Bank War

Bank War
Cartoon depicting the political conflict between Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle over the future of the Second Bank of the United States.
Date 1832-1841
Location Washington, D.C.
Lead figures

The Bank War refers to the political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States (BUS) during the Andrew Jackson administration (1829–1837).[1] Anti-Bank Jacksonian Democrats were mobilized in opposition to the national bank’s re-authorization on the grounds that the institution conferred economic privileges on financial elites, violating U.S. constitutional principles of social equality.[2][3] The Jacksonians considered the Second Bank of the United States to be an illegitimate corporation whose charter violated state sovereignty, posing an implicit threat to the agriculture-based economy dependent upon the Southern states' widely practiced institution of slavery.[4][5] With the Bank charter due to expire in 1836, the President of the Bank of the United States, Nicholas Biddle, in alliance with the National Republicans under Senator Henry Clay (KY) and Senator Daniel Webster (MA), decided to make rechartering a referendum on the legitimacy of the institution in the elections of 1832.[6]

When Congress voted to reauthorize the Bank, Jackson, as incumbent and candidate in the race, promptly vetoed the bill. His veto message justifying his action was a polemical declaration of the social philosophy of the Jacksonian movement[7] pitting "farmers, mechanics and laborers" against the "monied interest" and arguing against the Bank’s constitutionality.[8] Pro-Bank National Republicans warned the public that Jackson would abolish the Bank altogether if granted a second term.[9]

In the presidential campaigns of 1832, the BUS served as the central issue in mobilizing the opposing Jacksonian Democrats and National Republicans. Jackson and Biddle personified the positions on each side.[10] Jacksonians successfully concealed the incompatibility of their "hard money" and "paper money" factions in the anti-Bank campaign,[11] allowing Jackson to score an overwhelming victory against Henry Clay.[12]

Fearing economic reprisals from Biddle and the Bank, Jackson moved swiftly to remove federal deposits from the institution. In 1833, he succeeded in distributing the funds to several dozen private banks throughout the country.[13] The new Whig Party emerged in opposition to his perceived abuse of executive power, officially censuring Jackson in the Senate.[14] In an effort to promote sympathy for the institution’s survival, Biddle retaliated by contracting Bank credit, inducing a serious and protracted financial downturn.[15] A reaction set in throughout America’s financial and business centers against Biddle’s economic warfare,[16] compelling the Bank to reverse its tight money policies.[17] By the close of 1834, recharter was a "lost cause."[18] Rather than permitting the Bank to go out of existence, Biddle arranged its conversion to a state chartered corporation in Pennsylvania just weeks before its federal charter expired in March 1836. This episode in the Bank’s decline and fall ended in 1841 with liquidation of the institution. Jackson’s campaign against the Bank had triumphed.[19]

The Resurrection of a National Banking System

Though supported by President James Madison and his Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin,[20] opponents of the First Bank of the United States defeated recharter by a single vote in both the House and Senate in 1811.[21] Opposition came from several fronts, including states’ rights advocates opposed to the doctrine of implied powers, private banking interests who objected to the regulatory effects of the BUS, and big mercantilists, including John Jacob Astor, who had disputes with the Bank’s directors.[22][23]

The north façade of the Second Bank of the United States, facing Chestnut Street (2013)

The practical arguments in favor of reviving a national system of finance, as well as internal improvements and protective tariffs, were prompted by national security concerns during the War of 1812 and its aftermath[24] which had "demonstrated the absolute necessity of a national banking system"[25]

The roots for the resurrection of the Bank of the United States lay fundamentally in the transformation of America from a simple agrarian economy to one that was becoming interdependent with finance and industry.[26] Vast western lands were opening for white settlement,[27] accompanied by rapid development, enhanced by steam power and financial credit.[28] Economic planning at the federal level was deemed necessary by Republican nationalists to promote expansion and encourage private enterprise.[29][30]

In 1815, Secretary of State James Monroe informed President James Madison that a national bank "would attach the commercial part of the community in a much greater degree to the Government [and] interest them in its operations…This is the great desideratum [essential objective] of our system."[31] Support for this "national system of money and finance" grew with the post-war economy and land boom, uniting the interests of eastern financiers with southern and western Republican nationalists who sought to "Republicanize Hamiltonian bank policy."[32] and "employ Hamiltonian means to Jeffersonian ends."[33]

