It is no more than just to the banks to say that in the late
emergency most of them firmly resisted the strongest temptations to
extend their paper issues when apparently sustained in a suspension of
specie payments by public opinion, even though in some cases invited
by legislative enactments. To this honorable course, aided by the
resistance of the General Government, acting in obedience to the
Constitution and laws of the United States, to the introduction of
an irredeemable paper medium, may be attributed in a great degree the
speedy restoration of our currency to a sound state and the business
of the country to its wonted prosperity.
The banks have but to continue in the same safe course and be content
in their appropriate sphere to avoid all interference from the General
Government and to derive from it all the protection and benefits which
it bestows on other State establishments, on the people of the States,
and on the States themselves. In this, their true position, they can
not but secure the confidence and good will of the people and the
Government, which they can only lose when, leaping from their legitimate
sphere, they attempt to control the legislation of the country and
pervert the operations of the Government to their own purposes.
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