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the notes are received, they will not as formerly be deposited in Banks, and drawn out again so as to enter into the circulation, leaving the public creditor his choice of specie or notes, but they will be left on special deposit with the receivers. When warrants are drawn on these receivers, they will call on the Banks for specie to pay the favored public creditor, selecting of course the Bank on whom they will draw according to its servility or opposition to the Executive, and thus placing them all under his control. Now, under such circumstances, is it wise for the Banks to disarm themselves in the presence of their enemy?"1

The man who could write such stuff as this had wholly lost his senses, if he ever had any. If the Bank had been as strong as it should have been, it could have defied the hostility of government as well as that of everybody else. All that gov ernment could do would be to compel it to discharge the obligations of which it became possessed. It could not come into possession of these without paying the full equivalent therefor. The greater their value, the greater the price to be paid. To refuse to resume for the reason that an enemy was lying in wait, was to refuse to resume from an inability to meet him. Mr. Biddle was never a strong man. He made a

competent President until the breaking out of his quarrel with General Jackson. The Bank was then in an eminently sound and healthy condition. But for this quarrel, there is no reason why it should not have remained so. In ordinary times, great abilities were not required of its President. The quality chiefly wanted was good judgment as to the paper offered for discount. Mr. Biddle could not have propitiated General Jackson without a loss of self-respect. Had he yielded to his demands in one instance, he would have been compelled to yield in all; for nothing less than the whole patronage of the Bank would have satisfied the President, and the greedy and remorseless crew that followed in his train. The reasons of the attack were so groundless and absurd that Mr. Biddle believed himself to be wholly master of the situation; and he was by no means indisposed to measure swords with his great antagonist. The airs he put on were turned most effectively against him. An elegant and unimpressive man was opposed to one who had the most consummate mastery over the passions of his fellows. It was a pigmy in the lists against a giant.

1 Financial Register, April 5, 1838.

The result was that Biddle daily grew weaker, while his antagonist grew stronger. There was one way, and only one, in which he could have secured the victory: and that was, to tell the country that he had no quarrel in hand; that he should continue the discharge of his duties as he had discharged them; and that of the people did not want the Bank, he should wind it up at the expiration of its charter, return the stockholders their money, and await the wishes of the country. Instead of taking a course so simple, and at the same time so effective, he descended to a personal controversy, in which Jackson could throw more and dirtier mud in an hour than he could throw in a lifetime. The consequence was, that he was speedily driven from the field with a soiled reputation, a soured temper, and a perverted judgment. He was determined that the Bank should not be put down: so he took a charter from the State of Pennsylvania, paying therefor a sum equalling one-sixth of its capital, when he should not have paid a dollar. If the charter had cost him nothing, he would have made a failure in accepting it, from the impossibility of finding in Philadelphia, to which his operations were chiefly to be confined, adequate employment for so large a capital. The total amount of banking capital in that city now equals only $17,135,000, not one-half that of the United States Bank. As an inevitable result, he was driven into speculations, which took the direction of cotton. The market went heavily against him. Suspending in 1837, the losses he had made in speculations, including the bonus paid the State, had so crippled the resources of the Bank that it was in no condition to resume, which it undertook to do August 15, 1838. This attempt at resumption was only the opportunity of its creditors. They so exhausted its means that it was again compelled to suspend in October of the following year. In obedience to the requirements of the legislature of Pennsylvania, it again attempted to resume on the 15th of January, 1841. A run immediately set in upon it; and, after losing $6,000,000 of specie, it again suspended, and finally, on the 4th of February, 1841. It was, or rather its assignees were, able to take in its notes and pay off its depositors. Its stock was wholly lost. It by no means fell alone. Elliot, in his "Funding System," gives a tabular statement of 55 Banks, having an aggregate capital of $67,036,265, and a note circulation of $23,577,752, which failed the same

year, whose capitals were wholly lost, and whose notes were in great measure a loss to their holders.

