"Resurrection Notes."

Mr. Grundy, from the Committee on the Judiciary, made the following report:

The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred that part of the President's Message which relates to the issuing and re-issuing of the notes of the late Bank of the United States, by the bank recently chartered by the State of Pennsylvania, by and under the same name, have had the same under consideration, and present the following report:

By the act of Congress chartering the Bank of the United States, passed on the 10th of April, 1816, that institution was invested with all the usual privileges of banking corporations;  and was especially authorized to issue its bills and notes, not less in amount than five dollars, in the ordinary form of bank notes, signed by its president and cashier.  These bills and notes, when payable an demand, were made receivable in all payments to the United States.  For the security of these and its other legal obligations, the capital stock was created, amounting to thirty-five millions of dollars.  Twenty-eight millions of this were to be raised and paid by individuals, companies, or corporations.  The remaining seven millions were paid in by the United States.  The affairs of the corporation were to be managed by twenty-five directors, five of whom were to be appointed by the President of the United States.  A committee of Congress was authorized to examine into the transactions of the bank;  and legal proceedings were to be instituted by the Executive, whenever any of the provisions of the charter were violated.  The United States were to receive, half-yearly, a portion of the profits of the institution, corresponding to the portion of the capital they subscribed.

It will thus be seen that, during the existence of the bank, and during the period when its bills and notes were issued under the charter, the United States were deriving a profit from its transactions;  that their funds were pledged for the security of those who received and held its notes;  and that they were invested (at least so far as the words of the law went) with some control over its management.

By the same law, all the banking powers of the corporation were limited to the 3d of March, 1836, after which day they entirely ceased;  although it was authorized for two years subsequent thereto to use its corporate capacity "for the purpose of suits for the final settlement and liquidation of the affairs and accounts of the ccrparation, and for the sale and disposition of its estate;  but not for any other purpose or in any other manner, whatsoever."  The objects of this part of the latv are too plain to be misunderstood.  The intention of Congress was to preclude, after the 3d March, 1836, every banking transaction ---the issue of bills, the discount of notes, the lending of money;  in a word, the continuance of all transactions for the profit of the stockholders.  Its object was to prevent the bank from incurring, after that day, any additional liability, by which the property either of the United States or individuals invested in the corporation might be directly or indirectly bound, and to require the bank fully to settle its accounts and dispose of its property, to redeem its obligations, pay its debts, and collect its assets before the 3d of March, 1838.

It appears that, on the 18th of February, 1836, the Legislature of Pennsylvania, by an act entitled "An act to repeal the State tax on real estate and personal property, and to continue and extend the improvements of the State. by railroads and canals, and to charter a State bank, to be called the United States Bank," incorporated the existing stock holders of the Bank of the United States, (excepting the United States and the Treasurer of the United States) and such other persons as might become stockholders, according to the provisions of that act of the Legislature;  previously requiring the same, however, to be accepted by the actual stockholders at a general meeting.

On the 19th of February, 1836, a general meeting of these stockholders was held, without, however, any assent, representation, or authority on the part of the United States.  At that meeting, resolutions were passed, accepting the charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and directing the president of the bank to make that acceptance known to the Governor of the State.  At the same meeting, the stockholders thus assembled directed the president and directors of the bank chartered by Congress "to pay, transfer, and deliver to this new institution all and singular the shares, parts, purparts, interest, and property whatsoever of the stockholders, so incorporated by the State of Pennsylvia, of and in the goods, chattels, moneys, effects, and estate, real and personal of the present Bank of the United States."

Of this measure, no notice was given to the Government of the United States;  no application was made to, or authority sought from, Congress, although it was notorious that a portion of the effects of the bank, in addition to the sum of seven millions of dollars, belonged exclusively to them;  that they were entitled to one-seventh part of the effects to be collected and divided;  and that they were liable, in the same proportion, for the proper settlement of the affairs and discharge of the obligations, which were thus summarily taken out of their hands, and placed beyond their control.  Though, in words, the direction of these assembled stockholders to their president and directors was to transfer their own shares and parts of the effects, yet, as those effects had never been divided, as no proposition for their division had ever been made, as they consisted of the great and complicated mass of property belonging to such an institution, and, in the nature of things, incapable, without extreme difficulty, of division, it was in fact a sudden and summary transfer of the whole property and effects belonging to the people of the United States, and invested by them in that institution, under carefully devised guards and stipulations, to a State corporation, suddenly created, in whose transactions they had no participation.

