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Online Library of Liberty - AUTHOR'S PREFACE. - A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, vol. 1 (U.S.A.)
Front Page Titles (by Subject) AUTHOR'S PREFACE. - A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, vol. 1 (U.S.A.)	Return to Title Page for A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, vol. 1 (U.S.A.)The Online Library of LibertyA project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
Search this Title:Also in the Library:Subject Area: EconomicsTopic: Money and BankingAUTHOR’S PREFACE. - William Graham Sumner, A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, vol. 1 (U.S.A.) [1896]Edition used:A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations; comprising the United States; Great Britain; Germany; Austro-Hungary; France; Italy; Belgium; Spain; Switzerland; Portugal; Roumania; Russia; Holland; The Scandinavian Nations; Canada; China; Japan; compiled by thirteen authors. Edited by the Editor of the Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin. In Four Volumes. (New York: The Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin, 1896). Vol. 1: A History of Banking in the United States.
Author: William Graham SumnerEditor: Editor of the Journal of Commerce and Commercial BulletinPart of: A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, 4 vols.
Banks In the United States.
Period I.—1630 To 1780.: The Colonists Experiment With Joint Stock Banks of Issue On Land Security, and With Provincial Mortgage Loan Offices Issuing Currency.
Chapter I.: Banks In the Colonies.
Period II.—1780 To 1812.: Banks Are Incorporated In the States, Also a Bank of the United States On the Type of the Bank of England. the Colonial Idea Is Continued In Banks of the States, Being Institutions Based Either On the “faith and Credit” of the St
Chapter II.: The Earliest Banks of Discount, Deposit, and Convertible Circulation.
Chapter III.: The First Bank of the United States and Its Times.
Chapter IV.: The Earliest Banks In the Mississippi Valley.
Period III: 1812 to 1829-32.: Local Banks Are Multiplied to Replace the Bank of the United States. Their Issues Are Stimulated By Their Fiscal Functions, Soon Intensified By War Financiering. a Commercial Crisis Is Produced With a Prolonged Liquidation, a
Chapter V.: Inflation On the Atlantic Coast.
Chapter VI.: Inflation In the Mississippi Valley.
Chapter VII.: The Crisis On the Atlantic Coast.
Chapter VIII.: The Crisis In the Mississippi Valley.
Chapter IX.: The Liquidation On the Atlantic Coast.
Chapter X.: Liquidation In the Mississippi Valley.—relief Measures.
Chapter XI.: The National Bank and the Local Banks Co-ordinated Into a New System.
§ 1. —: Local Banks On the Atlantic Coast From the Liquidation of 1819-1822 Until the Bank Expansion Produced By the Bank War.
§ 2.—: The Bank of the United States From Biddle’s Accession Until the Bank War.
Period IV.—1829 To 1845.: The War of the Jackson Administration On the Bank of the United States Breaks Up the Existing System of Banks and Brings In Local Banks Again As Currency-providers and Fiscal Agents. Another Bank Inflation, Crisis, and Liquidatio
Chapter XII.: The Bank War.
Chapter XIII.: Measures and Events Antecedent to the Crisis of 1837.
§ 1.—: The United States Bank of Pennsylvania.
§ 2.—: The Multiplication of Local Banks.
§ 3.—: The Inflation of 1835 and 1836.
Chapter XIV.: The Financial Revulsion; 1837 to 1842.
§ 1,: 1837. The Suspension of Specie Payments. the United States Bank of Pennsylvania In the Crisis. Its Cotton Operations. the Federal Treasury In the Crisis.
§ 2.—: The Resumption of 1838. The New York Plan Versus the Philadelphia Plan.
§ 3.—: 1838 and 1839. Treasury Notes and Bank Notes. Continuation of the Cotton Operations. Second Failure of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania. Second General Bank Suspension, South and West of New York.
§ 4.—: The Banks In the States; 1837 to 1840.
§ 5.—: 1840 and 1841. The Third Failure and Final Bankruptcy of the United States Bank. the Bank Failures of 1841. The Extra Session of Congress of 1841. The Last Attempts to Charter a National Bank. the Pennsylvania Relief System.
Chapter XV.: The Liquidation; 1842 to 1845.
Period V.—1843-5 To 1863.: Under the Independent Treasury System, the Regulation of Banking and Currency Is Left Entirely to the States. the Federal Government Handles Only Coin. Banks Organized Under General Joint Stock Laws Gradually, and to a Great Ext
Chapter XVI.: The Local Bank System. the Gold Discoveries and Consequent Expansion. the Commercial Crises of 1854 and 1857. The Aid Given By the Banks to the Federal Government At the Beginning of the Civil War.
§ 1.—: The Local Banks, By States; 1845 to 1860.
§ 2.—: The Banks At the Outbreak of the Civil War; 1860 to 1863.
Period VI.—FROM 1863.
Chapter XVII.: The National Bank System.
THE essential function of a bank is to facilitate transfers of capital. In the United States, however, the function of note issue has always occupied the chief place in public thought about banks. It is as note issuers that they have had their greatest share in the national life, and it is in this capacity that the historian has chiefly to deal with them.
The material for this history is very intractable. It bristles with details which defy attempts at condensation. There is a general history of banks which centers around the federal government; but we begin with thirteen commonwealths, in each of which banks, beside their shares in the general history, had a history of their own, and the number of commonwealths increases to thirty, before the present National Bank system was established.
Should the narrative be constructed on the chronology, or on the subdivisions of the subject, or on the State division? Each of these methods has its claims. In order to try to do justice to each of them, I have adopted the following construction of the work. Taken as a whole the treatment is chronological; it is not evolutional; for scarcely any genetic development can be traced. Six periods are marked off, which are based on the grander vicissitudes of the history. The chapters and sub-chapters are constructed on the analysis of the subject matter within the period. They allow the reader to pursue any one subject consecutively, if he so desires. The Table of Contents presents this chronological and analytical construction. From point to point surveys of the States are taken, which present the history of banks in the several States. The references in the Index, under the names of the States, will enable the reader to connect these detached sections into a history of the banks in any State.
The authorities on which I have relied are the Session Laws, Court Reports, State and Congressional documents. I have examined the Session Laws of all the States south and west of Maryland, from the beginning of the Colony or Territory until the adoption of the National Bank system. For the States north and east of Maryland, I have relied more on secondary authorities, consulting the Session Laws for special laws or periods. In this connection I have to express my obligations to the Bar Association of the city of New York for the unlimited facility of using their splendid collection of the Session Laws which they allowed me. All secondary authorities are cited at the foot of the page, and need not be mentioned further here. As to documents of the States, I have been obliged to be content with such as have drifted by chance into the libraries within my reach. To do more than this it would be necessary to travel from State to State and spend much time in each. Even if one could do this, how many States possess collections of their documents, from the beginning of this century, in an accessible form?
With few documents at hand, it is impossible to answer the doubts and queries which arise, especially in condensing, and also it is impossible to make the combinations by which, in a work of this kind, the investigator verifies and ratifies the statements of fact. The section in which this lack has been felt the most is Chapter 16, Section 1, on the period 1845-60. The place in reference to which the most uncertainties remained uncleared was New Orleans. The history of the banks of that place will yet furnish an interesting and important subject of special study for some investigator who has the local information within his reach.
For the reasons now stated, I have often been compelled to advance with a great feeling of uncertainty, and I cannot hope that I have avoided mistakes. I shall eagerly welcome corrections, or references to documents and authorities which I have neglected, if gentlemen who have local opportunities of information will send them to me.
W. G. SUMNER.Yale University,February 1, 1896.