William Graham Sumner

“ On the banking principle, the bank does, in a legitimate sense, furnish a medium of credit in operations in which money is dispensed with, and a kind of barter of a higher grade is reintroduced, money being used as a standard of reference for the terms of the barter. All the persons in the market may find themselves in a snarl of debts which would hinder them all from moving, but there would be a thread of mutual or consecutive obligations which, if it could be found and drawn out, would absolve them all. ”

“ The best writers on banking, in the third decade of the nineteenth century, had generally reached the conviction that the capital of a bank ought to be invested in some permanent security, and that the operations should be carried on with the notes. Evidently, if a bank should be formed by an association of capitalists who should buy bonds with the capital and carry on the business with the notes; or if they should be already owners of government bonds, which they subscribed as capital, printing notes for use in banking ”

“ We are not without a verdict of history upon these notions of Hamilton about bank currency. The keynote of his doctrine, and the keynote of the banking system of the next fifty years is in the following passage: "Gold and silver, when they are employed merely as the instruments of exchange and alienation, have been, not improperly, denominated dead stock; but when deposited in banks to become the basis of a paper circulation, which takes their character and place as the signs or representatives of value, they then acquire life, or in other words, an active and productive quality. ”

“ Hamilton also laid great stress on the function of banks to make loans to the government in case of financial exigency, and also to help tax payers to pay taxes. Loans to government lock up the capital of a bank and make it cease to be, as a bank. Although a bank might loan capital for the payment of duties (the case, in fact, which Hamilton puts in illustration) , it certainly would not lend a man means to pay his personal taxes, which are an irrecoverable expenditure. These two points belong under the head of the political functions and benefits of a national bank. ”

“ It comes to be believed that bank notes have a substantive existence, that they, on which interest is obtained, are not like the notes of individuals, on which interest is paid; in short, that they are money, perhaps even capital.
The view of notes as supplanting specie to an exactly equal amount is what is called the "currency principle." According to it the note issuers have a monopoly privilege and strive with each other for shares in a quantum of gain which cannot be surpassed. ”

“ If only the requisite prestige ("credit;" "confidence") can be won to set the institution in operation, it is self-acting, and all that the happy manager has to do is to take toll from its operations. The legitimate way to win the prestige is by offering guarantees of capital and character. ”

“ Let it be permitted to introduce at this point what it seems necessary to say in regard to the nature and functions of a bank.
The inconvenience of barter consists in the lack of coincidence between the persons who desire to exchange, with respect to the commodities, amounts, and qualities. Money overcomes this, but it is stiff and angular in its operation. Every step must be taken and no cross cuts are possible. What we call credit, in connection with currency, introduces harmony and rythm. ”

“ The charter of the Bank of New York, which came from his hand, became the model on which numberless charters were afterwards constructed, and the charter of the Bank of the United States, which he now proceeded to make, was taken as a model by so many others that we must attribute to his opinions on banking a predominant influence in forming the banking institutions of this country. The first great advantage which he sees in a bank is that it augments "the active or productive capital of a country." ”

“ A bank intervenes between lenders and borrowers and itself performs both operations. It gathers up capital from the lenders and distributes it to borrowers. Then it. collects it again from the borrowers and returns it to the lenders. The pulsations of this movement are the life phenomena of a bank. When the pulsations are high, sharp, and well accentuated, the vitality of the bank is high and its efficiency in rendering all the capital in existence as efficient as possible is very great. When the pulsations drag, are broken, and unpronounced, the efficiency of the bank is low. ”

“ He had, however, well argued against State banking for profit, in the same document. [9] This arrangement was unnecessary and mischievous. It was right that the government should participate in the profits of the Bank either by a bonus or by taxes, but this device put the government in the wrong on the most fundamental and farreaching difference which can exist in regard to the conception and organization of a bank. If the stockholders of a bank are debtors to it and not creditors of it, it is a swindle. They take something out where they have put nothing in. ”

“ The experience of more than half a century since this opinion was expressed has failed to convince the American people that gold and silver are to be regarded as dead stock, except when placed in banks as a basis for the issue of their paper. This idea that gold and silver acquire life, activity and productiveness, only when placed in banks as a basis for paper issues, rests upon the assumption that bank notes, to an indeterminate extent, may be thrown into circulation, and that a proportionate increase will be given to the commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural interests of the country. ”

“ The Bank Commissioners of Connecticut, in 1841, expressed the opinion that "the practice of some banks to confine their discounts exclusively to business paper or paper that is subject to no renewal, is a great innovation, and denies to a worthy class of borrowers those facilities and advantages to which they are entitled in common with those of more various and extended business." True bank note circulation could not be maintained by the country banks, but if they could get a distant circulation they could live on an abuse of issue-banking. ”

“ He illustrates it by the case of a man who deposits a surplus while waiting to put it to use, so that it "is in a condition to administer to the wants of others, without being put out of his own reach when occasion presents." He has in view, therefore, not any creation of capital, but a more effective organization of capital, by which small and scattered amounts are so concentrated as to be made effective instead of being idle. Upon this view it would follow that when one man wanted his capital some other man would probably be desirous of making a deposit ”

