The limit of the issue of such notes is the need of the community for that form of money, and if they are promptly redeemed in standard money on demand, they never can exceed that amount.

A holder of a note (in the absence of special regulations) has the same claim on the bank that a depositor has.

As it is to the interest of the bank to keep in circulation as many notes as possible, there is a temptation to abuse the power of note issue, to which many banks in America yielded in the period of so-called "wild-cat" banking before the Civil War.
Sec.10.

#Divergent views of typical bank notes#.

Some persons seeing in bank notes but a form of ordinary commercial credit (like a promissory note or an individual's check) have contended that their issue should be entirely unlimited and unregulated except by the ordinary law of contract which makes the bank liable to redeem the notes on demand.
Such bank notes would not be legal tender, and every one would be free to take or refuse them as he pleased.