Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1859-02-09
See First and Fourth Pages.
suggestions ON the subject of Tennessee
Bank CharIerS.--sfy -

Bank CharterS.--Hy -
The people of the United States have Just passed
through what is called Commercial crisis " We
have the banks get up their circulation to o
high point Their immediate liabilities we're
S43s, 100000 The specie to meet this amount
was SO millions, nearly nine Of due debt to of
specie. In Rhode Island seven TO one; South
Carolina six to one; Indiana to one; Yer
mont forty to one Kentucky about the same as
South Carolina; Tennessee seven to one.
This initiation was followed by the usual results
high prices, heavy impOrtations of merchandise
without corresponding exports, oecumulating bal
against the country, speculatiOns in city lots,
in farms, in stocks in the public lands. increase in
the revenues, in public and private expenditure,
resulting from excessive credits. We have seen
this state of things followed by suspensions of spe
Gle payments, broken banks, deprecated currency,
brokerage usury, bankruptcy, cessation of im>
POrtstiOns, deficient revenues, bankrupt treasury,
public works suspended, unemployed laborers
Then follows q cry for retrenchment and dsnuncia-
ton Of extravaganza, clamOr for increased impO-
eition of duties .or revenue and for projections
forocious denunciation of banks and an advocacy
of An exclusive metallic currency. Then comes Gen.
paper money as unnecessary, injurious to steady
trade, and direct imposition the laboring
classes;-the1 Mr.. JefersOns letter to }. W. Eppes,
in answer to the Adam Smith notion Of a cheap cur
rency in preference TO a dear one and proposing a
liquidation of all banks in Virgnia,-then Gen.
Jaekson's letter to Moses Dawson, in 1887 against
all bills Of credit.
And then we have, on the other side, the idea of
Nicholas Bidde repeated, that exclusive metallic
currency ft only for the bsrbarous and that
the people had as we'll abandon steamboats, and 60
to polling up the Mississippi river as TO abandon
this admirable continuance of cheap currency.
All this was talked over 1890 and iB 1887 and
now must be talked over again. In the meantime
the Tennessee banks, having had their circulation
up to s or millions, and then got down to
4 have now got up to about six again, and WILL of
course, get up the balloon again as prac>
ticable.
As the State Bank and branches have never been
REQUIRED by charter to keep any given amount
Of specie compared with its debts as the free banks
are required to keep the miserable Pittance of ten
per cent, and the stock banks are not required By
their charter to keep dollar on hand, the whole
psst action of the government seems to have been
intended to establish exclusive paper currency or
at least te permit the banks to do far they
could.
Asitisl likely thstwe shall see repetition of the
grand scenes of 1919, 1887, and 1857, as well as
the smaller scenes that constantly being enacted
in some quarters, it well to see that some more
efficient check should be placed on the Institutions
which manufacture our money by some guarantee Of
the sovency Of their prOmisary notes, and requiring
all the banks to keep on hand at all times fixed,
definite amount of specie, as compared with their
liabilities so as to prevent the establishment Of
exclusive paper currency and to which the system
constantly gravitates.
individual Liability by stockholders i'm
Banking Companies.
II will be sesn BY reference to the legislative acts
which gave rise to the present banks in Tennessee,
that they are all governed by charters of inoOrpO
ration. These charters, by the laws of Tennessee,
create an artificial person subject to be sued and
having the power to sue each person who subscribes