ABSTRACT

The organizers of the national banking system were right to be concerned about whether the new national charter would be attractive enough to potential bank organizers. Certainly, it would be an embarrassment to the Lincoln administration-and a setback to the grand scheme the system embodied-if bankers were unmoved by the call to join the system to save the Union. Given the grumbling and outright opposition to the legislation in certain quarters, there was a distinct possibility that the administration’s appeal to patriotism might not be enough to override concerns about the burdens and uncertainties of an untested regime-especially in states such as California, which harbored deep suspicion of chartered banking of any kind. Would the law’s benefitsincluding the right to circulate a personalized, yet uniform currency and to operate under the license and authority of the national government-outweigh the costs and nuisances it clearly entailed? Would restrictions on bank activities, the heavy capital and reserve requirements, the congeries of new forms and reporting responsibilities, and the lengthy delays in getting the new national currency designed, printed, and distributed to the bankers keep others away? Only time would tell.