Definition
A post note is a bank note or promissory note payable at a specified future date, as distinguished from a demand note, which is payable immediately upon presentation. The instrument was issued by banks as part of their circulating currency during the era of state-chartered banking in the United States, but carried a deferred maturity date rather than functioning as an on-demand obligation.
The defining characteristic is temporal: the holder cannot compel payment until the stated future date arrives. This made post notes functionally distinct from ordinary bank notes circulating as currency, which were redeemable on demand, and positioned post notes closer to short-term debt instruments than to circulating money.
---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A note issued by a bank, payable at some future specified time, as distinguished from a note payable on demand.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A note issued by a bank, payable at some future specified time, as distinguished from a note payable on demand.
The common and legal definitions here are unusually close, reflecting that the term was always a technical commercial term rather than ordinary language repurposed by law. The legal significance lies not in any gap between common and legal meaning, but in the regulatory and historical context that the dictionary definitions omit entirely: post notes were controversial instruments associated with banking instability, and several American jurisdictions moved to prohibit them outright.
---
Why It Matters in Research
Post notes belong to a narrow but important slice of American commercial and banking law history — roughly the period from the early nineteenth century through the National Banking Act era (1863–1864), when federally chartered currency began to displace state bank notes. Researchers will encounter the term almost exclusively in pre-Civil War sources.
The key research trap is conflating post notes with ordinary promissory notes or with demand bank notes. Post notes occupied a contested middle ground: they were issued by banks, resembled circulating currency in form, but deferred payment like a debt instrument. This hybrid character made them legally and regulatorily ambiguous. Courts and legislatures treated them differently depending on whether they emphasized the banking or the credit aspect of the instrument.
Jurisdictional variation is acute. New York declared post notes illegal — a significant development that surfaces repeatedly in period legal literature and reflects the broader Jacksonian-era distrust of bank paper. Pennsylvania courts addressed the instruments in reported decisions. Researchers working in other states should not assume uniform treatment; the legality and commercial custom surrounding post notes varied considerably by jurisdiction and decade.
When tracing a post note dispute in historical records, researchers should also examine the chartering documents and regulatory statutes of the issuing bank. Whether a bank was legally authorized to issue time-payable notes, as opposed to demand notes, was often a threshold question. Ultra vires challenges to post note issuance appear in the case law.
The term does not appear in modern commercial law. Under the Uniform Commercial Code framework, the functional equivalent would simply be a note with a stated maturity date, governed by standard negotiable instruments rules. Citing post note authorities in a modern context would be anachronistic.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the foundational definition and correctly identifies the two legal contexts — mercantile law generally and New York's specific prohibition — with period citations. The Webster's 1913 and Wiktionary definitions track Burrill closely, which is unsurprising given that Webster's attributed the definition to Burrill directly.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the policy debate surrounding post notes, the relationship between post note prohibition and broader free banking and hard money movements, or the question of whether post notes, once issued, were negotiable instruments subject to the same holder-in-due-course protections as demand notes. These were live questions in the reported decisions Burrill cites but are invisible from the dictionary entry alone.
Burrill's citation to 22 Penn. St. R. 479 and the New York authorities (3 Denio's R. 70; 3 Barbour's R. 226; 3 Comstock's R. 21) points researchers toward contemporaneous judicial treatment of the instrument. These are legitimate period reporters and provide the analytical depth the dictionary entry cannot.
---
Jurisdictional Note
New York prohibited post notes by statute, and its courts enforced that prohibition, making New York authorities unreliable guides to post note law in states where the instruments remained legal. Pennsylvania courts addressed the validity and negotiability of post notes in a different regulatory environment. Researchers should identify the law of the issuing bank's chartering jurisdiction before applying any historical authority.
---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia, Corporate Finance — Debt Securities (Bonds, Debentures, Notes): for the conceptual framework of bank-issued debt instruments and the distinction between demand and time obligations.
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia, Mortgages — Promissory Note and Deed of Trust: for the general law of promissory notes as negotiable instruments, which provides the baseline against which post notes were legally measured.
---