ice,
able to meet on demand all its liabilities for deposits and notes in
circulation. It maintains specie payments and transacts a profitable
business only by the confidence of the public in its solvency, and
whenever this is destroyed the demands of its depositors and note
holders, pressed more rapidly than it can make collections from its
debtors, force it to stop payment. This loss of confidence, with its
consequences, occurred in 1837, and afforded the apology of the banks
for their suspension. The public then acquiesced in the validity of the
excuse, and while the State legislatures did not exact from them their
forfeited charters, Congress, in accordance with the recommendation of
the Executive, allowed them time to pay over the public money they held,
although compelled to issue Treasury notes to supply the deficiency thus
created.

It now appears that there are other motives than a want of public
confidence under which the banks seek to justify themselves in a refusal
to meet their obligations. Scarcely were the country and Government
relieved in a degree from the difficulties occasioned by the general
suspension of 1837 when a partial one, occurring within thirty months
of the former, produced new and serious embarrassments, though it had
no palliation in such circumstances as were alleged in justification
of that which had previously taken place. There was nothing in the
condition of the country to endanger a well-managed banking institution;
commerce was deranged by no foreign war; every branch of manufacturing
industry was crowned with rich rewards, and the more than usual
abundance of our harvests, after supplying our domestic wants, had left
our granaries and storehouses filled with a surplus for exportation.
It is in the midst of this that an irredeemable and depreciated paper
currency is entailed upon the people by a large portion of the banks.
They are not driven to it by the exhibition of a loss of public
confidence or of a sudden pressure from their depositors or note
holders, but they excuse themselves by alleging that the current of
business and exchange with foreign countries, which draws the precious
metals from their vaults, would require in order to meet it a larger
curtailment of their loans to a comparatively small portion of the
community than it will be convenient for them to bear or perhaps safe
for the banks to exact. The plea has ceased to be one of necessity.
Convenience and policy are