One of the most striking illustrations of the monetary history of the time, as well as of the character of the people whom General Jackson led so gallantly to the attack of the United States Bank, is that afforded by the State of Mississippi. That young but ambitious member of the Confederacy, aroused by the General's attack, thought it becoming her interest and dignity to provide a system of her own. In 1830, she chartered the Planters' Bank of Mississippi; which, however, did not get into operation before 1832. In 1833, desirous of giving the Bank the means of making a respectable show in the world, and to enable it to aid in "developing the resources of the State," she issued bonds to it to the amount of $2,000,000, bearing interest at the rate of 6 per cent. These were sold in New York at a premium of 13.25 per cent; realizing an advance of about $250,000, of which the State prudently invested $212,740 in the Bank, increasing her interest in it to $2,212,740. Great success appeared to attend this operation; for, with the money obtained on the bonds, the Bank was for a time enabled to pay the interest accruing on them and magnificent dividends. On the 1st of January, 1834, its paid-up capital was reported to be $2,666,805; of which, it appears, the public held $464,065. Its loans and discounts, at that time, equalled $5,461,464; its circulation, $1,510,426; its deposits, $545,353; its specie, $113,220. Encouraged by all this, nine new Banks were chartered that year, which, with the Planters' Bank, reported on the first day of January, 1835, a paid-up capital of $5,890,162; loans and discounts to the amount of $10,379,651; circulation, $2,418,475; deposits, $1,888,762; specie, $359,302. There was a rapid increase in the number and operations of the Banks until 1838, when the State, unwilling to allow the people, individually, to bear off all the emoluments and honors, again entered the field, and chartered the "Union Bank of Mississippi," with a capital of $15,500,000, subscribing thereto $5,000,000; for the payment of which she issued her bonds for a like amount, bearing interest at the rate of 5 per cent. These bonds were sold in Europe, chiefly in Holland, through the agency of the United States Bank, by which the payment of the interest accruing thereon was guar

anteed. The bonds realized their par value, which was paid over to the Union Bank, bringing into the State a sum of money of which the like was never before heard of. The Genie of the fable was again let loose. All the Banks of the State did their best to rival the young giant rising in their midst. At the close of 1839, the amount of paid-up capital of the State, including that of the Union Bank, was reported at $30,379,403; the loans and discounts, at $48,333,728; note circulation, at $15,171,639; deposits, at $8,691,601; specie, at $867,977. The free white population of the State at that time numbered about 170,000. The paid-up capital per head of population equalled $180; loans and discounts, $285; circulation, including deposits, $140. Had all been gold, the touch of Midas could hardly have effected more.1

While all were gazing in silent wonder upon this meteor, which swept with dazzling brilliancy across the horizon, came a sudden crash, and, for the moment, total darkness. A few

1 The following statement will show the extent of the banking operations in this State, on Jan. 1, 1840, compared with those of the States of New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

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The amount of loans and discounts of the Banks of Mississippi equalled $285 per head of free population; their circulation, including deposits, $140 per head. Those of the Banks of the State of New York equalled $30 per head; their circulation, including deposits, equalled $23 per head.

The following statement will show the number, amount of paid-up capital, loans and discounts, note circulation, deposits and specie, of the Banks of the State of Mississippi, from Jan. 1, 1884, to Jan. 1, 1840, inclusive:

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fragments, a few pieces of scoria picked up here and there, were all that remained. The nucleus which was provided by the State bonds served for hardly a mouthful for the rapacious and barbarous crew by which it was seized. That which appeared to the public was the merest shadow, as vapory and unsubstantial às the trail of a comet. The $30,000,000 of reported paid-up capital was, with the exception of that borrowed on the bonds of the State, paid in in "stock notes," which were discounted by the Banks, the proceeds going to pay up their stock subscriptions. The operation was simply a change in the form of the credits; so that, after the money borrowed on the State bonds was exhausted, nothing remained but entries upon the books and papers, representing indebtedness, from which hardly a dollar was ever realized. The $48,000,000 of loans were never paid; the $23,000,000 of notes and deposits never redeemed. The whole system fell, a huge and shapeless wreck, leaving the people of the State very much as they came into the world. Their condition at the time beggars description. Society was broken up from its very foundations. Everybody was in debt, without any possible means of payment. Lands became worthless, for the reason that no one had any money to pay for them. The only personal property left was slaves, to save which, such numbers of people fled with them from the State, that the common return upon legal processes against debtors was in the very abbreviated form of "G. T. T.," gone to Texas, a State which in this way received a mighty accession to her population.

The interest of the bonds issued to the Planters' Bank was paid by it up to 1840. That of those issued to the Union Bank were paid by that institution, or by the United States Bank, by which their payment was guaranteed, up to and including Nov. 1, 1840. That falling due on May 1, 1841, not being paid by either Bank, Messrs. Hope & Company, of Amsterdam, as agents of the bondholders, addressed, on the 22d of May, 1841, a courteous communication to the Governor of the State; calling the delinquencies to his attention, and respectfully urging him to take proper action in the premises. This communication received from him a prompt and characteristic reply; informing Messrs. Hope & Company that his State, in her sovereign capacity, had repudiated payment of

her bonds!

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