the last session. It was referred to the Committee on Finance, consisting of Mr. Holmes, of Maine, Mr. Eaton, Mr. Macon, Mr. Van Buren, and Mr. Lowrie.

On the 24th of January, 1822, Mr. HOLMES, from the said committee, reported a bill, which was identical with that reported in Senate, on the 20th of December, 1820, (see p. 820) except that it substituted a pecuniary fine, instead of the punishment of the pillory, as directed by the former act, as the sanction of its provisions.

FEBRUARY 8, 1822.

Mr. FINDLAY moved to recommit the bill to the Committee on Finance, "with instructions to introduce a provision suspending, for five years, or otherwise modifying so much of the charter of the bank, as declares that the directors of the bank, and its branches, shall be ineligible, who have served three years in succession, not embracing the Government directors."

This motion was not carried.

This bill being under consideration in Senate, 12th March, 1822, Mr. FINDLAY moved to amend the bill, by the addition of the following section:

"And be it enacted, That so much of the second rule of the eleventh section of the act, entitled "An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States," as provides that no director shall hold his office more than three years out of four in succession, and so much of the 14th rule as provides that no director of an office of discount and deposite shall hold his office more than three years out of four in succession, be, and the same is hereby, repealed."

This amendment was rejected by a large majority.

Mr. TALBOT moved the indefinite postponement of the bill; this motion was negatived.

Mr. PLEASANTS then moved to strike out the second section of the bill; but this motion was, after debate, lost, by the casting vote of the chairman, (Mr. DICKERSON) the votes being 19 for, and 19 against the motion.

Mr. EATON moved an amendment to the second section, providing that "the court before whom the conviction shall take place, shall have power to enter a judgment against the party for the amount or value of the thing so fraudulently converted," &c.

The amendment was lost.

MARCH 14, 1822.

Mr. WILLIAMS, of Tennessee, offered an amendment to the first section, going to require of the bank to make all its notes, of and under ten dollars, payable at the principal bank, or any of its branches.

This proposition was supported by the mover, and by Mr. TALBOT, and was opposed by Mr. Oris, and Mr. KING, of New York. After an ineffectual attempt by Mr. VAN DYKE, to limit the operation of the amendment to five dollar bills, the question was taken on the amendment, and the same was agreed to by the following vote:

AYES.-Messrs. Barbour, Barton, Brown, of Ohio, Chandler, Elliott, Gaillard, Johnson, of Kentucky, King, of Alabama, Lanman, Lloyd, Macon, Noble, Palmer, Pleasants, Ruggles, Smith, Talbot, Taylor, Thomas, Walker, Ware, and Williams, of Tennessee.-22.

NOES.-Messrs. Boardman, D'Wolf, Dickerson, Eaton, Findlay, Holmes, of Maine, Holmes, of Miss. Johnston, of Louisiana, King, of New York, Knight, Lowrie, Mills, Otis, Parrott, Seymour, Southard, Stokes, Van Dyke, and Williams, of Miss.-19.

Mr. HOLMES, of Maine, moved an amendment, requiring the bank, within six months, to accept all, or relinquish all the provisions of the first section; but this motion was afterwards withdrawn by the mover.

Mr. BARBOUR moved to strike out the first section of the bill, together with the proviso, making all notes of, and under, ten dollars, payable at the bank, or either of the branches.

After debate, the motion to strike out was decided in the affirmative, as follows:

AYES.-Messrs. Barbour, Benton, Brown, of Ohio, Chandler, D'Wolf, Eaton, Holmes, of Miss. Knight, Lanman, Lloyd, Macon, Mills, Palmer, Parrott, Pleasants, Ruggles, Seymour, Smith, Talbot, Taylor, Thomas, Van Dyke, and Williams, of Miss.-23.

NOES.-Messrs. Barton, Brown, of Lou. Dickerson, Edwards, Elliott, Findlay, Holmes, of Maine, Johnson, of Kentucky, Johnston, of Lou. King, of Alabama, King, of New York, Lowrie, Morrill, Noble, Southard, Stokes, Walker, Ware, and Williams, of Tennessee.-19.

The remaining section was then ordered to be engrossed, and read a third time. The bill, as amended, was afterwards passed, and sent to the House of Representatives.

IN THE HOUSE, the bill was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, who were discharged from the consideration of it. and it was afterwards referred to a select committee, to whom the memorial of the president and directors of the bank had been referred; but it does not appear that any action of the House took place on it during the session.

JANUARY 20, 1823.

Mr. HAMILTON, of S. C., presented a memorial of sundry banking institutions, insurance companies, and individuals, of Charleston, S. C., which is as follows:

To the Honorable the House of Representatives of the U. S. of America: Your petitioners, interested in the commercial prosperity of the United States, and of South Carolina in particular, having learnt, from the proceedings of the stockholders of the Bank of the United States, that a petition would again be presented to your honorable body, praying for an alteration in their charter, by which that bank and its offices would be released from the obligation of receiving in payment of all dues to the Government the notes of all the different offices of the said Bank of the United States, in whatever part of the Union such office may be located, respectfully pray that such petition may be granted.

