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• Editor’s Preface.
• Author’s Preface.
• Banks In the United States.
• Period I.—1630 To 1780.: The Colonists Experiment With Joint Stock Banks of Issue On Land Security, and With Provincial Mortgage Loan Offices Issuing Currency.
• Chapter I.: Banks In the Colonies.
• Period II.—1780 To 1812.: Banks Are Incorporated In the States, Also a Bank of the United States On the Type of the Bank of England. the Colonial Idea Is Continued In Banks of the States, Being Institutions Based Either On the “faith and Credit” of the St
• Chapter II.: The Earliest Banks of Discount, Deposit, and Convertible Circulation.
• Chapter III.: The First Bank of the United States and Its Times.
• Chapter IV.: The Earliest Banks In the Mississippi Valley.
• Period III: 1812 to 1829-32.: Local Banks Are Multiplied to Replace the Bank of the United States. Their Issues Are Stimulated By Their Fiscal Functions, Soon Intensified By War Financiering. a Commercial Crisis Is Produced With a Prolonged Liquidation, a
• Chapter V.: Inflation On the Atlantic Coast.
• Chapter VI.: Inflation In the Mississippi Valley.
• Chapter VII.: The Crisis On the Atlantic Coast.
• Chapter VIII.: The Crisis In the Mississippi Valley.
• Chapter IX.: The Liquidation On the Atlantic Coast.
• Chapter X.: Liquidation In the Mississippi Valley.—relief Measures.
• Chapter XI.: The National Bank and the Local Banks Co-ordinated Into a New System.
• § 1. —: Local Banks On the Atlantic Coast From the Liquidation of 1819-1822 Until the Bank Expansion Produced By the Bank War.
• § 2.—: The Bank of the United States From Biddle’s Accession Until the Bank War.
• Period IV.—1829 To 1845.: The War of the Jackson Administration On the Bank of the United States Breaks Up the Existing System of Banks and Brings In Local Banks Again As Currency-providers and Fiscal Agents. Another Bank Inflation, Crisis, and Liquidatio
• Chapter XII.: The Bank War.
• Chapter XIII.: Measures and Events Antecedent to the Crisis of 1837.
• § 1.—: The United States Bank of Pennsylvania.
• § 2.—: The Multiplication of Local Banks.
• § 3.—: The Inflation of 1835 and 1836.
• Chapter XIV.: The Financial Revulsion; 1837 to 1842.
• § 1,: 1837. The Suspension of Specie Payments. the United States Bank of Pennsylvania In the Crisis. Its Cotton Operations. the Federal Treasury In the Crisis.
• § 2.—: The Resumption of 1838. The New York Plan Versus the Philadelphia Plan.
• § 3.—: 1838 and 1839. Treasury Notes and Bank Notes. Continuation of the Cotton Operations. Second Failure of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania. Second General Bank Suspension, South and West of New York.
• § 4.—: The Banks In the States; 1837 to 1840.
• § 5.—: 1840 and 1841. The Third Failure and Final Bankruptcy of the United States Bank. the Bank Failures of 1841. The Extra Session of Congress of 1841. The Last Attempts to Charter a National Bank. the Pennsylvania Relief System.
• Chapter XV.: The Liquidation; 1842 to 1845.
• Period V.—1843-5 To 1863.: Under the Independent Treasury System, the Regulation of Banking and Currency Is Left Entirely to the States. the Federal Government Handles Only Coin. Banks Organized Under General Joint Stock Laws Gradually, and to a Great Ext
• Chapter XVI.: The Local Bank System. the Gold Discoveries and Consequent Expansion. the Commercial Crises of 1854 and 1857. The Aid Given By the Banks to the Federal Government At the Beginning of the Civil War.
• § 1.—: The Local Banks, By States; 1845 to 1860.
• § 2.—: The Banks At the Outbreak of the Civil War; 1860 to 1863.
• Period VI.—FROM 1863.
• Chapter XVII.: The National Bank System.

A History of Banking

in

THE UNITED STATES;

by

WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER,

professor of political and social science, in yale university,

new york,

1896.

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

ALTHOUGH a book should always be able to tell its own story, yet when its authorship is so widely composite as in the case of the present volumes, a few prefatory words may be neither inappropriate nor unnecessary.

This work finds its occasion in an important juncture of circumstances. Next to the notable political unrest of the world is its financial unrest. Among all the advanced civilizations, there is a distinct consciousness of inadequacy in the methods and mechanisms of banking systems to satisfy the rapidly expanding commerce and finance of modern times. Equally, the world’s currency systems are felt to be so cumbrous and inflexible as to fetter rather than facilitate the ever-enlarging volume of both internal and external exchanges. The laws intended to regulate the instruments of exchange mar their efficiency, make them needlessly costly, restrict their circulation and invest them with a quality of positive danger. In the United States, this evil of over-regulation has become so obstructive to banking and monetary operations as to have developed one of the most serious financial situations in the history of the country.

These aspects of the times seem to appeal to our statesmen, our economists, our bankers and our intelligent citizens at large for a candid and thorough examination into the instrumentalities through which the exchanges of our seventy millions of active population are transacted. The Publishers of this Work conceive that one of the best aids to such an investigation must lie in an unbiassed study of the banking and monetary systems of all nations, as developed by a continually progressive experience. These volumes are designed to encourage and assist such education. The economic learning or the eminent practical experience of the Authors should sufficiently guarantee the accuracy of their Histories. The method of treatment adopted has been to pursue an impartial narration of events, exhibiting the various banking and currency systems in their action and results, rather than to discuss them critically.

To strict bibliographic critics, some explanation may be permitted. With such a diversity of Authors of various nationalities, it has been found impossible to maintain uniformity in the arrangement of matter, the use of captions and the form of typographical make-up, without in some measure interfering with the writer’s identity of method; which, to authorities who have earned a title to their individuality, would be an intrusion. To this cause also must be attributed the omission of an Index from some of the Treatises.

THE EDITOR.

February 1, 1896.