A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 1, part 4: James Madison
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 1, part 4: James Madison
Madison, James, 1751-1836; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
The amount of the stock to be subscribed will not, it is believed, be
sufficient to produce in favor of the public credit any considerable or
lasting elevation of the market price, whilst this may be occasionally
depressed by the bank itself if it should carry into the market the
allowed proportion of its capital consisting of public stock in order to
procure specie, which it may find its account in procuring with some
sacrifice on that part of its capital.
Nor will any adequate advantage arise to the public credit from the
subscription of Treasury notes. The actual issue of these notes nearly
equals at present, and will soon exceed, the amount to be subscribed
to the bank. The direct effect of this operation is simply to convert
fifteen millions of Treasury notes into fifteen millions of 6 per cent
stock, with the collateral effect of promoting an additional demand for
Treasury notes beyond what might otherwise be negotiable.
Public credit might indeed be expected to derive advantage from the
establishment of a national bank, without regard to the formation of its
capital, if the full aid and cooperation of the institution were secured
to the Government during the war and during the period of its fiscal
embarrassments. But the bank proposed will be free from all legal
obligation to cooperate with the public measures, and whatever might be
the patriotic disposition of its directors to contribute to the removal
of those embarrassments, and to invigorate the prosecution of the war,
fidelity to the pecuniary and general interest of the institution
according to their estimate of it might oblige them to decline a
connection of their operations with those of the National Treasury
during the continuance of the war and the difficulties incident to it.
Temporary sacrifices of interest, though overbalanced by the future
and permanent profits of the charter, not being requirable of right in
behalf of the public, might not be gratuitously made, and the bank would
reap the full benefit of the grant, whilst the public would lose the
equivalent expected from it; for it must be kept in view that the sole
inducement to such a grant on the part of the public would be the
prospect of substantial aids to its pecuniary means at the present
crisis and during the sequel of the war. It is evident that the stock of
the bank will on the return of peace, if not sooner, rise in the market
to a value which, if the bank were established in a period of peace,
would authorize and obtain for the public a bonus to a very large
amount. In lieu of such a bonus the Government is fairly entitled to and
ought not to relinquish or risk the needful services of the bank under
the pressing circumstances of war.
2. The bank as proposed to be constituted can not be relied on during
the war to provide a circulating medium nor to furnish loans or
anticipations of the public revenue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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