Your petitioners are perfectly satisfied, if the notes of each office of the Bank of the United States were made receivable only at such office, and thereby confined in their circulation to the State in which they were issued, and to those parts of the adjoining States more immediately connected with it in commerce, that very great benefits would result to the different banking institutions in particular, and to the community in general. The offices would then issue their notes on precisely the same principles and in the same proportions as the State banks, and their business would be conducted ac cording to their several capitals, on terms of perfect reciprocity. The rates of exchange would then become more uniform and moderate, by an increase of competitors in regular exchange operations. The different moneyed institutions and the community would be relieved from the exactions which they occasionally feel, and of which they are always apprehensive. Good will would exist towards an institution very capable of, and even now affording great advantages to, the Government, and harmony would be restored between it and every part of the community.

CHARLESTON, November, 1822.

[On the 17th December, 1823, a copy of this memorial was again presented, by Mr. POINSETT, and referred to the Committee of Ways and Means, upon which no report was made.]

Ordered. That the said petition be referred to Mr. Hemphill, Mr. Cambreleng, Mr. Mercer, Mr. Mallary, and Mr. M'Kim.

JANUARY 28, 1823.

Mr. HEMPHILL (by leave of the House) presented a memorial of the president and directors of the Bank of the United States, on the part of the stockholders of the said bank, stating certain grievances under which they labor, arising from defects and omissions in the act for their own incorporation; which memorial was referred to the said committee.

FEBRUARY 27.

Mr. HEMPHILL, from the said committee, made the following report: The committee, to which were referred the memorial from several banking institutions, and insurance companies, in the State of South Carolina, and the memorial from the President and Directors of the Bank of the United States, praying for certain laws to be passed in relation to the bank, and for certain alterations to be made in the charter, report:

That the memorials claim the interposition of Congress in four particulars: 1. To change that part of the charter which provides that no director, except the president, shall be eligible for more than three years in four.

2. To provide, by law, for the punishment of persons who may be convicted of practising fraud on the bank.

3. To authorize the board to appoint one or more persons to sign notes of the smaller denominations at the parent bank.

4. To pass a law by which the notes of the bank shall only be receivable, in payments to the United States, at the bank or branch where they are made payable.

As to the first, there are many inconveniences which arise from the short duration which is allowed to a directorship; but the committee are not inclined at present to make the change prayed for.

As to the second, the committee report in favor of it, to the fullest extent prayed for, and think that salutary penal laws ought immediately to be passed on the subject.

As to the third, the committee think it is reasonable, and that it ought to be granted. The almost constant manual labor of signing notes must too much exhaust the two principal officers of the bank, and, in a greater or less degree, disqualify them from a due application of their minds to the extensive, critical, and important concerns of the bank.

As to the fourth, the committee are obliged to go into some detail upon it. If the arrangement prayed for would be beneficial to the bank, and not injurious to the Government, nor to local banks, nor to the community at large, it ought to be granted; but more especially ought it to be granted, if it will not only be beneficial to the bank, but productive of public good.

Under the 14th section of the act incorporating the bank, the bills or notes of the bank, originally made payable, or which shall have become payable on demand, are made receivable in all payments to the United States, unless otherwise directed by act of Congress.

It will be observed, in the first instance, that no alteration of the charter in relation to this provision is prayed for. It will also be observed, that the act incorporating the bank did not consider this arrangement as unalterable; it was to undergo the test of time and experience; on the one hand, Congress reserved the power to change this provision whenever the public good should require it, and, on the other, the stockholders had every reason to expect that, if this provision should distress the bank, that Congress would remove it, if, by doing so, no disadvantage would accrue to the Government. The question now, after a fair and full experiment on the subject, is, whether this provision is judicious or otherwise; and we can only arrive at the truth of this inquiry by comparing the consequences of this provision with that state of things which will most probably exist if it should be removed.

The bank is to place the funds of the Government at any given point, and it is the duty of the bank, as far as possible, to preserve a sound currency in the country; the bank is not bound to pay its notes, presented by the Government, except where the notes are payable; but as it is bound to transfer the funds, little time only could be gained by refusing to pay them wherever received, and that refusal, perhaps, would be attended with inconvenience to the Government, and accordingly the bank pays the notes wherever received, without reference to the places where they are payable; the result is at times embarrassing to the bank. The practical effect of the provision under con sideration, will be more clearly perceived, by attending to the usual course of business, and to the state of exchange. The exchanges between the West and Atlantic, have always been against the former. The exchanges between the North and the South, are, for one portion of the year, against the latter, and for another, in its favor. When the exchanges are unfavorable to the South and West, the notes of the Southern and Western branches are taken to the North, to pay the balance of debt; they are equal to cash, without the expense of transfer, as they are receivable in payment of duties to the Government. To give the best view of this part of the subject, the committee will incorporate a part of the report of the committee of the bank, presented to Congress in the session of 1820.

