een shown by the reduced rate at which
the latter would have passed. The public then having such a standard of
comparison, could no longer be deceived, and every one would have seen
the depreciation, and known the extent of it. What would have been the
natural consequence? The paper of the state banks, thus depreciated in
the market, would have been bought up by their more prudent and
substantial borrowers, and returned to them in discharge of their debts;
and thus they would have had no notes in circulation except what was
represented by the paper of their most straitened and doubtful
customers, nor would any others have continued to borrow of them. Thus,
with a business decreased in amount and impaired in character, they
would have found it impossible to make a profit equal to defraying their
expenses and yielding a dividend to the stockholders.

All this the state banks distinctly foresaw, and not wishing to be
compelled to resume specie payments, by which their profits would be
diminished, they generally opposed the establishment of a national bank.
But when they found that all opposition had been ineffectual, and that
the bank was about to go into operation, and to pay specie, they
immediately saw that they must follow the example, or that their gains
were at an end--that the public, which took their paper, during the war
and immediately after the peace, when there was no other currency, would
not continue to take it, when they had the choice of a better--and thus
the compact which has been mentioned was formed.

It is said, however, that the depreciated paper of the Baltimore banks
would have circulated so long as the government received it at the
custom-house, and that it was only after the government decided to
receive it no longer, that those banks found themselves compelled to pay
specie. But would this measure have been effectual without a national
bank? We have already intimated that we thought not. It would have been
vehemently attacked in congress and out, and all the states, except
perhaps Massachusetts, might have instructed their representatives that
the measure was premature, oppressive, and detrimental to the public
interests. But after the Bank of the United States went into operation,
the question was at an end. The government, whether the resolution of
congress had been passed or not, could not with decency have taken, or
been asked to take, any more than an individual, depreciated paper for
its d