The banks, therefore, must keep their business within
prudent limits, and be always in a condition to meet such calls, or run
the hazard of being compelled to suspend specie payments and be thereby
discredited. The amount of specie imported into the United States during
the last fiscal year was $24,121,289, of which there was retained in the
country $22,276,170. Had the former financial system prevailed and the
public moneys been placed on deposit in the banks, nearly the whole of
this amount would have gone into their vaults, not to be thrown into
circulation by them, but to be withheld from the hands of the people as
a currency and made the basis of new and enormous issues of bank paper.
A large proportion of the specie imported has been paid into the
Treasury for public dues, and after having been to a great extent
recoined at the Mint has been paid out to the public creditors and gone
into circulation as a currency among the people. The amount of gold and
silver coin now in circulation in the country is larger than at any
former period.
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