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CONGRESS, U. S. 



sponsibility of stockholders ? The very stocks 

 are assignable; they are personal property. 

 They are bought and sold in the market every 

 day for more or less, according to their worth. 

 Although one of these banks may start with 

 some very responsible men when it first sets 

 up, the moment it becomes at all doubtful or 

 troublesome it quickly passes off into the hands 

 of men who have no responsibility. You can 

 never pursue it in that way. As to the pro- 

 vision that they shall retain twenty-five per 

 cent, on their circulation on hand, that is their 

 own money ; ' it is not United States money. 

 The fact is just this: whenever your bonds 

 that you hold for your security to redeem these 

 bills depreciate essentially, the bank will wind 

 up, and they will do it without any sort of dis- 

 paragement or any dishonesty. The stock- 

 holders will say at once to themselves, ' "We have 

 noticed the fall of these stocks; we know that 

 they are very much down ; we will not redeem 

 any more of these bills ; we will leave them 

 to be redeemed by the Government ; we gave 

 them $100,000 and deposited it with them in 

 bonds ; they only allowed us $90,000 ; that is 

 all we have had of them ; we leave these notes 

 in their hands to redeem ; we will let them re- 

 deem them ; we gave them a great deal more 

 than they ever gave ns, and let them redeem 

 them.' When would that occur ? Why, sir, 

 in great national calamities such as those under 

 which we already suffer by the unfortunate 

 proceedings of this war, we know that public 

 stocks rise and fall with the prosperity or de- 

 cline of the nation. 



" Again, I will take the very reverse of this 

 state of things. Suppose we should close this 

 unfortunate controversy and return to peace. 

 The moment you are at peace every man wants 

 all the money he has got to go into business. 

 He has lent -it to the United States, taken this, 

 that, or the other sort of stock, in order to have 

 it earn something while this public controversy 

 and difficulty was going on. The moment that 

 is ended he wants his money to go into busi- 

 ness again in our cities and towns importing 

 and the like. He immediately cashes these 

 bonds, and a very large portion of these bonds 

 will at once be thrown on the market at 

 a discount the moment you are at peace. 

 In either of these cases, whether from public 

 calamity or from peace, there comes a dete- 

 rioration upon the value of these bonds; 

 these banks are wound up, the bills are pro- 

 tested and presented to the Treasury here in 

 bundles for payment. What will you do ? It 

 is said in the bill that they are to be paid here. 

 You may take the stocks the bank left as secu- 

 rity and go and sell them in the market, and 

 thus get money to pay them. If they have 

 deteriorated so much that the banks do not 

 want to pay their bills, it will be a pretty hard 

 bargain for us to pay them with those bonds. 

 We should have to sell at as much discount as 

 they. Besides, we do not get rid of anything 

 in that way. We have to anticipate our bonds. 



They run twenty years. We have got to pay 

 these notes when they are presented ; and if 

 we sell our bonds at a discount in the market 

 to get some money to redeem them with, we 

 have got to meet that bond in the end, have 

 we not ? We do not get rid of it at all ; but 

 we are compelled to get the money about 

 twenty years before it is due. I do not see the 

 policy, the expediency, or the profit of such a 

 bargain. 



" The next aspect to which I will call atten- 

 tion is this : we once had, or twice had, a 

 United States Bank. The history of the last 

 one is within the recollection of most of those 

 who hear me. That bank had a capital of 

 $35,000,000. The proposition now is to make 

 United States banks with a capital of $300,- 

 000,000. The United States took $7,000,000 

 of that stock. They paid nothing in, but put 

 in their stock for it on time. They had direc- 

 tors of their own appointed to keep watch of 

 that bank. They had the right to borrow 

 money at that bank. The bank was bound to 

 loan it to them at a certain rate and limita- 

 tion. They went on with that bank during the 

 whole period of its existence. They took their 

 dividends from year to year by extinguishing 

 the payment of interest on their bonds ; and 

 at the close of the whole they received back 

 their stock and ten per cent, upon it of ac- 

 cumulated profits that had not been divided. 

 Everybody concerned in it was paid ; the stock 

 was paid back ; and the United States made 

 that money. 



Now, sir, why did that institution go down ; 

 or rather, why was it not renewed and en- 

 larged and adapted to the condition of the 

 country ? It was because it was said to be 

 a dangerous political engine in the hands of 

 whatever political party existed at the time; 

 that it would be used as a great machine in the 

 different States by the favor which the Govern- 

 ment would give it, or the control which they 

 would exercise over it ; and it was dangerous, 

 as it was said then, and I think it was demon- 

 strable. 



" Mr. President, look at the proposition now 

 before us in this aspect. It provides that the 

 Secretary of the Treasury shall nominate the 

 Comptroller of the Currency. He can be ap- 

 pointed by the President only on the nomina- 

 tion of the Secretary of the Treasury ; and he 

 is given any number (not limited at all) of 

 clerks and agents. There are established, if 

 you please, three thousand of these banks 

 under this bill, of $100,000 each, scattered 

 through all the country. They can be visited 

 by agents appointed here under this bill, and 

 inspected from time to time and reported upon. 

 The Secretary is authorized to make such of 

 them as he thinks proper depositories of the 

 public revenue, and he is to distribute this 

 stock, one half of the $300,000,000 to the dif- 

 ferent States, according to their representative 

 population, and the other half according to the 

 banking resources of the country ; there is no 



