Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1821-04-24
FOR THE SPECTATOR.
THE BANKING SYSTEM.

FOR THE SPECTATOR.
THE BANKING SYSTEM.
Banks are either beneficial to the COM
munity at large, or to the individual stock
holders who possess the shares. To be
beneficial to the community the govern
ment must be the sole stockholder.-
Chartering bank to individuals, is TAX
ing away from the public profitable
source of revenue, to glut the avarice OF
company of spectators. AS there
are no constitutional shackles in the way
of the general government, have ofsen
thought it strange that they did not es-
tablish national bank on this footing,
which could so eHectually superscelc the
necessity Of loans and taxation. Sup
posing the U. States had, at the close of
the revolutionary war, establisheda bank,
and authorized it to issue as much paper
as would answer Tor the currency Of the
country--supposing, as was the case,
that they had no capital, at that time,
with which to redeem their paper, the
faith of the government might have been
pledged, and its revenues mortaged on
the credit thereof, till the fictitious could
have been turned into real capital. Had
this have taken place, it is easy to see
the benefits which we would at present
receive therefrom. Every man in the
nation, looking on himself in the light
of stockho.der, would feel interested
in the fate Of the institution, and long
before this, as much specie could have
been secured in the vaults, as to redeem
any paper which would have been re-
turned to the bank.
Before you pronounce this wild, Chi
merical plan, consider well whether il
might not have been executed with ease
and safety. l know OF but one impedi-
ment which stood in the way--that was,
the hrGudices ofthe heohle. Smarting
under the losses which they had sustain
ed by the old continental paper, and &C
customed to view hubHc faith as we do
at present the faith OF a tin-pedlar, they
would at that time have denounced the !
man, as their worst enemy, who would |
have proposed such plan. But these |
days of dread have passed away, and the |
faith of the general government is now
received, as it ought to be, as a sure |
guarantee for whatever it undertakes.-
The time cannot be far distant when !
plan like this will be adopted for the
general good Of the community; and,
in fact, it is time that the profits of
such institutions were taken out of the |
hands, of few spectators, and applied |
to the benefit of the nation.
Illinois has devised system Of bank
ing, which it would be no disparagement
for the United States to pattern after
But then, as says the council of revision,
she has tread on constitutional grounds.
Yet, as have observed in former num-
Der, if the United States courts have
permitted companies of Spectators to
make this innovation on their constitu-]
ton, why not permit state
! am aware that the ingenuity of man
could not devise plan, which would be
congenial to the wishes ola the people.
When interests are affected, patriotism
too often vanishes. When officers are
to be paid in state money, some of them
will be led to inquire, instinctively, what
will be its par value? What effect this
had with that very (usef ul body efsages,
the council of revision, in determining
them to declare the bank unconstitution-
al, will not pretend to say; yet fear
some of them are but human, as we'll as
ourselves.
l cannot but be amused at the rawlings
ola Bedlamite, who signs himself" Philo-
Curtius," and has filled column ofyour
paper of the Sd of April, ON the subject, |
l believe, of the State Bank, as far as
can see through the glare of his lofty !
style. Yet his " hanging the state on the
horns of the moon," only convinces me
that he wrote his essay at the wrong time
of the moon, when men of particular
description have not the power of re-
ceiving or communicating ideas intelli-
gibly. But one good may result from
his labors, in literary, if not in
financial point of view-the boys who
read it, will be inclined to take up the
dictionary to find out the meaning of
the hard words, which form the sum
and substance of his production through
out. CANDOR. j