banks of Philadelphia - Philadelphia, PA

Bank Information

Episode Type: Suspension → Reopening
Bank Type: state
Start Date: January 1, 1840*
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (39.952, -75.164)

Metadata

Model: gpt-5-mini
Short Digest: eb06bf90

Response Measures

None

Description

Article (1851) refers back to the 1840 suspension of the banks of Philadelphia and other states. It describes a prior suspension tied to a broader monetary crisis and later legislative reforms; no explicit run or permanent closure of these banks is described in the excerpt, and the tone implies subsequent resumption and regulatory changes.

Events (1)

1. January 1, 1840* Suspension

Cause: Macro News
Cause Details: Part of a broader monetary/financial crisis affecting multiple states and banking note redemption; systemic suspension across Philadelphia banks in 1840 as described in the article excerpt.
Newspaper Excerpt: written in 1840, when the news of the suspension of the banks of Philadelphia and of other States of the Union arrived.
Source: newspapers

Newspaper Articles (1)

1. May 3, 1851 Weekly National Intelligencer Washington, DC

Article from Weekly National Intelligencer, May 3, 1851

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Article Text

amount of payments to which its numerous and important pecuniary transactions give rise, it is indispensable to have recourse to the intervention of paper of credit. It is thus that, by the doctrines developed in the work of M. Chitti on crises and financial reform, we arrive at the real causes of the financial difficulty which afflicts Great Britain, and we can boldly predict that this state of suffering, should it cease, will necessarily be reproduced at epoche more and more near together, if England does not employ the only means for causing it to cease forever, that of the adoption of money of paper. All that precedes is applicable to the United States. There the causes of financial perturbation are more powerful than in England. In the United States no bank is invested with the moderating power of credit, as the Bank of England. There the number of establishments which issue notes payable at sight is out of all proportion with the real quantity of capital existing in the country, and the torrent of money in circulation is ever on the point of overrunning its bounds. In 1836 the cry of alarm was sounded, but the good sense of the country, having allowed the paper to circulate even after the declaration of non-redemption, prevented the catastrophe. Meanwhile this state of things cannot long continue. The country is continually in danger of seeing its paper made worthless as money, and of being deprived in one day of every means of exchange. Imagine eight hundred banks which all issue bank notes a découvert, which all excite speculation by facility of discount, and which all provoke a fictitious height of price. The fatal moment must inevitably come, and the crisis take justice for all this phantasmagoria of imaginary capital and ideal wealth : it is only a question of time, but the catastrophe is inevitable. It need not be concluded from what precedes that the United States are a nation poor and without resources. There are few States which can rival it in wealth and in industrial and commercial power, and none in agricultural wealth. It is its monetary system which pushes it beyond the bounds of reality, and will oblige it sooner or later to re-enter them, abandoning all the works executed on the domaine of illusion. We conclude with the author of Crises, that it is time for wealtby nations, which put into action a great industrial and commercial power, to re form their monetary system, which exposes them to the danger of crises, or to the evils which accompany the measures taken to prevent them, and to adopt money of paper-a certain safeguard against the exaggerations of enterprises, and, in consequence, against the calamities which are their result. That which precedes was written in 1840, when the news of the suspension of the banks of Philadelphia and of other States of the Union arrived. Since that time, in the greater number of States, wise special laws on the organization of banks place irrefragable barriers to excess of issue of paper of credit, and remove, in consequence, the dangers foreseen above. M. CRITTI.