CHAPTER III. 



NATIONAL BANKS. 



THE ACT incorporating the national banking system 

 for twenty years was passed by Congress and became a law 

 March 25, 1863. One of the obvious reasons why we 

 demand the abolition of national banks is set forth in the 

 preceding chapters. It is founded upon the specie basis 

 system and has control of the volume of circulating 

 medium. Besides this it has many other objectionable 

 features. Government bonds, which the rich alone possess, 

 is made a special and the only security, by which its ben- 

 efits can be derived. 



The banking law with its various amendments covers 

 sixty-five pages. (See Laws relating to Loans and the 

 Currency, pp. 153 to- 218.) We give below some of its 

 leading features. 



It can issue its notes without limit: 



"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- 

 sentatives of the United States of America in Congress 

 Assembled, That so much of section five thousand one 

 hundred and eighty-five of the Revised Statutes of the 

 United States as limits the circulation of banking associa- 

 tions, organized for the purpose of issuing notes payable 

 in gold, severally to one million dollars, be, and the same 

 is hereby repealed; and each of such existing banking 

 associations may increase its circulating notes, and new 

 banking associations may be organized, in accordance with 

 existing law, without respect to such limitation. 



