oted against Senator Henderson's amendment
to limit charters to banks with $300,000 capital. If the bill
passed as it came from the Finance Committee there "will be banks
established at every cross-road in the country. The State banks
will be destroyed, and widows and orphans whose all is invested in
the stock of these institutions will be impoverished."

--Mr. Clark of New Hampshire thought the proposed system might be
improved by providing "that there shall be a visitation on the part
of the States." He thought it would give confidence to the banks
if the States "had the right to know how they stood."

--Mr. Pomeroy of Kansas thought the right to organize with a capital
as low as $50,000 was a good provision and would "tend to popularize
and extend the National banks throughout the country."

SENATE DISCUSSES THE BANKING SYSTEM.

--Mr. Howard of Michigan opposed the bill because he thought its
effect would be to "wage a very unnecessary and dangerous war upon
the State institutions," and also because he deplored "the contest
which will probably arise out of it in our local politics."

--Mr. Garrett Davis, avowing himself an advocate of the old United-
States Bank which President Jackson destroyed, was opposed to the
pending bill because "it does not provide for the convertibility
of its paper into coin." The "system is based on government bonds,
and they sold in New York yesterday at a discount of fifty-three
percent."

--Mr. Chandler of Michigan corrected Mr. Davis. "Gold sold at
fifty-three per cent. premium, but that did not mean a discount of
fifty-three per cent. on the bonds."

--Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts pertinently asked Mr. Davis "if the
credit of the government is not good enough, where is there left
in the country any thing good enough to bank on? If the government
goes down, there is not a considerable bank in America that does
not go down with it."

--Mr. Doolittle of Wisconsin regarded it as "a necessity that the
government should take control of the paper currency of the country.
In some way we must restrain the issues of State banks. If we
permit these banks to flood the channels of circulation, we destroy
ourselves."

--Mr. Collamer of Vermont denied the right to tax the State banks
out of existence, and to establish corporations in the State and
Territories. Independently of the power of visitation by those
States and Territories, he object