Stanley Matthews

“ Justice Story said: 'Nothing can be clearer than that, by the language of the commercial world and the settled practice of banks, a discount by a bank means, ex vi termini, a deduction or drawback made upon its advances or loans of money, upon negotiable paper or other evidences of debt, payable at a future day, which are transferred to the bank;' and he added, that if the transaction could properly be called a sale, 'it is a purchase by way of discount.'
Discount, as we have seen, is the difference between the price and the amount of the debt, the evidence of which is transferred. ”

“ It is not intimated or implied that if, in any State, a natural person may discount paper, without regard to any rate of interest fixed by law, the same privilege is given to national banks. The privilege only extends to charging some rate of interest, allowed to natural persons, which is fixed by the State law. ”

“ The sole particular in which national banks are placed on an equality with natural persons is as to the rate of interest, and not as to the character of contracts they are authorized to make; and that rate thus ascertained is made applicable both to loans and discounts, if there be any difference between them. ”