Speaking of the branch notes, it says, "they are equal to cash, or very nearly so, in all the principal cities north of the Potomac. They are so because they are receivable in payment of duties to the Government, the portion of which, payable to the north of the Potomac, in any quarter of the fiscal year of 1819, was, taking that year as an example, nearly as much as the whole circulation of the Bank of the United States at the same time, and of course kept up a steady demand for the notes of the Southern and Western branches. The union of this demand with the course of exchanges, draws the whole of the notes of the Western offices to the Atlantic, and, at particular seasons of the year, the greater part of the notes of the Southern offices to the North. The revenue collected to the South being comparatively small, there can never be any material reflux of their notes, because they will be absorbed by the northern demand before the exchanges turn, and the balance of payments being always against the West, there is never any towards that quarter. We will now proceed to enumerate some of the evils resulting from the receipt of the notes of the bank and its branches in this manner and under these circumstances.

"Ist. It greatly deranges and distresses the money market, both of the places where the notes are received, and where they are payable. The bank at Philadelphia and the offices at New York and Boston, did not receive less than between five and six millions of the notes of the offices south and west of them, in the short period of fourteen months, exclusive of the notes of the office at Washington. These points were obliged to pay the Government the amount of these notes, and in vain sought for speedy reimbursement from the offices where they were payable. The state of the exchanges which caused this flux of their notes, created an inability to reimburse the offices which had received them, until the exchanges turned. The offices receiving them were of necessity obliged to curtail their business suddenly, to provide the means of paying them. Accordingly, the curtailments at Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, within the same period, amounted to upwards of four and a half millions of dollars, and exhausted almost the whole of the capital placed at these points. The capital of New York and Boston, united, was at some periods less than nothing. What distress and embarrassment must have been caused by these circumstances, will easily be conceived by those who have reflected on the nature and effects of the sudden withdrawal of a large portion of the active capital of a trading community.

"The evil suffered in the community where the notes were thus received and paid, was not all. The offices whose notes were thus received and paid were necessarily called upon to provide the means of reimbursement, and curtailments to a corresponding amount were ordered in them, and like dis

tress and embarrassment produced in the communities where they were located. Double the amount of the notes thus circulated was in this way withdrawn from use to provide for their payment. The aggregate curtailments in the fourteen months before alluded to, (from 1st September, 1818, to 1st November, 1819,) were upwards of 10 millions of dollars, and it is confidently believed it would not have been necessary to have reduced the discounts of the bank a single cent, but for this cause. When these reductions commenced, the discounts were very moderate for the capital of the bank. They did not amount to $42,000,000.

"Nor is the extent of the distress and embarrassment measured by the immediate effects of the reduction of the discounts of the bank and its branches. These reductions, in their operation, throw back upon the State banks a portion of their circulation, and reduce their deposites, and they also are obliged to curtail their business, and add to the general mass of distress.

"The uncertain liability of the bank and its branches, as each is in a certain degree liable to pay the notes of all the rest, and the perpetual alteration of the capital of each, by paying the notes of the others, and having its notes paid by them, put it beyond the power of calculation to determine the extent of business which can be safely done, and leaves the bank to vacillate between the hazards of rashness, and the fruitless results of a torpid prudence. To day, a branch shall have a million of capital, and in three months it may be without a cent.

"2. It diminishes and deranges the currency of the whole country. The bank was under the necessity, to protect itself from danger, and to avoid charging itself to an unlimited amount with the cost of adverse exchanges, to forbid the offices with which the exchanges were unfavorable to issue their notes. It, however, issued its own notes, and the offices against which the exchanges did not run, issued their notes without any limit but that of the demand; yet the circulation of the bank was by this cause greatly decreased. Thus, for example, in the short space of five months, from the 1st April, 1819, to the 30th August, 1819, it was reduced from $6,045,428 to $3,838,386.

"This, however, does not shew the entire extent of the abstraction from the currency, which this cause produces. Let it be supposed that the circulation of the bank is four millions of dollars, and that one-half of it has been issued by offices to the South and West, and it is in use for the purposes of being remitted to the North and East. It is, thereby, as much taken out of the currency as if it were destroyed; and it leaves only two millions of currency furnished by the bank. But, the bank will, probably, have four millions of specie in its vaults, and it cannot safely have less under these peculiar circumstances; this sum, also, is withdrawn from circulation. Thus, the bank, not by its fault, but by the necessity which is imposed upon it, has withdrawn four millions of specie from the currency, and has given a substitute, in its notes, only to the amount of two millions. In this view, the currency has been diminished two millions. But even this is not the worst view of it. Let us suppose, that the notes of the bank and its branches could not be converted into bills of exchange, and there is no doubt, it is presumed, that, with its high credit, it could easily do what many local banks have accomplished. It could circulate two dollars of its bills for every dollar it should have in its vaults. Then, it is supposed to have four millions of dollars in its vaults, and could circulate eight millions of its notes, which would be equal to gold and silver. It then would have added four millions to the currency, while, at present, it diminishes it to the amount of two millions, making a practical difference of no less than six millions in the sound currency of the country. The view may even be extended, because the Bank of the United States could, had its capital not been deranged by this very cause, have given a greater addition to the currency with the greatest ease and safety, if a demand had existed for it, by increasing its specie. No evil can be greater than a decreasing currency. In the words of a great man," poverty, and beggary, and sloth, follow in its train."