"The General Assembly shall grant no
charter for banking purposes, or renew any
banking corporation now in existence,"
My object in offering this amendment is to
tiring before the Convention at this time the
whole question of currency, and the pro-
priety upon the part of the State of author-
izing no banks, farther than those already in
existence, to issue any bills of credit. I do
it as the first step towards destroying the
whole system of State banks, so that after the
charters now in existence shall have expired,
there shall be no new charters for State banks
granted in Maryland. I judge that under
the Constitution of the United States the
right of any State to allow banks within its
BORDER=0s to issue bills of credit has always
been problematical. And I think circum-
stances have shown that. the exercise of
such a power has acted very adversely upon
the interests of the whole country. The first
clause of section ten, article one of the Con-
stitution of the United States provides that—
'' No State shall * * * * and coin
money, emit bills of credit, make anything
but gold and silver coin a tender in payment
of debts," &c.
The State of Maryland has already, during
the progress of this civil war, passed stay
laws which have allowed the banks in this
State not to redeem their issue in gold and
silver; making the bills of the State banks
in this State a legal tender throughout the
State. And this has grown up to be a cus-
tom until it has become a matter hard to
manage. I think this Convention might now
take a stand and prohibit the rechartering of
any banks now in existence, or the creation
of any new banks. The United States has
made ample provision by which the banks
can organize under the law of the United
States, and provide us with a national cur-
rency. And the country will then be free
from a currency system under which each
State in the Union issues a different currency,
and which must be discounted from one State
to another, until the losses which have been
sustained on those State bank notes have been
greater than from any other cause.
Mr. STIRLING. I agree with my colleague
(Mr. Cushing) to a great extent. But sup-
pose the Congress of the United States chooses
to repeal this national banking system; then
we shall have no banking system at all.
Mr. CUSHING. Then all you have to do is,
under a provision of this Constitution which
will be adopted, to submit to the people of
this State the question of altering this section.
Mr. STIRLING. Congress may repeal the
national banking system by a single act at
once. And it "will take us a very long time
to amend the Constitution to meet that case.
Mr. CUSHING. The charters of our banks
do not all expire on the same day. Nor is it
reasonable to suppose that Congress will re-
peal the system after so many hundred banks |
have been organized under it, and so many
millions of dollars have been invested in
them, without giving a reasonable time to
wind up their affairs.
There are banks in the city of Baltimore,
with a capital of $1,500,000, whose issues of
notes alone have been as high as $1,350,000.
And some banks have issued notes beyond
the whole amount of their capital. And yet
gentlemen complain here of the deterioration
of our currency. Now, there is so little
United States currency in circulation in this
country, that a call for $10,000,000 in New
York has run it up to a premium. You have
State banks all over the country whose notes
are utterly worthless, and which notes they
are not required to redeem even in United
States currency. You complain that your
currency is depreciated, when you have de-
teriorated it yourselves; because you have
not even put a provision in your law that
they shall be redeemable in United States
currency. And yet we hear tirades every
day about the currency. Sir, there is not
enough of United States currency afloat in this
country, aside from other notes, to sustain
the mercantile transactions of this country
for one month. It is boarded up, being the
only kind of notes redeemable at all, as peo-
ple in former times used to hoard gold. There
is scarcely a bank in this State, which, if
wound up to-morrow and forced to redeem
its notes according to its charter, would be
found to be solvent. There is scarcely a
bank in all the west which is solvent to-day.
And there is not a bank in Virginia which
has been solvent for twenty years past. Di-
rectors of the State Bank of Virginia have
told me that if called upon to wind up
the affairs of their bank, they would have
nothing wherewith to meet their stipula-
tions; that they had notes of families run-
ning back for twenty, thirty, forty and fifty
years, handed down from father to son, and
they did not know bow many mortgages
covered the estates behind these notes. There
are banks in the city of Baltimore, which,
while they were themselves able to go on,
had to stop specie payments because there
were two or three banks which would have
failed on the following morning if that had
not been done,
This is the proper place to meet this ques-
tion. Is it the intention of the people of
Maryland to support a national currency
which shall be at par all over the country, or
a currency which changes from State to State?
Do they prefer to have notes given to them in
Baltimore city which they can pay out any-
where at par, or will they prefer notes which
they must sell at a discount in every State in
which they go? Do you want the debts which
may be due you at the west paid in a cur-
rency which you can use at home, or in a
currency that sometimes runs down to thirty
and forty per cent. discount? Would you |
