A Short History Of Paper Money And Banking In The United States With Considerations Of Its Effects On Morals And Happiness Etc

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833 edition. Excerpt: ... AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN BANKING SYSTEM. CHAPTER I. Importance of the Subject. In an address to the stockholders of the United States Bank, at their meeting in 1828, Mr. N. Biddle, the President of that institution, stated, that, of five hundred and forty-four Banks in the United States, one hundred and forty-four had been openly declared bankrupt, and about fifty more had suspended business. Mr. Gallatin, in his "Considerations on the Currency and Banking System," published in 1831, gives a list of 329 State Banks then in operation, having nominal capitals of the amount of $108,301,898, which, added to the capital of the United States Bank, made the whole nominal capital of these institutions, upwards of one hundred and forty-three millions of dollars. These Banks issue notes which serve as substitutes for coin. They grant credits on their books, and transfer the amount of credit from one merchant to another. *. They receive money on deposit. They buy and sell bills of exchange. They discount mercantile notes. They buy and sell public stocks. All these are important functions, and if only one of them be ill performed, the community must suffer inconvenience. The Banks are scattered through nearly all the States and Territories which compose our Union; but they may all be embraced in one view, inasmuch as they all substitute paper for specie, and credit for cash, and are all endowed with privileges which individuals do not possess. By their various operations, immediate and remote, they must affect, for good or for evil, every individual in the country. Banking is not a local, temporary, or occasional cause. It is general and permanent. Like the atmosphere, it presses every where. Its effects are felt alike in the...

An exposition on the principles of banking with a full account of incidents in the history of American banking.

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