Florida.—In the Constitution, which was framed in 1838, it was provided that no person should be eligible to the office of Governor, Senator or Representative while he was an officer of a bank, or for a year after. No bank charter or other act of incorporation was to be granted for more than twenty years, and no bank charter ever to be extended. An article was inserted limiting at length the business which a bank might do. No bank was to have a capital of less than $100,000, consisting of specie actually paid in, nor borrow any addition to its capital, nor loan on stock, nor owe more than double its capital stock; nor make a note or security of any kind for a smaller sum than $5, which restriction the Legislature might raise to $20; nor pay more than ten per cent. dividends; any greater profits to be retained as a surplus; the stockholders were to be individually liable, upon dissolution, expiration, or forfeiture of the charter; banks were to be inspected by a Commissioner at least once a year; and to make quarterly returns of their condition to the Governor. "The General Assembly shall not pledge the faith and credit of the State to raise funds in aid of any corporation whatsoever."
The District Atorneys were authorized and directed, March 4, 1839, to secure a forfeiture of banking charters, where forfeiture had been incurred, by non-user or otherwise.
The people of Florida now repented of their bank enterprises. The next thing to do was to throw the loss and blame on somebody else, and they set about it with a naïveté equalled only by that with which they had plunged into banking.
The Committee on the Judiciary, in 1840, raised the question of the validity of all the acts of incorporation which had been enacted by the Territorial Legislature. It gave a history of the legal question on this point. Kent, Binney, Peter Jay, and Webster had affirmed that the Territorial Legislature had such power.[1] The banks had already obtained from the Territorial government and issued $3.9 millions guaranteed bonds, and they claimed to be entitled of right to $5.6 millions more. The total population of the Territory in 1830 was 34,730; in 1840, 54,477.
The charter of the Union Bank, in 1833, as first passed, contained a clause that it should not be in force until approved by Congress. The Governor vetoed it until that provision was stricken out. This Committee of 1840 turn the matter in the other light, and claim that the people in the Territory are entitled to the protection of Congress. They propose resolutions that the Territory has no power to charter banks or to issue bonds to or for them, and that the pledge of the faith of the Territory is null and void. They refer very guardedly to repudiation, which had not yet been openly discussed anywhere, although their argument led up to it; but they state their purpose to be to prevent the issue of any more bonds to the banks.[2]