"Jackson and Reform": Implications for the BUS

Portrait of President Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson’s victory in the 1828 presidential race was achieved through harnessing the widespread social resentments and political unrest persisting since the economic crisis of 1819[34] and the Missouri Crisis of 1820.[35] Jackson’s forces were immensely strengthened by the revival of the Old Republican North-South agrarian alliance and its state sovereignty precepts.[36][37]

President of the Second BUS, Nicholas Biddle

Under the banner of "Jackson and Reform"[38] the Democratic Party launched a spirited and sophisticated campaign[39] against incumbent president John Quincy Adams, personifying him as a purveyor of corruption and fraudulent republicanism, and a menace to American democracy.[40] At the heart of the campaign was the conviction that Andrew Jackson had been denied the presidency in 1824 only through a "corrupt bargain" devised by Adams and Clay; a Jackson victory promised to rectify this betrayal of the popular will.[41]

Jackson was both the champion and beneficiary of the revival of the Jeffersonian North-South alliance,[42] reasserting the Old Republican precepts of limited government, strict construction, state sovereignty and Southern preeminence.[43] Upon these principles, the Missouri Compromise would be honored, and the issue of slavery suppressed in the interests of preserving the Union.[44] Federal institutions that conferred privileges producing "artificial inequality" would be eliminated through a return to strict constructionism.[45] The "planter of the South and the plain Republican of the north"[46] would provide the support, wielding universal white male suffrage. These precepts would necessarily bring the Jacksonian Democracy politically into collision with the Second Bank of the United States.[47]

So as to conceal the incompatibility of their hard-money and paper-money factions, Jackson’s associates never offered a platform on banking and finance reform,[48] because to do so "might upset Jackson's delicately balanced coalition."[49] As such, the Second Bank of the United States "was not an issue in the 1828 elections."[50] Jackson would not publicly air his grievances with the BUS until December 1829.[51]

Prelude to "War"

When Jackson entered the White House in March 1829, dismantling the Bank was not part of his reform agenda.[52] His new administration made routine efforts to enlist the Bank as a pro-Democratic Party institution, as part of their spoils victory, but Biddle was uncooperative.[53] Jackson’s principled opposition to the BUS [54] and his doubts as to its constitutionality, left open the door to thwart its renewal if he won a second term.[55]

The Second Bank of the United States had attained a solid reputation by 1829.[56] Popular distrust of the Bank had subsided,[57] Supreme Court decisions had approved its legitimacy and the country was experiencing general prosperity:[58] "Jacksonians had to recognize that the Bank’s standing in public esteem was high."[59] Throughout 1829, Jackson and his close advisor William Lewis, maintained cordial relations with BUS administrators, including Biddle.[60] Jackson continued to do business with the BUS branch bank in Nashville, Tennessee.[61]

By October, Jackson’s closest associates, especially his Secretary of State Martin Van Buren of New York state, were developing plans to summarily end the BUS, without proposing any substitutes for the Bank’s fiscal functions.[62][63] Implicit in these efforts was the strengthening of the New York – Virginia alliance along Old Republican lines.[64][65]

Nicholas Biddle carefully explored his options in winning over the president to supporting recharter.[66] He approached William Lewis in November 1829 with a proposal to facilitate paying down the national debt.[67] Jackson welcomed the offer and personally promised Biddle he would recommend the plan to Congress in his upcoming annual address, adding emphatically that he still held personal doubts as to the Bank’s constitutionality.[68]

Annual Address to Congress, December 1829

In his annual address to Congress on December 8, 1829,[69] Jackson praised Biddle's debt retirement plan, but followed this with a "bombshell".[70][71] The president advised Congress to take early action to determine whether the Bank deserved recharter on constitutional grounds, and further declared that the institution had "failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency."[72]

The claim regarding the Bank’s failure was factually untrue[73] but politically potent in that it served to "discharge the aggressions of citizens who felt injured by economic privilege, whether derived from banks or not."[74] Jackson’s criticisms resonated with "anti-bank, hard money agrarians"[75] as well as to eastern monied interests, especially in New York City, who resented the central bank’s power, prestige and its regulatory controls on easy credit.[76]

A cartoon depicts Jackson battling the many-headed monster of the bank.

