Republicans, on the other hand, disbelieved in banks. They opposed the United States Bank; and by George Clinton's casting vote defeated an extension of its charter, which expired by limitation on March 4, 1811. To them a bank was a combination of the rich against the poor, a moneyed corporation whose power was a menace to free institutions, and whose secret machinations were to be dreaded. At the same time, Republican leaders recognised the political necessity of having Republican banks to offset the influence of Federalist banks, and in order to overcome the deep seated prejudice of their party and to defeat the opposition of Federalists, inducements were offered and means employed which unscrupulous men quickly turned into base and shameless bribery. In his partisan zeal Burr began the practice of deception. The Republicans needed a bank. The only one in New York City was controlled by the Federalists, who also controlled the Legislature, and the necessities of the rising party, if not his own financial needs, appealed to Burr's clever management. Under the cover of chartering a company to supply pure water, and thus avoid a return of the yellow fever which had so recently devastated the city, he asked authority to charter the Manhattan Company, with a capital of two million dollars, provided "the surplus capital might be employed in any way not inconsistent with the laws and Constitution of the United States and of the State of New York." The people remembered the terrible yellow fever scourge, and the Legislature considered only the question of relieving the danger with pure and wholesome water; and, although the large capitalisation aroused suspicion in the Senate, and Chief Justice Lansing called it "a novel experiment,"[157] the bill passed. Thus the Manhattan Bank came into existence, while wells, brackish and unwholesome, continued the only sufficient source of water supply. [Footnote 157: "This, in the opinion of the Council, as a novel experiment, the result whereof, as to its influence on the community, must be merely speculative and uncertain, peculiarly requires the application of the policy which has heretofore uniformly obtained--that the powers of corporations relative to their money operations, should be of limited instead of perpetual duration."--Alfred B. Street, _New York Council of Revision_, p. 423.]