The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
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 case 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
2. They authorize this bank to throw into circulation ninety millions
of dollars, (three times the capital,) which increases our circulating
medium fifty per cent., depreciates proportionably the present value
of a dollar, and raises the price of all future purchases in the same
proportion.
3. This loan of ten millions at five per cent., is to be once for all,
only. Neither the terms of the scheme, nor their own prudence could ever
permit them to add to the circulation in the same, or any other way,
for the supplies of the succeeding years of the war. These succeeding
years then are to be left unprovided for, and the means of doing it in
a great measure precluded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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