sums to influence politics and legislation. This charge the Bank seemed to repel successfully, but the United States Bank of Pennsylvania began in political corruption and legislative abuse and never desisted from them while it existed.
Upon the passage of this charter the stock rose to 126. At the meeting of the stockholders Biddle said that the Bank had a surplus with which it could pay all the sums which the charter imposed upon it. The charter was accepted two days after it was passed, with great enthusiasm, and a service of plate was presented to Biddle for his services in getting it.[1] His salary was $8,000. Bevan was made president of the old Bank for the purpose of transferring it to the new, and on the 2d of March, all the assets of the old Bank were turned over to the new one on condition that the latter should assume all the obligations of the former.
April 11, 1836, Congress repealed the act of 1817, by which the United States Bank was charged with the duties of commissioners of loans. The Bank was ordered to hand over all the books, papers, and money within three months. April 20th, its duties as agent for the payment of pensions were ended. June 23d, the Secretary of the Treasury was charged with the property rights of the United States in the Bank, and was directed to act on its behalf, by virtue of its stock. June 15th the fourteenth section of the old charter was repealed, which made the notes receivable at the Treasury. This crippled the circulation of the Bank to some extent.
In October there was a report that the Bank would surrender its State charter if it could get back its bonus. In that same month, however, Biddle wrote another letter to Adams, showing the wrong which would be done by a plan which was on foot to call a State convention for the purpose of repealing the State charter. In November the question was raised in the Legislature whether the charter could not be repealed. It was disposed of by a general resolution affirming the inviolability of charters except by the action of the courts.
June 23d Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to negotiate with the Bank for the payment of the government stock. No agreement was reached, but, February 25, 1837, the Bank sent a memorial to the Speaker of the House, in which it offered to pay off the public shares at $115.58 per share, in four installments; September, 1837, 1838, 1839, 1840. This proposition was accepted and the installments were all paid.[2] As the Bank sold new shares in England at £24 and £25, it gained on this operation. The Treasury tried, at this time, to induce the Bank to repay the damages which it had retained on the French bill.
In his message of 1836, Jackson discharged his last broadside at the Bank. He was very angry that it should have taken the State charter and prolonged
- ↑ 49 Niles, 441.
- ↑ The commissioners to adjust the accounts of the Bank with the government assumed that $600,000 of its circulation were lost and would never be presented for redemption. It was the estimate, in 1841, that five-dollar notes would be one-fourth of the circulation, and notes under five dollars another fourth. The lost notes were often estimated at ten per cent. of those below five dollars. (Treasury Report February 12, 1841.)
