Note 21 — FIFTH CONGRESS.—FIRST SESSION. (continued 3)

This taxation of bank notes presents the ready mode of regulating the paper currency of the States, and suppressing the mischief of small notes which are a constant source of depredation upon the laboring part of the community, a constant source of crime in the making and passing counterfeit paper, and the constant expeller of the constitutional currency. These small notes were hardly known at the time of this tax, which was so readily imposed, and therefore were taxed lightest: now they are a general circulation, and the most profitable part of a bank's issues; and, therefore, should be taxed highest, both on the principle of being most profitable to the banks and most injurious to the community.