as safe, and in one sense they are even more so, for they have behind them the solid foundation of a United States bond, payable in gold, and at the same time the ability to pay of the bank that issues them. It is, indeed, provided that they shall be redeemable on demand in Government legal-tender notes, but there is really, as far as I can see, no inducement for the holder of a national-bank note to convert it into a Government legal-tender, for the bank-note does just the same business, and is just as safe as the other. The breaking of the bank that issued it does not injure its value in the least.
I know very well there was a premium on Government legal-tenders as to national-bank notes during the panic. What was the cause of that premium? It was an uncalled-for, unreasonable fear of the country banks that there would be a run on them for the conversion of national-bank notes into greenbacks. But looking at it calmly, undisturbed by the wild influences of a panic, there would not be the least inducement in the world to run to a national bank in order to convert the national-bank note into a greenback. Such things may indeed take place in panics, but panics never can furnish a general rule to control the ordinary run of business.
While in England, during the suspension of specie payments, the conversion of a country-bank note into a Bank of England note meant the conversion of inferior currency into a superior, a safer, and in so far a more valuable one, the conversion here of a national-bank note into a greenback means virtually the conversion of one piece of currency into another which is just as good and no better.
In England the relation of redeemability between country-bank notes and Bank of England notes acted, therefore, somewhat like the relation of redeemability between a bank-note and specie in specie-paying times.
