Dunlap, and others for a conspiracy to defraud the stockholders of the Bank of the United States of more than $300,000 in 1836, '37, '38, '39, and '40. Also for a bill against Lardner, Dunlap, Price, Lewis, and Handy for conspiring to cheat and defraud the stockholders of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania of about $130,000 in 1840.
The presentment of the grand jury was quashed on the ground that the accused should have had a preliminary hearing before a committing magistrate. Several of the politicians who were in debt to the bank settled. There were three notes for a total amount of $100,000 drawn by C. Hickman or C. Hickman & Co., and indorsed by John M. Riddle, on which Riddle was sued. He declared them forgeries. Hickman was a government director, who was retained as director by Biddle's influence after the charter expired. "Some time since he found it convenient to migrate to South America." Suits were brought by holders of post-notes against two clerks of the bank, to whose order they were payable and by whom they were indorsed. The clerks made affidavits that "these indorsements were mere clerical acts and not designed to create any contracts between them and any other person, and that it was so understood by the community generally."[1]
In the spring of the following year another attempt to try Biddle and the other officers for conspiracy to defraud the stockholders was made. The Recorder found probable cause against them and bound them over to the General Sessions in $10,000 each.[2] Some of them went to jail and were released by habeas corpus proceedings. The prosecution came to nothing. The proceedings brought the law into contempt, and were used by the loco focos to prove that the law was only for the convenience of the rich and the oppression of the poor.
The Supreme Court of the State said, in 1851: "The charter [of the United States Bank] confers privileges with a prodigality never heard of before. Its insolvency in less than five years could hardly have occurred without criminal improvidence, and must have brought ruin on many citizens, yet no measures were taken either to protect the people or to punish the offending corporation."[3]
The special attitude of mind in which everything relating to banks was approached at this time constituted a social phenomenon, and it stood out more glaringly in connection with the United States Bank than anywhere else. The bankers had methods of doing things which were customary and conventional, but which were contrary both to ordinary morality and to law as applied to similar matters outside of banks. The courts recognized and gave validity to these conventions and customs. The banks also disregarded law so habitually that it became a commonplace that law could not bind them. "There is no more desperate undertaking than that of controlling the bank influence, and it is irredeemably and vitally dishonest. * * * This bill [to extend the District banks for two years] is bristled with three
