... Michigan, and Florida) had repudiated all or part of their debts. Six other states (Maryland, Illinois, Indiana,Louisiana, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania) had defaulted fromthree to six years before ... government and bank inflation were inti-mately linked. 100Rockoff goes so far as to call free banking the “antithesis of laissez-faire banking laws.” Hugh Rockoff, “Varieties of Banking and RegionalEconomic ... acting as a “clearing bank,” accepting, sort-ing, and crediting bank notes, it was now possible for any NewEngland bank to accept the notes of any other bank, howeverfar away, and at face value....