Under these circumstances the Second Bank of the United States went into operation in January, 1817, also with a charter to run twenty years, with a capital stock of $35,000,000, of which the national Government subscribed one-fifth. The new Bank helped indeed the State banks to resume specie payments, as was a part of the purpose, but it pushed its own bills into circulation with such eagerness, that it is thought $100,000,000 of them were in the hands of the people, before the first year was out. In this way the Bank fell into difficulties. Its bills were distrusted. Coin came to bear a premium over them of 10%. President Jackson began his famous contest with the Bank seven years before its charter was to expire, and took care that it went out of being the same year that he went out of office, in 1837, namely. The next year the State banks increased in number to 675, and continued to increase till 1862, when there were over 1500 of them, and when the issue of the "Greenbacks" by the national Government interfered with what had been their exclusive issuing of the paper money after 1837. In 1857, before the commercial panic of that year, the aggregate of their bills stood at $214,000,000, the largest it ever reached. These bills were nominally convertible into coin at the will of the holders, but they were never actually so convertible for any great length of time. The ratio of their volume to the specie reserved to redeem it was always a very high ratio. For instance, the average for the whole country in January, 1863, was 4:1; in Rhode Island 12:1; and in Vermont 28:1. Such a paper money can be called convertible only by a stretch of courtesy. It was wisely determined by the People to abandon this loose form of paper money, and in 1863 went into operation the present national banking system, under which originally $300,000,000 of bank bills were authorized to be issued in the aggregate, but this limit was extended in 1870 to $354,000,000, and the Act of 1875 removed all restrictions on the total amount, while there have always been restrictions on the amount that can be issued by any _one_ bank in the system. By the law of 1882, national banks may withdraw their bills by depositing lawful money in the Treasury to take them up, and then take back the proportionate amount of the bonds held for the security of the bills. There were outstanding Dec. 26, 1883, $341,320,256 of these national bank bills, but their volume declined under the law of 1882 to $151,702,809 on Oct. 4, 1888. These bills were from the first redeemable in greenbacks, which were themselves, however, irredeemable in gold and silver till New Year's, 1879, since which time till the present all the paper money of the United States of both kinds has been convertible into coin at the will of the holder.