act a similar payment from other banks, so that the profits of the bank should not be lessened by reason of the inequality.

It may be further observed, that the avowed object of placing all the banks of the State "on a uniform basis” seems scarcely attainable from want of constitutional power to control those institutions in whose charters the power to repeal or modify is not reserved. The act of 1825, to prevent fraudulent bankruptcies of certain monied corporations, operated on corporations previously existing, not by changing any of their franchises; it did not impair any existing right or impose any new terms on the corporations as the condition of the exercise of their rights; but it was strictly remedial, operating upon their officers individually; and all its provisions were calculated to enforce existing rights of creditors and of the State, by furnishing the means for speedy decisions, and by declaring and rendering definite and explicit the common law rule, respecting a surrender of corporate franchises. And that the Legislature did not intend to apply any of the restrictions of that act to existing corporations in their corporate capacity, your memorialists think will be evident by a reference to the 7th and 17th sections, which prescribe the duties of the Attorney-General in respect to proceedings against them for violations of their charters, and the cases in which such proceedings are to be had. The general law of the land in respect to legislative power over contracts made with corporations in the form of charters, your memorialists had supposed was too well settled at this day to be shaken by a precedent, to say the least, of very doubtful application; and they must believe, that upon examination, the Legislature will be entirely satisfied of their want of power under the Constitution of the United States, to infringe in any manner, or to any extent, the rights and franchises granted to those institutions in whose charters no such power is reserved.* If your memorialists are correct in this view of the subject, there will remain some banks in this State which cannot be placed on "the uniform basis" with those under the safety fund law. Hence the whole value of the argument seems to fail, since a perfect uniformity cannot be produced. And this your memorialists would observe is independent of the objections already urged against the power of the Legislature to compel those corporations not now

See Dartmouth College case,-12 Wheaton.

subject to the safety fund law to contribute their property for the security and payment of the debts of other institutions.

The idea that a false confidence may be reposed in particular portions of the circulating medium, from a belief that all is equally secured, proceeds on the hypothesis that our fellow citizens cannot discriminate between the paper of banks conducted under different systems; a supposition which, your memorialists think, is not warranted by experience, or the known caution and sagacity of the people of this State; and your memorialists do most respectfully urge, that in their case, it is not possible that individual loss and suffering can ensue from a false confidence in their paper, derived from the good credit of the banks under the safety fund system; simply because the individual liability of every stockholder in their bank for the payment of their notes, must, from the nature of the case, forever continue an inexhaustible security against loss by the public. Before a holder of a bill issued by your memorialists can possibly suffer, the whole amount of discounted notes and bills must prove worthless; the whole amount of the capital of the bank must be exhausted, and the stockholders of the bank must have become insolvent. The improbability, if not the utter impossibility of these events, in the opinion of your memorialists, justifies them in saying, that as their paper does not require, so it will not be likely to receive, any benefit from the reflected credit of any other banks, and that in fact the public will not be better secured against loss than they now are, by placing the institution which we represent on a uniform basis" with other banks.

Why then, we respectfully inquire, disturb that which is already sound and secure, against which no complaint has been uttered, and of which no apprehension has hitherto been expressed?

A theoretical conformity, even if it were attainable, without any practically beneficial results, is not of sufficient importance to justify the modification of numerous charters, and your memorialists respectfully ask, whether there may not be some important public advantages in retaining the different kinds of responsibilities now existing in the banking institutions of the State? particularly as the safety fund system itself has been but recently adopted; thus furnishing the public with all the alternatives of confidence and security in every possible event: so that if by any possible mischance the institutions under one system should become embar

rassed, those acting under different liabilities might afford a stopping place to the panic that would inevitably ensue.

In view of all these considerations, seeing how little if any public advantage can be obtained by the proposed alterations, how injurious they will affect the interests of those whom your memorialists represent, how difficult it will be to avoid impairing the obligations of existing contracts, and how very questionable would be the exercise of a power to take arbitrarily from your memorialists any portion of their property without their consent, for the payment of the debts of others, and to compel them to become copartners with others against their will, your memorialists do respectfully but firmly remonstrate against the passage of the bill now pending before the Senate to subject them to the safety fund law, or to the passage of any similar bill,

IN SENATE,

April 18, 1833.

REPORT

Of the Canal Commissioners on the petition of Joseph E. Bloomfield.

The Canal Commissioners, pursuant to the resolution of the honorable the Senate of the 19th January ult. requiring them "to report to the Senate," as early as practicable, a statement "of the facts relative to a certain lease of surplus water flowing from the Erie canal at Utica, executed by them to Maria Miller in the year 1829, and revoked in 1832;" and to whom was also referred the memorial of Joseph E. Bloomfield on the same subject,

RESPECTFULLY REPORT:

The memorialist represents, that the Canal Commissioners, March 27, 1830, executed to Mrs. Maria Miller, pursuant to an appraisal by the State appraisers, a lease of the surplus waters wasting from "the weigh-lock and waste-weir adjacent thereto" in Utica; that on the 14th September, 1831, he entered into an agreement with Rutger B. Miller to erect, on the premises upon which said waters flowed, a flouring and grist-mill; that in Sept. 1831, he commenced the erection of such mill, and commenced running the same about April 15, 1832, and had expended in its erection more than $26,000; and that the Canal Board, by resolution of 10th March, 1832, had revoked said lease on two alleged grounds: firstly, that the lease was not authorised by law, and that the Commissioners had acted without the sanction of law: and secondly, that the counterpart of the lease was not filed at the precise time specified by law. The petitioner represents, that without these surplus waters his mills will be of no value; and that the rent in this case was fixed at a low rate or small sum, because Mrs. Miller had relinquished claims for damages to lands taken for [Senate, No. 112.]