“ The jealousy of the rural population in respect to banks led them to insist on inserting in bank charters a provision that a certain fraction of the capital should be loaned on mortgage of land. We shall presently see the antagonism, which here arose between parts of the same State, marking the relations of parts of the Union.
We observe that a bank was conceived of primarily as a means of creating wealth. Every one wanted a share in its beneficent operation. If the Legislature created it, all the people ought to participate in its blessings. ”

“ They are not lending a surplus of their own; they are using an engine by which they can get possession of other people's capital. They print notes which have no security and make the public use them as money. They bear no risk of their own operations, but throw all the risk on others while taking all the gain. The government had no more right to subscribe stock when it possessed nothing, and put nothing in, than an individual would have to do the same thing.
The stock of this Bank and four thousand shares more were subscribed in two hours. ”

“ The Massachusetts Legislature are authorizing a number of new banks. The cry is the immense advantage to agriculture. Credit cannot be solid when a man is liable to be paid a debt, contracted to any, by one-half the value a year hence." [16] The rise of a bank mania in Massachusetts, to which he here alludes, produced consequences which we shall soon have to notice.
In 1797, a federal tax was laid on all notes of banks, not exceeding $50, of six mills on a dollar, and lower rates on higher denominations. These taxes might be commuted at one per cent. on dividends. ”

“ Hamilton met the former issue quite squarely. He construed acts of incorporation as no more awe-inspiring than other acts of legislation, and presented the bank as a pure question of legislative expediency.
The social antagonism reached little other expression than a growl of suspicion and dread that this institution was to be an engine of the money power; that it was contrary to equality; that it would benefit only the rich. [2] This antagonism was but an incident in the great warfare inside of modern society; numbers against capital; democracy against plutocracy ”

“ There is a tradition that Washington wrote a veto of the Bank act, but that Hamilton persuaded him to sign it. No evidence can be found to support this tradition.
The Bank was chartered for twenty years; to be located at Philadelphia; to issue no notes under $10; to have twenty-five directors; only stockholders residents of the United States might vote by proxy; seven directors were to constitute a quorum; no foreigner was to be a director; the directors were to elect the president, who was to be compensated while the directors were not to be compensated ”

“ In the paper in which he first laid before Congress the arguments for a Bank and the outline of his plan, Hamilton made a special explanation and defence of two features in it. The first was the provision that shares in the public debt might be subscribed into the capital. The purpose of this was "to enable the creation of a capital sufficiently large to be the basis of an extensive circulation, and an adequate security for it." He wanted to make a large issue; he thought it impossible to collect a large amount of specie; he had rejected the notion of an issue based on land security ”

“ The brokers sent home the bills of the nearer banks and the discount on the currency continued to increase as the bills of the more distant banks predominated. Andrew Dexter, having studied the operations of the Exchange Bank, undertook the control and monopoly of the circulating medium of New England. He bought up at a great premium nearly the whole stock of the Exchange Office and of several distant banks in Maine, Berkshire, and Rhode Island. With these funds he bought real estate and built the "enormous pile, since destroyed by fire, known by the name of the Boston Exchange Coffee House." ”

“ In the story of the early Massachusetts banks we see the first development of the antagonism between commercial banking and agricultural banking. In the larger towns of that State city industries were beginning. They could support banks of discount and deposit with short paper. Persons who were fitting out ships or tilling land could not use ninety day paper. Loans to farmers always had the character of accommodation paper with renewals, although a mortgage would give ultimate security. ”

“ It tends to rest and idleness. The latter case is what is commonly called a lock-up of capital. It is a negation of the sense and activity of the institution. It is only banks whose movement is at the highest pitch of energy which can maintain a bank note circulation under the free control of the banker, and then the circulation will be involved in the business risks attending the discount and deposit operations.
The stockholders are also lenders of their own capital which is amalgamated with what they borrow to lend again. ”

“ Before 1800 the collectors at the different ports kept the duty bonds in their own custody. After that time, by a new law, the bonds were deposited in the Bank for collection. They thus became bank debts, and although, as Smith of Maryland argued, trying to break the force of this fact, the coercion to pay was not in the Bank but in the custom house, nevertheless, in practice, it was the Bank usage which set the standard. Crawford said: "It is impossible to resist the conviction that the prompt and secure collection of our revenue is principally owing to the influence of the Bank." ”

“ In 1814 the New England Bank adopted the plan of receiving the bills of all the banks in New England at a discount varying according to distance, but in no case exceeding one per cent., and on condition of a sufficient permanent deposit being maintained, they were returned to the banks at the price at which they were bought. The bills of banks which did not keep a deposit were sent home for payment. The other banks competed with the New England Bank for these deposits, and thus diminished the discount. ”

“ There is no doubt that thousands of farmers will be ruined, and leave their families in poverty, in consequence of the facility with which they obtained money at the banks by mortgaging their estates. ”