damages, over and above all interest and costs. There is to be no stay of execution on a judgment against a bank. At a meeting of the banks by delegates at Columbus, they resolved to act together to sustain each other. Part of the plan was to establish a Suffolk system of central redemption. March 5th, the notes of a bank were made payable to it in all suits by the bank or its assignees.
March 7th, another act to regulate banking was passed. The association was first to be formed and then to apply for a charter. All were to have the same general powers of organization; all capital to be paid in in specie before beginning; Bank Commissioners to inspect the bank and certify that this has been done; no loan to be made to a director for more than half his shares; in a $100,000 bank no one person to owe it more than $8,000, and so on according to a scale; no loan to be made to an officer; debts, exclusive of deposits, not to exceed one and a-half times the capital; the circulation never to exceed the capital, and one-third of it to be held in specie; a State officer to register and countersign the notes, and to guard the limit for each bank as returned to him by the Commissioners; tax to be one-half of one per cent. on the paid up capital, but the Legislature may change it; banks organized under this act to take each others' notes, exchanging notes as the Commissioners direct, and paying balances; no note to be issued between $5 and $10 or between the other decimal denominations.
On the same day, another act was passed that no State officer, after March 4th of the next year, should pay out any note not redeemable in specie on demand; penalty, to be liable in an action for debt for the difference in value between the note and specie, and to lose his office. Exception was made of notes taken before that date on account of the State.[1]
On the same day, still another act was passed, which shows that the unauthorized companies were still issuing notes. If any incorporated company, not having banking powers, becomes insolvent, or refuses to pay the evidences of debt which it has put in circulation, or suspends business for a year, or violates its act of incorporation, or puts out circulating notes, it shall be held to have forfeited its charter, and shall be adjudged to be dissolved; the courts to have visitorial powers; all acts of incorporation hereafter to be subject to amendment and repeal; private corporations are subject to individual liability.
The Bank Commissioners in this year laid special emphasis on the abuse that, upon the failure of a bank, its directors and stockholders, who had large loans from it, surrendered their stock in cancellation of the loans, although the stock might have no market value. They thus escaped liability.
There was at this time an appraisement law that the sheriff should, at the demand of the debtor, summon three householders to appraise property
- ↑ The text says "March 4th next;" the act was signed March 7th.
