Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/474

 in Southern bonds, and it was feared that if they were thrown on the market a panic would be produced. In April, the Legislature recommended the Comptroller to proceed with the calls. Two per cent. additional security was called for. Thirteen banks failed or refused to respond. When the Comptroller proceeded with the steps prescribed by law for winding them up and selling their securities, he was arrested by an injunction. The interposition of the Legislature, "instead of eliciting the gratitude of these parties, served them as a handle to obtain an injunction, and as a means to embarrass the lawful action of the Department." They wanted to gain time to buy in their depreciated currency, and with it to release their bonds. June 3d, an additional call of eight per cent. was made, on account of the continued decline of Southern bonds. Fifty-eight banks did not obey the call; forty did not even acknowledge the receipt of the notice. An agent sent out to serve notices could find, in many cases, no banking-house, or no competent officer to receive service. In September the stocks of nineteen banks were advertised for sale. In October, another call of three per cent. was issued on Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, California, and Missouri bonds.

In 1863, twenty-two Wisconsin banks were closing business, whose notes were being redeemed at from 55 to 80 cents on $1. The notes of fifteen others, which had been wound up, were being redeemed in treasury notes at a somewhat higher rate.

.—The Miners' Bank, of Dubuque, mentioned above as having been chartered by the Territory of Wisconsin, was the only bank in Iowa in 1840. It suspended in March, 1841; resumed July 1, 1842; and its charter was repealed in 1844, by virtue of a power reserved in it to the Legislature so to do.

The free banking law of 1858 forbade the paymentof interest on deposits, required a specie reserve of twenty-five per cent. of deposits, prescribed that the stocks deposited for circulation must pay six per cent. or more, and that the circulation issued should not exceed ninety per cent. of the value of the bonds.

A Bank of the State of Iowa, on the plan of the Bank of the State of Indiana, was chartered March 20, 1858.

.—The Constitution of 1857 provided that banks should always be taxed at the same rate as other property; that the credit of the State should never be loaned to anybody; that a general banking law might be passed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, but it must contain certain provisions; that suspension of specie payments should never be sanctioned; that all circulating notes should be registered and secured by stocks; that stockholders in any bank should be individually liable for double their shares; that note-holders should be first paid out of the assets; and that the names of all stockholders in banks should be recorded, with the amount of stock, time of transfer, and to whom transferred.

The general banking law was passed March 19, 1858, and amended