﻿ESAREY: STATE BANKING IN INDIANA 



265 



V 



ATTITUDE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 



1850 



While the commercial interests maintained a firm faith in the 

 integrity of the State Bank, there gradually grew up a sentiment 

 of opposition. The reasons for this sentiment were not clearly 

 defined, yet the sentiment was strong enough to control the legis- 

 lature and especially did it dominate the Constitutional Convention 

 of 1850-51. Of those who sat in the eighteenth session of the 

 legislature — the one that enacted the State Bank charter — four 

 members of the House, David Kilgore, George F. Moore, Thomas 

 Smith, and William Steele; and five members of the Senate, John 

 Beard, Othniel Clark, Ezekiel D. Logan, Alexander F. Morrison, 

 and Zachariah Tannehill, sat in the Convention of 1850. Of the 

 senators, Clark, Morrison, and Tannehill supported the charter ;i 

 Beard opposed, and Logan did not go on record. When a proposi- 

 tion to extend the State Bank charter was before the Convention 

 of 1850 only one of these, Othniel Clark, voted for it.^ 



The ''hard money" Democrats, who in 1834 had been only an 

 insignificant minority, had increased in numbers till they held the 

 balance of power in 1850. These men, however, were not inflation- 

 ists. The strong current of public opinion opposed to the State 

 Bank came from the inflationists — the men who wanted more money 

 in circulation. There is no better place to learn the opinion of the 

 people of that decade on banking than in the Debates of this Con- 

 vention. The bank question had been one of the main issues be- 

 fore the people, and there is no doubt that the delegates represented 

 the people correctly. Few, if any, of the delegates were skilled 

 enough as politicians to conceal in their public speeches their own 

 private opinions, and the great majority of them had no motive 

 other than to express the will of their constituents. The follow- 

 ing pages are intended to set forth both the individual views of the 

 members, and their interpretation of public opinion. 



On October 21, Mr. Abel Pepper of Ohio County offered the 

 foUowing resolution to the Convention: ''That from and after the 

 expiration of the present charter of the State Bank of Indiana all 

 connections between the state and banks shall cease." ^ 



» Sen. Jour., 1833, p. 254. 



^Debates of the Constitutional Convention of Indiana, 1S50-51, p. 1995. These Debates are printed 

 in two large volumes, paged consecutively. This work is referred to hereafter as Debates. The 

 discussion here given is based entirely on the Debates. Where specific reference is not given, any fact 

 may be found readily by use of the excellent index of that work. 



» Debates, p. 134. 



