Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

1
Whereas, by the act of Congress regulating the deposites of public money in the State Banks, approved June 23, 1836, it was provided that at least one bank should be selected in each State or Territory, if any such existed, willing to be employed as a depository of the public money:

And whereas there are two Banks in the State of Illinois, both of them solvent and safe, neither of which is now employed as the depository of the money of the General Government:

And whereas the money collected by the General Government in the State of Illinois is deposited in the State Bank of Missouri, to the great injury and oppression of the Banks and people of this State:

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives, That the President of the State Bank of Illinois, and the President of the Bank of Illinois, be requested to inform this House:

1st. Whether the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States ever applied to either of them to receive in deposite, in either of the aforesaid Banks, the public money collected in this State, or any part thereof

2d. Whether either of them ever applied to the Secretary of the Trea-

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sury to have either of the aforesaid Banks made the depository of the public money collected by the General Government in the State of Illinois.

3d. Whether the said Banks, or either of them, have ever received in deposite, in full or in part, the money collected by the General Government in the State Illinois.

4th. Whether the said Banks have been so managed as to entitle them, under the requirements of the aforesaid deposite act, to the deposite of the money of the General Government collected in the State of Illinois.

5th. Whether they have applied to the Secretary of the Treasury to procure the deposite of the public money collected in this State, for the aforesaid Banks, since the resumption of specie payments by the said Banks.

6th. Whether the Secretary of the Treasury has refused to employ the said Banks, since the resumption of specie payments, as depositories of the public money, and on what grounds he has based said refusal.

7th. Whether either of the said Banks have issued or paid out notes of a less denomination than five dollars since the fourth day of July, 1836; and, if so, at what date they commenced such practice.

Resolved, That the Presidents of the two Banks aforesaid be requested to lay before this House all correspondence between the said Banks and the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, on the subject of the deposite of the public money in the said Banks.

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded, by the Secretary of this House, to the President of the State Bank of Illinois and the President of the Bank of Illinois.

1John Calhoun introduced the resolution in the House of Representatives on January 5, 1839, and the House referred it to the Committee of the Whole, to which the House had referred several resolutions from the Senate on the same subject. On January 16, the House discharged the Committee of the Whole from further consideration of the resolution. On January 21, the House took up the resolution, tabling it.
Journal of the House of Representatives of the Eleventh General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at Their First Session, Begun and Held in the Town of Vandalia, December 3, 1838 (Vandalia,IL: William Walters, 1838), 173-74, 220, 254.