Both Houses of Congress categorically rejected Jackson’s assertions and upheld the Bank in committee reports issued in March and April 1830. Both confirmed that the US Constitution not only permitted but required such a financial institution,[77] echoing the arguments of John C. Calhoun during the charter debates in 1816.[78]

In the aftermath, no clear policy towards the Bank emerged from the White House.[79] Jackson’s official cabinet members were opposed to an overt attack on the Bank.[80] The Treasury Department maintained normal working relations with Biddle, who was renominated to his Bank director's post by the president.[81] Lewis and other of Jackson’s confidants continued to have encouraging exchanges with Biddle, but in his private correspondence to his associates, Jackson repeatedly referred to the institution as "a hydra of corruption", "dangerous to our liberties" and its "demoralizing effects upon our citizenry."[82]

Annual Address to Congress, December 1830

While pro-administration newspapers hardened their stance towards the Bank throughout 1830, official White House policy remained conflicted and perplexing.[83] Jackson, however, had determined to oppose the rechartering of the Bank on constitutional grounds.[84] At his Annual Address to Congress on December 7, 1830, he launched his second public condemnation of the BUS,[85] expanding his criticisms and proposing a substitute to the central bank.[86] The reformed bank would be wholly public, with no private stockholders, nor would it engage in lending or land purchasing,[87] and retaining only its role in processing custom duty fees for the US Treasury.[88] The address reanimated the issue of recharter signaling the pro-BUS forces that the re-authorization of the Bank was at risk, and a counter-campaign would be required to deflect Jackson’s criticisms.[89][90]

In February, 1831, while National Republicans were formulating a recharter strategy, US Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, launched an attack against the legitimacy of the Bank on the floor of the Senate, demanding an open debate on the recharter issue.[91] Though Benton's assault was deflected by pro-Bank legislators, the Bank’s performance was now a matter of public – and politicized – scrutiny.[92]

The Failure of Compromise and "War"

The Post-Eaton Cabinet and Compromise Efforts

Two developments in 1831 diverted Jacksonian Democrats temporarily from pursuing the Bank’s dismantling: the Nullification Crisis and the Peggy Eaton Affair.[93] These struggles led to the resignation of Vice-President Calhoun[94][95] and to a new official cabinet – a cabinet that Jackson regarded strictly as an advisory body.[96] Jackson’s Kitchen Cabinet, led by Amos Kendall and Francis Blair, crafted policy.[97] Jackson included two Bank-friendly executives into his official cabinet: Edward Livingston of Louisiana (Secretary of State) and Louis McLane of Delaware (Secretary of the Treasury).[98][99] Their presence created the appearance of balance and open-mindedness - the rest of the official cabinet members were anti-Bank.[100] - leading to an attempt at compromise.[101]

McLane, a confidant of Nicholas Biddle,[102] impressed Jackson as a forthright and principled moderate on Bank policy.[103] The Treasury Secretary's goal was to see to it that the BUS survived Jackson’s presidency, even in a diminished condition.[104] To this end, he proposed a reform package to Jackson in which the federal government would sell off its stock in the Bank, offer up public lands for state purchase, adjust the tariff, and ultimately pay down the national debt before the end of Jackson’s second term in March 1837. With this accomplished, the administration would permit re-authorization of the central bank in 1836. The perpetuation of the Bank would be secured.[105]

Secretary of the Treasury Louis McLane

These reforms required a rapprochement between Jackson and Biddle on the matter of recharter, with McLane and Livingston acting as liaisons.[106] The president insisted that no bill arise in Congress for recharter in the lead up to his reelection campaign in 1832. He viewed the issue as a political liability – recharter would easily pass both Houses with simple majorities[107] - and as such, would confront him with the dilemma of "approving or disapproving" the legislation. A delay would obviate these risks.[108] Jackson, however, remained convinced of the Bank's unconstitutionality.[109]

