Business and Personal Finance Dictionary

# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 

• NATIONAL BANK ACT OF 1863
  
  In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, at the urging of Salmon Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, signed the National Bank Act. The Act established a national banking system and a uniform national currency to be issued by new "national" banks. The banks were required to purchase U.S. government securities as backing for their National Bank notes. In 1865, a 10-percent tax levied against State Bank notes essentially taxed those notes out of existence. From 1863 to 1877, National Bank notes were printed privately by the issuing banks. After 1877, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, assumed responsibility for printing all notes.
  
  Back