Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4Jefferson, Thomas
History
Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
I had not expected to have troubled you again on the subject of finance;
but since the date of my last, I have received from Mr. Law a letter
covering a memorial on that subject, which, from its tenor, I conjecture
must have been before Congress at their two last sessions. This paper
contains two propositions; the one for issuing treasury notes, bearing
interest, and to be circulated as money; the other for the establishment
of a national bank. The first was considered in my former letter; and
the second shall be the subject of the present.
The scheme is for Congress to establish a national bank, suppose of
thirty millions capital, of which they shall contribute ten millions in
new six per cent, stock, the States ten millions, and individuals ten
millions, one half of the two last contributions to be of similar stock,
for which the parties are to give cash to Congress: the whole, however,
to be under the exclusive management of the individual subscribers, who
are to name all the directors; neither Congress nor the States having
any power of interference in its administration. Discounts are to be
at five per cent., but the profits are expected to be seven per cent.
Congress then will be paying six per cent, on twenty millions, and
receiving seven per cent, on ten millions, being its third of the
institution: so that on the ten millions cash which they receive from
the States and individuals, they will, in fact, have to pay but five
per cent, interest. This is the bait. The charter is proposed to be for
forty or fifty years, and if any future augmentations should take place,
the individual proprietors are to have the privilege of being the sole
subscribers for that. Congress are further allowed to issue to the
amount of three millions of notes, bearing interest, which they are to
receive back in payment for lands at a premium of five or ten per
cent., or as subscriptions for canals, roads, and bridges, in which
undertakings they are, of course, to be engaged. This is a summary
of the scheme, as I understand it: but it is very possible I may
not understand it in all its parts, these schemes being always made
Unintelligible for the gulls who are to enter into them. The advantages
and disadvantages shall be noted promiscuously as they occur; leaving
out the speculation of canals, &c. which, being an episode only in the
scheme, may be omitted, to disentangle it as much as we can.
1. Congress are to receive five millions from the States (if they will
enter into this partnership, which few probably will), and five millions
from the individual subscribers, in exchange for ten millions of six per
cent, stock, one per cent, of which, however, they will make on their
ten millions of stock remaining in bank, and so reduce it, in effect, to
a loan of ten millions at five per cent, interest. This is good: but
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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