McLane formulated a tentative understanding that included a deferment of the issue, while indicating a willingness to support renewal. Near the end of 1831, a compromise was reached in which Jackson would accommodate recharter as long as modifications were made that produced a "National" institution, and pledging Biddle to refrain from petitioning Congress for renewal until after the general election of 1832.[110]

Annual Address to Congress, December 1831

In a key caveat, the Secretary of the Treasury convinced the chief executive to avoid commenting on recharter in the upcoming Annual Address to Congress in December. McLane feared that remarks by the president could trigger an immediate recharter drive, and undermine his carefully crafted reform plan.[111] To this, Jackson conceded.[112] McLane would then present his proposals for reform and delay of recharter at the Annual Treasury Secretaries report to Congress shortly thereafter.[113][114]

In the original composite draft of the president’s address, Jackson explicitly deferred to Congress on the matter of the national bank – McLane had written the passage under Jackson’s auspices.[115][116] Roger B. Taney, Attorney General, another of the cabinet's new appointees, objected strenuously to the wording, interpreting it as an acknowledgement of - and capitulation to - Congressional authority, and entirely contrary to anti-Bank doctrine.[117]

Despite McLane's attempts to gain re charter of the Bank by a series of reforms,[118] Taney was confident that ultimately Jackson would never relinquish his desire to destroy the central bank.[119] Jackson subsequently edited the language in the final draft after considering Taney’s objections – without consulting McLane. In his December 6 address, Jackson was non-confrontational, but his message was less unequivocal in its support for recharter and amounted to merely a reprieve on the Bank’s fate.[120]

The following day, Secretary McLane delivered his report to Congress, in which he praised the Bank’s performance, including its regulatory functions regarding private banks[121] and explicitly called for a post-1832 rechartering of a reconfigured government bank.[122]

The enemies of the Bank were shocked and outraged by both speeches.[123][124] The Jacksonian press, disappointed by the president’s subdued and conciliatory tone towards the Bank[125] launched fresh and provocative assaults on the institution.[126] McLane’s speech, despite its call for radical modifications and delay in recharter[127] was widely condemned as "Hamiltonian" in character and an assault on democratic principles.[128] The Washington D.C. Globe, Jackson’s pro-administration weekly under Francis Blair, refrained from openly attacking Secretary McLane, but in lieu of this, carried hostile essays from anti-Bank periodicals.[129][130]

The National Republican Party Offensive

Senator Henry Clay

The Jacksonian anti-Bank backlash instantly provoked a political movement in their opposition, the National Republicans.[131] Within days of the speech, the party (which later became part of the Whig Party)[132] gathered in convention and on December 16, 1831 and nominated Senator Henry Clay for US president - one of Jackson opponents in the 1824 general election. Their campaign strategy was to defeat Jackson in 1832 on the Bank re-authorization issue.[133] To that end, Clay engineered the introduction of recharter bills in both the House and Senate.[134] Clay rejected any modifications to the bills that would make them more palatable to Jackson, seeking to provoke a veto; a veto Clay hoped would damage Jackson and lead to his defeat.[135]

Henry Clay and Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts warned Americans that if Jackson won reelection, he would abolish the Bank.[136] They felt secure that the central bank was sufficiently popular among voters that an attack on the Bank by Jackson would be viewed as an abuse of his executive power.[137] The National Republican leadership aligned themselves with the Bank because it offered what appeared to be a perfect platform to defeat Jackson – and less so because they were champions of the BUS.[138]

Administration figures, among them Biddle and McLane, were extremely wary of making ultimatums that would provoke anti-Bank Jacksonians[139] Nicholas Biddle no longer believed that Jackson would pursue reform and compromise on the Bank, but his informants close to the administration convinced him that Jackson would not veto re-authorization measures.[140] Under pressure from Clay and Webster, Biddle reluctantly decided to risk actively supporting the early recharter campaign.[141] On January 9, 1832, bills for Bank recharter were introduced in both Houses of Congress.[142]

