October 24th, the grand jury of Davidson County begged leave to present their opinion in condemnation of the action of the two old banks in opposing the new Bank of the State, which has a strong capital and all safeguards. "Those banks ought to recollect that they exist by legislative aid and permission. They are barely tolerated by the people whose breath can annihilate them in an instant. They surely forget on what a precipice they stand."[1]
In May, 1821, the Supreme Court of the State had occasion to pass upon the stay law.[2] The clerk of the Supreme Court of the second circuit had been requested to issue an execution on a judgment rendered in the Supreme Court, without the endorsement required by the act of 1819. He refused to do so. The Court was moved to order him to grant the execution, disregarding the endorsement law as unconstitutional. The Court said: "Suspension of execution, as directed by these acts of the Legislature now under consideration, is forbidden by the prohibition of tender laws as a direct consequence of the prohibition; also by the interdiction to pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts (suspension of execution being an impairing of such obligation); and furthermore by the declaration that justice and right shall be done without delay in all cases, the process of execution being one sense of the term 'right' which is not to be delayed. We are therefore bound to say that these acts are repugnant to the Constitution and void so far as relates to the suspension of execution, and that execution ought to issue immediately without any such endorsement as the act requires."
Judge Haywood, who read the decision, went on to urge at length that injunctions should issue against creditors who demanded payment in specie for debts contracted in paper. Judge Emmerson, who joined with him in the decision, as above, dissented on this point on grounds not stated. Final decision on this point (which was, as the Judge declared, not before the Court) was reserved until the third judge, Whyte, could decide it. It seems that the presiding Judge must have brought it in only as some consolation to those who supported the endorsement system. There seems to have been peaceful acquiescence in this decision in Tennessee and the relief system there came to an end.
The Bank of the State of Tennessee was far more moderate in its issues than the Bank of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and the evils which were occasioned by it were by no means so serious.
In 1821-2, legislation is aimed against the banks. The act of November 13, 1821, forbade any bank to sell its specie stock; the penalty for the president was $1,000 fine and imprisonment not exceeding five years. The banks were ordered to resume on the first Monday in April, 1824, or forfeit their charters, except the Bank of the State of Tennessee. They were ordered to settle accounts with each other every three months. November
