making it obligatory upon the Legislature
when it shall assemble, to pass a law to ac-
complish the desired result? Why attempt
to create, and limit, and define a crime, and
prescribe the punishment, in the organic law
of your State? We do not do it in other
cases. It is a species of special legislation,
incorporated in an evil hour into the consti-
tution of the State, wisely omitted, in my
humble judgement, by the committee on the
legislative department; and I hope it will
be kept out of the constitution.
Mr. SANDS. I would like to ask my friend
from Baltimore (Mr. Stockbridge,) after the
eulogium he has passed upon hank directors
in general, as the best men in the community,
to be intrusted with the widest discretion in
the management of other people's business,
whether he does not think the judges of the
courts of this State are not, as a class, men
whose good sound discretion can be trusted
in fixing the punishment for this offence? I
humbly submit tint the judges of the courts
have just as sound discretion, and are quite
as famous for its exercise, as bank directors.
My friend has said that in an evil hour it
was incorporated in the organic law of this
State. I ask him to put his finger down
upon one single evil which in the ten or fif-
teen years of its existence it has wrought
And then I ask him to go back to the period
before its existence, and see whether they were
as secure from evils under the old system.
See if you cannot find the victims of fraud
and collusion and robbery—for it is that,
though by another name—in the time ante-
cedent to this provision. I say this harms
no one. There has not been a single outcry
against it in fifteen years. Before its existence
there were many and just outcries, of those
who were dishonestly and foully wronged
by men interested in the care and custody of
the funds of the people. I shall vote for its
retention for the good reason that I have not
beard a single evil that has grown out of it,
and I cannot imagine a single evil that can
grow out of it: and I know that much
wrong might be perpetrated by its recision.
Mr. NEGLEY. The gentleman bus asked
what barm will grow out of incorporating
this feature of the old constitution into the
new one. There is a case in my mind in
Washington county, in which I believe a
man destroyed himself and ruined those con-
nected with him, just because he had this
opportunity. He was a practicing lawyer
there who stood high in our community. He
was a man of wealth and of character. He
was a director and attorney of a bank. He
had this very means of borrowing money, on
the indorsement of his father-in-law, a man
also of great wealth. He borrowed money,
and borrowed money, because of this fa-
cility obtained in this way, until he ruined
himself, ruined his father-in-law, and blew
out his own brains. I believe if he had not |
had that temptation, if he had not had the
means of borrowing money in this way as a
director of a bunk, that man might have been
preserved a useful member of society, and
his family might have been spared the dis-
tress and mortification of his death.
There is the greatest facility and the greatest
temptation. Men become wild and specula-
tive just in proportion to the facility with
which they can obtain money, to gratify that
natural disposition of the human mind. At
the present time there is a wild mania for pur-
chasing stocks. A majority of bank directors
could combine, and discuss this matter over
at their board, as they do, and could have an
understanding that they will borrow money
on each other's names and go into this specu-
lation. It is possible for them to do it, and
borrow beyond any means they have to re-
fund, and ruin themselves and the bank; and
the temptation is presented to their minds in
the facility with which they can obtain the
money. Debar them from this and you take
away the temptation. There is a great truth
in the prayer of our Lord, " Lead us not into
temptation." It is the worst thing possible
for a man to be led into temptation in regard
to speculation. Keep temptation from them,
and there is no inducement to embark in it,
It is possible for directors and officers to do
this. They have done it in times past. In
the city of Lancaster, I recollect, there was a
savings institution, which failed for $300,000
or $400,000, and a bank which failed for
$600,000 or $800,000. It was all done in
this way; because it was possible for the offi-
cers to absorb all the money and go to spec-
ulating with it; and the further they got into
the mire the more they speculated.
This is an effectual restriction. It ought to
be in the constitution of every State in the
land. If it had been, in all time past, I make
the assertion that there would not have been
the wild-cat banks in existence that there have
been. There would not have been that
amount of suffering produced by the failures
of banks and the losses consequent thereupon ;
because the direction would have been com-
petent and proper.
There is reason for it; and I care not how
it originated, I presume that the very pro-
position commended itself to the judgment of
the convention of 1851, or it would not have
been in that constitution. It met their as-
sent—the assent of the eminent men that were
in that convention. Since that time there has
been no bank failure, no community de-
frauded by the speculation of its officers and
directors. I hope that as a guaranty to the
people of the State for the time to come, the
old article in the constitution will be re-en-
acted and reinstated here.
Look at the worst possible case. What
harm can it do? It necessitates the officer or
director of the bank to do precisely that which
every other business man is required to do, to |
