Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2). Benton Thomas Hart
which the constitution enables us to afford. The Treasury Department, on several former occasions, has suggested the propriety and importance of a uniform law concerning bankruptcies of corporations and other bankers. Through the instrumentality of such a law, a salutary check may doubtless be imposed on the issues of paper money, and an effectual remedy given to the citizen, in a way at once equal in all parts of the Union, and fully authorized by the constitution."
The senator from Massachusetts says he would not, intentionally, do injustice to the message or its author; and doubtless he is not conscious of violating that benevolent determination; but here is injustice, both to the message and to its author; injustice in not quoting the message as it is, and showing that it proposes a remedy to the citizen, as well as a check upon insolvent issues; injustice to the author in denying that the object of bankrupt laws has any relation to currency, when history shows that these laws are the actual instrument for regulating and purifying the whole local paper currency of the entire British empire, and saving that country from the frauds, losses, impositions, and demoralization of an irredeemable paper money.
The senator from Massachusetts says the object of bankrupt laws has no relation to currency. If he means hard-money currency, I agree with him; but if he means bank notes, as I am sure he does, then I point him to the British bankrupt code, which applies to every bank of issue in the British empire, except the Bank of England itself, and the few others, four or five in number, which are incorporated by charter acts. All the joint-stock banks, all the private banks, all the bankers of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, are subject to the law of bankruptcy. Many of these establishments are of great capital and credit; some having hundreds, or even thousands of partners; and many of them having ten, or twenty, or thirty, and some even forty branches. They are almost the exclusive furnishers of the local and common bank note currency; the Bank of England notes being chiefly used in the great cities for large mercantile and Government payments. These joint-stock banks, private companies, and individual bankers are, practically, in the British empire what the local banks are in the United States. They perform the same functions, and differ in name only; not in substance nor in conduct. They have no charters, but they have a legalized existence; they are not corporations, but they are allowed by law to act in a body; they furnish the actual paper currency of the great body of the people of the British empire, as much so as our local banks furnish the mass of paper currency to the people of the United States. They have had twenty-four millions sterling (one hundred and twenty millions of dollars) in circulation at one time; a sum nearly equal to the greatest issue ever known in the United States; and more than equal to the whole bank-note circulation of the present day. They are all subject to the law of bankruptcy, and their twenty-four millions sterling of currency along with them; and five hundred of them have been shut up and wound up under commissions of bankruptcy in the last forty years; and yet the senator from Massachusetts informs us that the object of bankrupt laws has no relation to currency!
But it is not necessary to go all the way to England to find bankrupt laws having relation to currency. The act passed in our own country, about forty years ago, applied to bankers; the bill brought into the House of Representatives, about fifteen years ago, by a gentleman then, and now, a representative from the city of Philadelphia, [Mr. Sergeant,] also applied to bankers; and the bill brought into this Senate, ten years ago, by a senator from South Carolina, not now a member of this body, [General Hayne,] still applied to bankers. These bankers, of whom there were many in the United States, and of whom Girard, in the East, and Yeatman and Woods, in the West, were the most considerable – these bankers all issued paper money; they all issued currency. The act, then, of 1798, if it had continued in force, or the two bills just referred to, if they had become law, would have operated upon these bankers and their banks – would have stopped their issues, and put their establishments into the hands of assignees, and distributed their effects among their creditors. This, certainly, would have been having some relation to currency: so that, even with our limited essays towards a bankrupt system, we have scaled the outworks of the banking empire; we have laid hold of bankers, but not of banks; we have reached the bank of Girard, but not the Girard Bank; we have applied our law to the bank of Yeatman and Woods, but not to the rabble of petty corporations which have not the tithe of their capital and credit. We have gone as far as bankers, but not as far as banks; and now give me a reason for the difference. Give me a reason why the act of 1798, the bill of Mr. Sergeant, in 1821, and the bill of General Hayne, in 1827, should not include banks as well as bankers. They both perform the same function – that of issuing paper currency. They both involve the same mischief when they stop payment – that of afflicting the country with a circulation of irredeemable and depreciated paper money. They are both culpable in the same mode, and in the same degree; for they are both violators of their "promises to pay." They both exact a general credit from the community, and they both abuse that credit. They both have creditors, and they both have effects; and these creditors have as much right to a pro rata distribution of the effects in one case as in the other. Why, then, a distinction in favor of the bank? Is it because corporate bodies are superior to natural bodies? because artificial beings are superior to natural beings? or, rather, is it not because corporations are assemblages of men; and assemblages are more powerful than single men; and, therefore, these corporations, in addition to all their vast privileges, are also to have the privilege of being bankrupt, and afflicting the country with the evils of bankruptcy, without themselves being subjected to the laws of bankruptcy? Be this as it may – be the cause what it will – the decree has gone forth for the decision of the question – for the trial of the issue – for the verdict and judgment upon the claim of the banks. They have many privileges and exemptions now, and they have the benefit of all laws against the community. They pay no taxes; the property of the stockholders is not liable for their debts; they sue their debtors, sell their property, and put their bodies in jail. They have the privilege of stamping paper money; the privilege of taking interest upon double, treble, and quadruple their actual money. They put up and put down the price of property, labor, and produce, as they please. They have the monopoly of making the actual currency. They are strong enough to suppress the constitutional money, and to force their own paper upon the community, and then to redeem it or not, as they please. And is it to be tolerated, that, in addition to all these privileges, and all these powers, they are to be exempted from the law of bankruptcy? the only law of which they are afraid, and the only one which can protect the country against their insolvent issues, and give a fair chance for payment to the numerous holders of their violated "promises to pay!"
I have discussed, Mr. President, the right of Congress to apply a bankrupt law to banking corporations; I have discussed it on the words of our own constitution, on the practice of England, and on the general authority of Parliament; and on each and every ground, as I fully believe, vindicated our right to pass the law. The right is clear; the expediency is manifest and glaring. Of all the objects upon the earth, banks of circulation are the fittest subjects of bankrupt laws. They act in secret, and they exact a general credit. Nobody knows their means, yet every body must trust them. They send their "promises to pay" far and near. They push them into every body's hands; they make them small to go into small hands – into the hands of the laborer, the widow, the helpless, the ignorant. Suddenly the bank stops payment; all these helpless holders of their notes are without pay, and without remedy. A few on the spot get a little; those at a distance get nothing. For each to sue, is a vexatious and a losing business. The only adequate remedy – the only one that promises any justice to the body of the community, and the helpless holders of small notes – is the bankrupt remedy of assignees to distribute the effects. This makes the real effects available. When a bank stops, it has little or no specie; but it has, or ought to have, a good mass of solvent debts. At present, all these debts are unavailable to the community – they go to a few large and favored creditors; and those who are most in need get nothing. But a stronger view remains to be taken of these debts: the mass of them are due from the owners and managers of the banks – from the presidents, directors, cashiers, stockholders, attorneys; and these people do not make themselves pay. They do not sue themselves, nor protest themselves. They sue and protest others, and sell out their property, and put their bodies in jail; but, as for themselves, who are the main debtors, it is another affair! They take their time, and usually wait till the notes are heavily depreciated, and then square off with a few cents in the dollar! A commission of bankruptcy is the remedy for this evil; assignees of the effects of the bank are the persons to make these