The Jacksonian Counter-Offensive

The alliance between the central bank’s president, Nicholas Biddle, and Jackson’s political nemesis, Henry Clay, triggered a counter-offensive by Jackson’s anti-BUS forces.[143][144] Jackson assembled an array of talented and capable men:[145] Thomas Hart Benton in the Senate, James K. Polk, member of the House of Representatives from Tennessee, Francis Preston Blair of the Washington Globe, and Amos Kendall and Attorney General Roger B. Taney in his cabinets.[146] As the debates opened, the House Jacksonians called for investigations of the BUS on charges of misconduct and alleged violations of its charter, as an effort to put pro-Bank forces on the defensive.[147]

These Jacksonian delaying tactics could not safely be blocked by legislators – many of them had benefited from the largesse supplied by BUS administrators.[148][149] Attempts to obstruct the inquiry would raise suspicions among the public.[150] A special House Committee was selected by pro-Jackson speaker James Polk; it produced a report that included innuendo and unproven allegations that served to bolster Jackson’s criticisms of the Bank.[151]

The months of delay in reaching a vote on the recharter measure – a measure that would have passed easily had not anti-Bank forces mobilized[152] - served ultimately to clarify and intensify the issue for the American people.[153] Jackson’s supporters benefited in sustaining these attacks on the Bank[154] even as Benton and Polk warned Jackson that the struggle was "a losing fight" and that the recharter bill would certainly pass.[155]

Biddle arrived in Washington DC to personally conduct the defense of the Bank.[156][157] He coordinated pro-BUS campaigns, in concert with branch Bank managers, to elicit citizen group petitions drives, sent to Congress to encourage recharter.[158] Congressmen were pressured to write pro-Bank articles, which Biddle printed and distributed nationally.[159] Francis Blair at the Globe reported these intrusions by the BUS president in the legislative process as evidence of the Bank’s corrupting influence on free government.[160] Pro-recharter National Republicans finally prevailed after months of debate and strife, winning reauthorization in the Senate on June 11, 1832 (28-20) and in the House on July 3, 1832 (107-85).[161]

The Bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I shall kill it.
— President Andrew Jackson, to his former Secretary of State, July 4, 1832[162][163]

Veto

Jackson vetoed the legislation on July 10, 1832,[164] delivering a carefully crafted message to Congress - and the American people.[165] One of the most "popular and effective documents in American political history",[166] Jackson outlined a major readjustment to the relative powers of the government branches.[167]

The executive branch, Jackson averred, when acting in the interests of the American people;[168] was not bound to defer to the decisions of the Supreme Court, nor to comply with legislation passed by Congress.[169] Further, executive power was no longer limited to suppressing clear violations of the Constitution – it could be asserted on social, political or economic grounds.[170] Jackson characterized the BUS as merely an agent of the executive branch, acting through the Department of the Treasury. As such, declared Jackson, Congress was obligated to consult the chief executive before initiating legislation affecting the Bank. Jackson had claimed, in essence, legislative power as president.[171] Ignoring the Second Bank of the United States’ value in stabilizing the country’s finances,[172] Jackson's message provided no concrete proposals for an alternate institution that would regulate currency and prevent over-speculation – the primary purposes of the BUS.[173]

Polemically, the veto message was "a brilliant political manifesto"[174] that called for the end of monied power in the financial sector and a leveling of opportunity under the protection of the executive branch.[175] Jackson perfected his anti-Bank themes, pitting the idealized "plain republican" and the "real people" – virtuous, industrious and free[176] - against a powerful financial institution – the "monster" Bank[177] whose wealth was purportedly derived from privileges bestowed by corrupt political and business elites.[178][179] To those who believed that power and wealth should be linked, the message was unsettling. Daniel Webster charged Jackson with promoting class warfare.[180]

Senator Daniel Webster

In presenting his economic program[181] Jackson was compelled to obscure the fundamental incompatibility of the hard-money and easy credit wings of his party.[182] On one side were Old Republican idealists who took a principled stand against all paper credit in favor of metallic money.[183] Yet the bulk of Jackson’s supporters came from easy lending regions that welcomed banks and finance, as long as local control prevailed.[184] By diverting both groups in a campaign against the central bank in Philadelphia[185] Jackson cloaked his own hard-money predilections, which, if adopted, would be as fatal to the inflation favoring Jacksonians as the BUS was purported to be.[186]

