying in the bonds of the State issued to the bank. The assets of the Consolidated Association and the Citizens' Bank were to be held by the State until they should pay the State bonds issued to them. Future crops of the stockholders might be mortgaged to the banks, property might be surrendered to them on appraisal, and the banks might buy in mortgaged property. The Governor was to appoint managers for each. The Board of Currency reported, in 1845, that the Union Bank had punctually paid its semi-annual interest coupons. and the first of the series of bonds due in November, 1844, amounting to $1,750,000, and that ten banks were in liquidation, including the Citizens' and the Consolidated Association.

The Union Bank escaped the fate of all the other banks of the same class. Either it was more bank than loan office or its loans were predominantly on city real estate. It continued as one of the leading banks of New Orleans. The Consolidated Association was liquidated and wound up. In, having paid up a part of the State bonds issued for it, it extended the rest, amounting to $1,376,000, giving bonds of the bank payable at different dates down to 1866. The cashier says: "We are now happy to say that the honor of the State has been relieved so far as this bank is concerned."

The Citizens' Bank remained in liquidation ten years. It was then resuscitated and will be heard of again below.

Of the bonds issued for banks, there were outstanding, in 1843, half of the $2.4 millions issued in 1824 for the Bank of Louisiana; $2 millions for the Consolidated Association; $7 millions for the Union Bank; $7.1 millions for the Citizens' Bank.

In the message of the Governor, 1843, it was stated that the expenditures of the State exceeded the revenue by more than $200,000; "that there is nothing in our exhausted treasury; that the State can no longer borrow a dollar from her own banks; and that the people are taxed as heavily as they can bear."

The Secretary of State and the State Treasurer were constituted the Board of Currency, April 6, 1843; to have only $1,200 salary each. Various measures were taken, March 10, 1845, to assist in the liquidation, and it was provided that receivers should take charge of all the assets of the two great property banks, in order to provide for the payment of the State bonds issued to them.

In 1846, the Governor was able to say that the State and city were "blessed with a sound constitutional currency, amply adequate to all