Condition of Wisconsin Banks, 1852-61. 
183 
part of the Wisconsin currency. In times of universal prosper¬ 
ity this may be well enough; but when commercial and financial 
revolutions occur, as occur they must , it would seem that 
the greatest degree of power ought to be neld by our own 
government, consistent with its general financial policy, over the 
security of the currency authorized by its laws. ” 
To have saved all the trouble of future years the limit should 
have been removed from the Wisconsin public debt; the banking 
law should have been amended so that only United States and 
Wisconsin state stocks could be received as sufficient security 
for note issues; then with a careful discrimination of foreign cir¬ 
culation on the part of the Wisconsin banks, there is no reason 
why the crisis of 1857, the depression of subsequent years and 
the Civil War might not have been weathered with only a mini¬ 
mum loss to the community. 
But as the stocks of any state were sufficient security, the 
stocks of the Southern and Southwestern states continued to in¬ 
crease. 
On the first Monday in January 1856 the securities were listed 
as follows: 
Virginia 6’s. 
Missouri 6’s. 
Tennessee 6’s. 
North Carolina 6’s. 
Kentucky 6’s. 
Louisiana 6’s. 
Michigan 6’a. 
Wisconsin 7’s. 
Wisconsin 8’s. 
Georgia 6’s ... 
Georgia 7’s. 
California 6’s. 
Gold. 
Total. 
$277,500 
363,000 
205 000 
77,000 
77,000 
31,500 
11,000 
50,000 
50,000 
25,000 
20,000 
33,000 
26,898 75 
$1,246,898 75 
Two banks (including the Oshkosh City Bank mentioned above) 
had failed since the beginning of the banking system; but there 
was no loss accompanying the failure of the Germania Bank of 
Milwaukee, as there was not in the case of the Oshkosh City 
Bank. 
On the first Monday in January, 1857, the state stocks were 
