The North-Carolina standard., 1843-02-22

more OF less perSeVerlng IN refusing all payment
and thereby causing them to depreciate.
} Experience has also taught me low necessary
is to prohibit Our Banks from doing business on
lother than their own or some notes of Banks pay
able IN this State, so that the community when
they want specie may have notes on which it can
be made in the State, and not be sent to Virginia
or South Carolina or Georgia, or elsewhere to
get it wherever the notes that given them may
be payable. 1t is it seems to me- necessary
Icheck that all Banks ought to have on them
For otherwise when they suspend and wish to
play off such a game on the community they
might send off and get some of the most worthless
Bank notes they could procure and palm them off
in loans to the people and then refuse take them
back, as it was said some of the North Carolina
Banks did in regard to the Virginia Bank notes
the preceding year.
1t seems to me, further, nothing more nor less
than justice that they should pay into the Public
Treasury three per cent. on their circulation and
Ideposites when in a state of suspension, because
they the stockholders alone profit by such state,
and the noteholder alone suffers. / do not believe
that the penalties proposed in the bill submitted by
myself were severe; they are, it is true, exempla
~ but in my view moderate and proper. think
Mr.. Speaker, that [ have reviewed the different
provisions of my own bill, with the exception
perhaps, of the second section; the obvious pro-
prety Of which in regard to post notes seems to
me not to require an argument. If the views
have suggested on this absorbing question be in
any degree correct, the provisions of the tenth
section will follow as matter of course; to wit:
that a suspension for the time therein specified
shall work forfeiture of their charters and sub
Ject them to an Information in the nature of bill
IN Equity, and as a necessary consequence their
effects be divided In such division the note
holder and depositor should first be satisfied be-
cause they derive TO profit, and the stockholder
should only take the balance as he alone is profit
ed by large discounts bIoated circulation, sus-
pension and bankruptcy. In order to know the
true state of the Bank each Cashier should be
compelled to declare on affidavit as to it's actual
condition. For these and similar reasons much
prefer the first bill to that of the Senator from
Caswel or the substitute offered by the gentleman
from Warren.
The Banks of this State, Mr. Speaker. have fre-
quently suspended specie payments. and have re-
manned so suspended for the greater part of the
last five years past to the great loss and injury Of
the community in which they are situate; against
good faith and good morals; in open violation Of
the requirements of justice; and solely, as ap-
pears to me- for their own profit and advantage
They have also pretended to qualify and alter
their terms of doing business from the require
ments and privileges of their charters, by giving
notice that for all deposites made and for all dis
counts they will ony pay out current notes; which
in their practice they make to mean fiotes payable
at the most distant points from the place where
they paid out; to the deterioration of the cur
rency without authority of law, against the prin-
ciples of good morals and honest dealing, to the
loss of the dealers, in derogation of the implied
confidence reposed when the charter was granted
and only to the benefit and advantage of them
selves; as thereby they enabled to sell ex-
change for nearly double what they would other
wise get for it.
certainly think that a company should not
cease to pay while it has dollar to pay with, and
when it has exhausted its money it should give
any means it has in exchange for its notes. If
this principle were fully acted on, believe ninety
nine times out of every hundred there would be
no necessity for suspension by any bank. The
late suspensions believe to have been unjustifa-
BILE, wholly inexcusabe, and ought not to have
been tolerated by any community as long the
Bank had dollar of means to-pay with for it is
4 borrowing of the money of the people (by cir
culating their notes among them money! to
sustain them in their broken fortunes and throw
ing the burthen of their bad management on the
people who suffer all the inconvenenceand loss oc-
casioned by the depreciation ofther notes and have
none of the benefits of their profits They have
made loans when in state Of suspension and from
this and other sources, exchange, they have
made larger profits than if they had not sus-
pended.
The man who perils life in a cause dear to his
affections is supposed .~cr:A .~c II u the crown of mar
|tyrdoHa; and f So, how much more deserving is
he who perils what is much dearer than life-his
reputation, his feelngs-and who passively be-
comes the object of hatred, calumny and malice in
defending the sacred cause of truth against the at
tacks of error-error held sacred on account of
the length of time it has prostrated reason and
blunted every moral perception2 Before enga-
ging in such a cause one should reflect upon the
activity, endurance aud fortitude it requires E4e
should remember that Sans culottes-leveIer-i
6del-Jansehist are epithets which enemies
will spare not while every even the most infa-
mous suspicious with regard TO his objects, his
views and opinions will be harbored and circula-
ted in order to lessen the effect which calm and
dignifed argument or pure and spotless devotion
to the true interests of his country may have upon
those who honestly differ III opinion. But con-
scious of his own innocence, and willing to belevs
others as honest Uhough mistakenly as himself it is
no less his duty than his privilege to enforce them
on all proper occasions. In expressing my views
fully and freely on this vital subject have then
been dischargng but duty owe my constituents
and privilege to which l am entitled.
have thus, Mr. Speaker, discharged my duty
whatever may be the consequence. 1t becomes
us to enact some law whereby in future these in