As if to remove all doubt of this being the nature and intention of the transfer, the president and directors of the bank chartered by Congress proceeded, on the 2d of March, 1836, the very day before the charter expired, solemnly to resolve, that "all and singular the money, goods, chattels, rights, credits, and personal estate whatsoever owned by, or belonging to, or in the custody of this bank, wheresoever the same may be, together with all evidences and securities for the same, be, and the same hereby are, assigned, transferred, and conveyed to the president, directors, and company of the Bank of the United States incorporated by the State of Pennsylvania," and they created that institution their trustee, to conduct and wind up the business of the bank.

Thus, in direct violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the act of Congress, which imposed upon the bank chartered by itself the duty of "settling and liquidating the affairs and accounts of the corporation," which had given it two years expressly for that purpose, and which had retained for Congress the power of examining, by its committees, the correctness of its proceedings, and controlling it, if necessary, by a summary judicial process;  in violation of this provision, and in manifest infringement of the rights of the people of the United States, whose property was invested in the institution to a large amount, a portion of the stockholders, excluding the United States, giving them no notice, asking no authority from Congress, suddenly assuming with a high hand the management of the whole affair, undertake the solemn farce of passing resolutions to create themselves (incorporated, it is true, by another law, though not under another name) their own trustees;  and, having so done, they take possession of all the property, and assume the settlement of all the affairs of the institution, relieved, as they suppose, from every responsibility and control to which Congress meant the bank should be subject in winding up its business.

On the 4th of March, 1836, when, in contemplation of the act of Congress, the Bank of the United States should have been commencing the settlement of its affairs, including the large interest of the Government, we had a portion of its stockholders who have cast of the rest, seizing and keeping possession of every particle of the joint property, and assuming the right to manage it, free from the obligations of the charter under which that property was collected, and from the control of those by whom that charter was granted and to whose constituents a very large portion of that property belongs.

It does not appear that, at the time of this transfer, by a portion of the stockholders, of the whole property of the bank to themselves, any inventory or statement of the effects and estate of the institution was made;  and no steps whatever were taken for the regular "settlement and liquidation of the affairs and accounts of the corporation," as the charter positively required.  The whole business was mixed up with that of the new institution.  Although the Secretary of the Treasury was desirous and endeavored to obtain a payment or dividend of the property proportionate to the shares belonging to the United States, he was unable to do so.  Resort was, of necessity, had to an estimate of the value of the shares, founded on an examination of the general accounts of the old institution.  There is, perhaps, no reason to doubt, on the whole, the correctness of this valuation;  but it must be admitted that such was not "the settlement and liquidation of the affairs and accounts of the corporation," stipulated for by Congress at the time it granted the charter, and which was frustrated by the summary and unauthorized conduct of the individual stockholders, in transferring to themselves all the property of the bank just before the charter expired;  and from the time of such transfer, neither keeping its accounts, or winding up any of its concerns.

Soon after the estimated valuation of the stock of the bank, thus made, the State institution and trustee came forward, and voluntarily offered to pay the same, by equal instalments, in September, 1837, 1838, 1839, and 1840, with six per cent. interest from the time the charter expired.  This offer the Secretary of the Treasury was directed, by a joint resolution of Congress, passed on the 3d March, 1837, to accept, taking obligations for its fulfilment;  the first of which, it is understood, has been redeemed, and the amount paid into the Treasury.

Thus virtually terminated, the affairs of the late Bank of the United States;  in a manner very different from that settlement and liquidation which were a part of the obligatinns of its charter;  in a manner very different from that in which the business of a great national institution should have been finally closed.  It is true, the individual stockholders have become possessed, by a general sweep, of all the property of the bank;  and the United States have exchanged their shares of stock and their claim to dividends for a liquidated sum, secured by the bonds of another corporation.  But have these operations relieved either party from their obligations to the community? have they given to those possessed of the property a right to use it, in manifest contradiction to the charter by which it was created? have they given sanction, direct or indirect, to an employment of the corporate privilege and the corporate property, long after the charter has expired, for purposes not only unnecessary to the settlement of its affairs, but calculated to postpone, and retard such a settlement? have they absolved Congress from the duty, solemnly imposed upon it, of "examining the proceedings" done under color of that charter? will they justify it in taking no measures to redeem and cancel the obligations of an institution it created? above all, do they furnish it with an excuse for suffering the name, credit, and apparent authority of the United States, to give value to obligations in which they have no longer an interest ?

Of all the powers and privileges of banking institutions, that which most widely affects the whole community is the issue of bank notes;  the autho