ters have to run, and for what is it to be done?
To get the Government out of its pecuniary
difficulties—I mean the Government of the
United States, for that is the only Govern-
ment that seems to be regarded by gentlemen
now-a-days. It is to enable the Government
of the United States to meet the demands of
this war. That is a strange argument. The
gentleman from Baltimore city (Mr. Stirling. )
has just this instant said that this amend-
ment is to have no effect for years to come—
for ten, fifteen, or twenty years to come,
whatever may be the time these bank char-
ters have to run. Is the war to last all
that time? What is to happen ten or twen-
ty years hence that can possibly produce any
beneficial influence on the Treasury of the
United States to-day or to-morrow, this year
or next year? God forbid that this civil
war shall last all that time, and yet until
then this is a mere brutem fulmen. It is not
proposed to arrest the power of issuing notes
now; and yet now is the time when the
Government wants assistance,
I think there is a great mistake in regard
to the extent to which paper is now issued by
the banks of this State. I have a personal
knowledge—that is to say, I have the infor-
mation in confidential conversation with bank
officers in their offices—that they have been
calling in their circulation instead of extend-
ing it; they have been trying to substitute
Government money for their own which they
retain in their coffers. They are assisting
the Government in this way by all the means
in their power. This, I understand, is ac-
tually the case. And I think if the gentle-
man from Baltimore city (Mr. Cushing) will
take the reports which the backs make upon
their condition—considering Government
bonds and Government paper as equivalent to
gold—he will find that their issues are small-
er in proportion than they were before the
suspension of specie payments. Their week-
ly accounts show the amount of their circu-
lation, their deposits, and all their debits and
credits.
I say, therefore, the reason given does not
at all lead to the conclusion the gentleman
seeks to establish. The remedy proposed will
be too late. The patient will be dead and
buried before the medicine can be given to it
The war will be over before the banks will
be prohibited from issuing their notes for circulation.
The fact has come now to this; al-
most every neighborhood has its own bank
in operation; its debits and credits are known
to all around it; its books are open to the in
spection of everybody that chooses to exam
ine them, and the people have that sort of
confidence in them which leads them to take
their paper. It is true, that Government pa
per which is received as legal tender in every
part of the country, an advantage which the
paper of our State banks does not possess, it
necessarily follows that a very large proper |
tion of the money now In circulation is the
money of the Government of the United
States.
My object, however, in rising, was to re-
pel, as I do, the imputation of insolvency in
regard to a number of the banks in the city
of Baltimore, in which I have a personal in-
terest. As the gentleman explains it, it is no
very serious matter to be insolvent. I would
be perfectly willing to be retarded as insol-
vent myself, if I could have my pockets and
coffers filled with greenbacks, and I do hope
the idea will not prevail that if those banks
were to be wound up to-morrow their cus-
tomers would suffer. Certainly they would not
suffer while United States notes were legal
tender.
Mr. CUSHING. So far as the effect outside
is concerned, of repudiating any idea of in-
solvency in Baltimore banks, I think the
honorable gentleman from Kent (Mr. Cham-
bers) should have carried out the idea el-
pressed by him in the opening of his remarks,
and left that matter to some gentleman of the
Baltimore city delegation. There was not
the slightest necessity for his defending those
banks abroad, except so far as he may be
personally interested in them. I did not sup-
pose there was a member upon this floor who
so far misunderstood my expression in regard
to the insolvency of those banks, as to sup-
pose that it would convey the idea abroad,
that I had declared the banks of Baltimore
city insolvent. I certainly so expressed my-
self, that any member who wished to do so,
could clearly understand me,
I wish now to notice one or two statements
of the gentleman from Kent (Mr. Chambers,)
which my own experience, and the assertions
of bank officers in Baltimore city, to me, di-
rectly contradict. The gentleman asserted,
if I understood him correctly, that the present
circulation of the banks of Baltimore, was
rather less than previous to these difficulties.
If that be so, then the directors of several of
those banks have stated expressly to me what
is not true. In the case of one of those
banks, they expressly stated to me a little
while ago—since I have been a member of
this convention, that their circulation, which
in former times, averaged between $300,000
and $400,000, had now run up to $1,350,000;
their capital being $1,500,000. That cer-
tainly is not less than before these difficulties.
And I was told by the paying teller of
another bank, whose circulation was ordina-
rily between $300,000 and $400,000. that its
circulation had run up to the neighborhood
of a million of dollars. So that the state-
ments made to me by gentlemen connected
with various banks in the city of Baltimore,
are different from the statements made to the
gentleman from Kent, by other persons con-
nected with those banks.
Mr. CHAMBERS. I do not confine my re-
marks to the banks of the city of Baltimore |
