AN ACT designating and limiting the funds receivable for the revenues of
the United States.
_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_. That the Secretary of the
Treasury be, and hereby is, required to adopt such measures as he may
deem necessary to effect a collection of the public revenue of the
United States, whether arising from duties, taxes, debts, or sales of
lands, in the manner and on the principles herein provided; that is,
that no such duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money, payable for lands,
shall be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of
the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on
demand in the said legal currency of the United States under the
following restrictions and conditions in regard to such notes, to wit:
From and after the passage of this act the notes of no bank which shall
issue or circulate bills or notes of a less denomination than five
dollars shall be received on account of the public dues; and from and
after the thirtieth day of December, eighteen hundred and thirty-nine,
the notes of no bank which shall issue or circulate bills or notes of a
less denomination than ten dollars shall be so receivable; and from and
after the thirtieth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and
forty-one, the like prohibition shall be extended to the notes of all
banks issuing bills or notes of a less denomination than twenty dollars.
SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted, _That no notes shall be received by
the collectors or receivers of the public money which the banks in which
they are to be deposited shall not, under the supervision and control of
the Secretary of the Treasury, agree to pass to the credit of the United
States as cash: _Provided_, That if any deposit bank shall refuse to
receive and pass to the credit of the United States as cash any notes
receivable under the provisions of this act, which said bank, in the
ordinary course of business, receives on general deposit, the Secretary
of the Treasury is hereby authorized to withdraw the public deposits
from said bank.
SEC. 3. _And be it further enacted, _That this act shall not be so
construed as to prohibit receivers or collectors of the dues of the
Government from receiving for the public lands any kind of land scrip
or Treasury certificates now authorized by law, but the same shall
hereafter be received for the public lands in the same way and manner
as has heretofore been practiced; and it shall not be lawful for the
Secretary of the Treasury to make any discrimination in the funds
receivable between the different branches of the public revenue,
except as is provided in this section.