THE FAllMERS" REGISTER. 



43: 



ijiuik. My appliciiiion iit ihe oilier banks was 

 H liunless one : so I ciime linck n<_'itiii, iiiul llie 

 dr.ili wiis iiiiulo t)Ui in ilue lorin ami liaiiilfd to 

 nie liir my int;|)t'rlion. Uut vvli.il do yuu think 

 waedie cliaracier of ii ? It was 10 he paid nui 

 in specie, tiui in current notes, and so expiepsed 

 on the ve.ry face of it. Now let it he tiome in 

 inmd iliat I paid lor it in Ihe very same article — 

 current notes — and tliat too at a premium ol" 4h 

 per cent. Now I can readily nnderstand wh) 

 a eiilver dollar should be worth more, under some 

 circum:<taiices, ll.aii a paper dollar ; hut I can- 

 not uiideisiand why a current note in New York, 

 neither of winch will command any p^iy, t^honld 

 be won h more than a current noie in li chmoiid. 

 Merchants may understand iliis, but 1 cannoi. 

 The tact is, that on this liiiU' ir^-nsjciion, amount- 

 ing' to only 8250, I lost S 11 25, and the bank 

 lUride it — and this they call accommodation. 

 The truth is, it took one ol' tny be^t loads id 

 hay to |iav lor this accommodation. A lew more 

 such accowimodaiions woidd reduce me to the 

 same condiiion in which the banks are — they 

 would luin me. Now here is a {grievance — a 

 trreai and palpable onevance, which has taken 

 S1125(roin the pocket of me, tni obscure lium- 

 er. not eiiiraged in any trade, by which I 

 mii^hi cheat as much Irom some other person, 

 and it has <roiie into the cotleis of one ol' the 

 «reaf moneyed insluuiions of our state. ^ or 

 is this the only case in which we lose. We 

 lose constantly in every instance in which a de- 

 preciated currency is concerned. To make this 

 plain, I wjll state a case which occurs every day 

 anil every hour in the day. The iarmer brinirs 

 hi.'^curn, his wheat, his lohaccu, and what no% 

 10 market, and sells it and gels his pay in bank 

 notes: and if the price be a good one, h<^ libels 

 very well satisfied. Bat vviiy is he satisfied '? 

 Because with these same notes, he goes t,o the 

 merchant and there buys a coat, lor himself, and 

 a ijown lijr his wile, arid a fine bonnet with a preity 

 nbrtud on it lor his d mo; liter, and perhaps a gun 

 lor his son. Now all this is well enough, till we 

 e.xamine into it a little mote carelully, and when 

 we Jo, we .>;h;dl find that ihe merchint paid lor 

 these things in a depreciated currency — conse- 

 quently a loss has been sustained. And the 

 (luesiion is, on whom will it tiill ? Now, every 

 body acquainted with merchants at all, knows 

 that they are not such fools as to let it come 

 upon them. Of course it tails on the consumer. 

 The coat, the gown, the bonnt't, and the gun, 

 turn out, therelore, to be a lo.-ing business. 



Now here is ^ grievance, a great and sore 

 grievance — and what is the remedy ? I re- 

 member some years ago, whif-^t the United States 

 Banlc was in existence, 1 had occasion to transmit 

 some money Irom ilfis point to Cincinnati, in 

 Ohio. I went to the branch bank in this city and 

 readily obtained a draft lor the sum wanted, lor 

 which I paid 25 cenis on the .^100. Now let it 

 be undeistood, thai I have nothing to do with that 

 bank in a political point of view. Whether such 

 an institution is constitutional or not. I preienii 

 not to say. At the same time, when Washington 

 arid Madison, and the Supreme Court of the 

 United States say that it is constitutional, I must 

 think that it comes pretty near to it. But this 

 much I can sav, I Ibund that bank a very conve- 

 nient thing. Yon may stigmatize it as the mon- 

 VoL. IX.-38 



gier — you may call it Biddle's bank, or wliai you 

 please; but the bank which equalizes ^the cur- 

 rencv, the bank which noikis my dollar here 

 equal to another m;in's dollar in any oilier plac« 

 all over the world, is the bank lor litrmers. If 

 this bnnk had been in existence, I should not have 

 lost §11 25 on my hog stock.* 



♦ Mr. Turner here has fallen into a very common 

 error. Tt was not because the bank he refers to was 

 a Uniled Stales bank, but because it was then a sjiecie- 

 paijiiig bank, thet it could sell exchanfje- on another 

 specie-paying bank so loV. If the United Stales 

 Bank at that time had paid only in irredeemable paper, 

 us the Virginia banks have long done and do now, 

 both tne depreciation of its notes and the price of ex- 

 change for specie would have been nearly as great. 

 And if our state banks now, and had all along, ho- 

 nestly and fully paid s|)ecie, the price of exchange 

 between the most remote cities of the union would 

 be (without the aid or existence of a United Slates' 

 bank) so small as not to be worth consideration. 

 The business of a publisher of a periodical, having 

 circulation among many distaid and widely scattered 

 subscribers, probably suffers more than any other by 

 the depreciation of paper money ; and of the evil and 

 loss we have atnple and almost nnnous experience. 

 Yet if the state banks merely paid specie, we should 

 never lose more than 25 cents discount on any $5 

 note sentVrom the remotest parts. The late United 

 States Bank barely missed stopping pa3-ment in 1819 

 and 1825 — and both the fir^t and the second national 

 banks would cer-tainlj^ have stojiped within three 

 years, if their charters had not ended sooner. And in 

 that case, Mr. Turner would have founy their notes 

 just as worthless as he, most justly and truly, estimates 

 the value of tlie dishonored notes of our irresponsible 

 and lawless state banks. 



Like Mr. Turner, M:e speak of a United States Bank 

 meiely in reference to the claim of its being a conve- 

 nience and facility to the community, and especially to 

 the agricultural community. We here consider the 

 institution merely as bearing on agricultural interests. 

 We will not even name a political, objection, nor al- 

 lude to constitutional difficulties. And, if omitting all 

 these latter, considerations, then there is one ground of 

 I preference which we entertain and readily admit for a 

 I United States bank, to the state banks operating with- 

 out any such national or controlling institution. Our 

 ' preference in this case is exactly that felt by Baillie 

 i Macwheeble for paying a heavy black-mail to the 

 ' highland chieftain, Fergus Mclvor, rather than be ex- 

 J posed to the more continually harassing and unregu- 

 j lated petty pilferings of the numerous caterans and 

 \ thieves under his control. If the only choice of the 

 ; agricultural interest is to be either at the mercy of 

 ! a thousand fraudulent and plundering state banks, 

 i privileged by law and custom to cheat and rob almost 

 i at discretion, and without penaltj , or to the same army 

 ; of petty thieves of coiporations, partially restrained 

 I and controlled by a supreme chief of banking robbers, 

 i in the character of a United States bank, then we 



