924

FIRST BANKING LAW IN OHIO.

1816.

   

shown above, a general banking law was passed in Ohio immcdv-ately afterward.

A full history of banking in Ohio would as much exceed the limits of this work as it would tire the patience of the reader. But as about this time the disposition to an excess in the creation of such institutions was plainly manifested, it may not be improper to mention the leading acts of the legislature in reference to the subject.

The earliest bank chartered was the Miami Exporting Company of Cincinnati, the bill for which passed in April, 1803.

Banking was with this company a secondary object, its main purpose being to facilitate trade, then much depressed; nor was it till 1808, that the first bauk, strictly speaking, that of Marietta, was chartered. During the same session the proposition of founding a State Bank was considered, and reported upon; it resulted in the establishment of the bank of Chillicothe.

From that time charters were granted to similar institutions up to the year 1816, when the great banking law was passed, incorporating twelve new banks, extending tbe charters of old ones, and making the State a party in the profits and capital of the institu-tious thus created and renewed, without any advance of means on her part.

This was done in the following manner: each new bank was at the outset to set apart one share in twenty-five for the State, without payment, and each bauk, whose charter was renewed, was to create, for the State, stock in the same proportion; each bauk, new and old, was yearly to set apart out of its profits a sum which would make, at the time the charter expired, a sum equal to one twenty-fifth of the whole stock, which was to belong to the State; and the dividends coming to the State were to be invested and reinvested until one-sixth of the stock was State property:   the last provision was subject to change by future legislatures.

This interest of the State in her banks continued uutil 1825, when the law was so amended as to change her stock into a tax of two per cent, upon all dividends made up to that time, and four per cent, upon all made thereafter. But before the law of 1816, in February, 1815, Ohio had begun to raise a revenue from her banking institutions, levying upon their dividends a tax of four per cent.

This law, however, was made null with regard to such banks as accepted the terms of the law of 1816.   After 1825, no change was