Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/415

 people and the condition of our country, just emerging from the wilderness, did not then and do not now justify the use of banking facilities, if at all, to the extent provided, and of which we availed ourselves, as it seemed, in a spirit of emulation of the extravagance of other States, rather than in accordance with our real wants and substantial means. * * * Few, I apprehend, have ever been able to realize any profits from their so-called accommodation, while almost every one has a loss to regret."

At the session of 1844-5, the Legislature ordered that the receiver of the State Bank should pay to the State treasury all the par funds which he then had, or should afterwards receive; and that they should be used first in the payment of the Legislature. All liabilities of the State contracted before October 1st, were to be paid in the old bank notes, which were then at fifty cents on the $1; but they were no longer to be received for taxes, and State obligations incurred after the date mentioned were to be paid with treasury warrants, bearing no interest but receivable by the treasury and the State Bank. It was also enacted that all the funds of the State which had been placed in the bank should be regarded, not as a part of its capital, but as a deposit by the State. "The truth is, the State mainly lived on the means of the bank from its commencement and as long as it had a dollar."

At the session of 1848-9, the Committee on Banks reported that the State Bank had lost a large part of its assets for lack of means to defend its interests, and that this was owing chiefly to the action of the Legislature in 1842 and 1844, in taking out its par funds with which to pay themselves. In a great number of suits, the bank was non-suited because it could not give security for the costs.

The act of January 10, 1845, enacted that after March 4th nothing but par funds should be received by the State for dues to itself. There were still, in the following year, $133,862 of notes of the Bank of the State outstanding. This law led to long litigation. It was sustained in the State Court, but not in the Supreme Court of the United States. A question also arose on the validity of the repeal of the charter, and on the power of the State to take possession of the assets. The State Court sustained the power of the State to dispose of the franchises and assets of the bank to the fullest extent, so that, taken in connection with Briscoe's case, if the doctrine had been established, it would have enabled the State to act with completely arbitrary power in the creation of paper money banks, without responsibility. The Court said, in fact, that the creditor, in such a case, was left "in a condition in which his rights live but in grace, and his remedies in entreaty only." Before the case came to the Supreme Court of the United States, the Legislature had further taken specie and par funds from the bank and replaced them by credits subject to appropriation; had vested in the State the title to land taken by the bank for debt; and had required the bank to accept in payment bonds of the State issued to other corporations. The