Too late, Clay "realized the impasse into which he had maneuvered himself, and made every effort to override the veto."[187] The pro-Bank interests failed to muster a supermajority - achieving only a simple majority of 22-19 in the Senate[188] and on July 13, 1832, the veto was sustained.[189]

Post-veto presidential race of 1832

With just four months remaining until the November general election, both parties launched massive political offensives with the Bank at the center of the fight.[190][191] Jacksonians skillfully reduced the issue to a choice between Jackson and "the People" versus Biddle and "the Aristocracy",[192][193] while muting their criticisms of banking and credit in general.[194] "Hickory Clubs" organized mass rallies, while the pro-Jackson press "virtually wrapped the country in anti-Bank propaganda".[195] This, despite the fact that two-thirds of the major newspapers supported Bank recharter.[196] The National Republican press countered by characterizing the veto message as despotic and Jackson as a tyrant.[197] Presidential hopeful Henry Clay vowed "to veto Jackson" at the polls.[198][199] Overall, the pro-Bank analysis tended to soberly enumerate Jackson's failures, lacking the vigor of the Democratic Party press.[200] Biddle mounted an expensive drive to influence the election, providing Jackson with copious evidence to characterize Biddle as an enemy of republican government and American liberty.[201]

Jackson soundly outpolled Clay and National Republicans in both the electoral count and popular vote, easily winning reelection.[202][203]

Jackson's dismantling of the BUS

Jackson regarded his victory as a popular mandate[204] to eliminate the BUS before its 20-year term ended in 1836.[205][206] During the final phase of the 1832 election campaign, Kendall and Blair had convinced Jackson that the transfer of the federal deposits – 20% of the Bank's capital – into private banks friendly to the administration would be prudent.[207] Their rationale was that Biddle had used the Bank's resources to support Jackson's political opponents in the 1824 and 1828 elections, and additionally, that Biddle might induce a financial crisis in retaliation for Jackson's veto and reelection.[208] The president declared the Bank "Scotched, not dead".[209][210]

Annual Address to Congress, December 1832

Jackson aired his doubts to Congress whether the BUS was a safe depository for "the people's money" and called for an investigation.[211][212] In response, the Democratic-controlled House conducted an inquiry, submitting a divided committee report (4-3) that declared the deposits perfectly safe.[213] The committee’s minority faction, under Jacksonian James K. Polk, issued a scathing dissent, but the House approved the majority findings in March 1833, 109-46.[214] Jackson, incensed at this "cool" dismissal, decided to proceed with his Kitchen Cabinet to remove the BUS funds by executive action alone.[215]

Search for a Treasury Secretary

As Kendall and Taney began to seek cooperative private banks who would receive the government deposits, Jackson sought to prepare his official cabinet for the coming removal of the Bank's capital.[216] Vice-President Martin Van Buren tacitly approved the maneuver, but declined to publicly identify himself with the operation, for fear of compromising his anticipated presidential run in 1836.[217] Treasury Secretary McLane balked at the removal, saying that tampering with the funds would cause "an economic catastrophe", and reminded Jackson that Congress had declared the deposits secure.[218] Jackson subsequently shifted both pro-Bank cabinet members to other posts: McLane to Department of State, and Livingston to Europe, as US Minister to France.[219] The president replaced McLane with William J. Duane, a reliable opponent of the Bank from Pennsylvania, on June 1, 1833, when Jackson and his Kitchen Cabinet were well-advanced in their scheme to remove the deposits.[220][221]

Under the Bank charter terms of 1816, the US Secretary of the Treasury was empowered, with Congress, to make all decisions regarding the federal deposits.[222] On his first day at his post, Secretary Duane was informed by a Jackson associate that Duane would be expected to defer to the US President on the matter of the deposits.[223] Duane demurred, and when Jackson personally intervened to explain his political mandate[224] to ensure the Bank’s demise[225] his Treasury Secretary informed him that Congress should be consulted to determine the Bank's fate.[226] After weeks of clashing with Duane over these prerogatives,[227] Jackson – wishing to act before Congress reconvened in December – publicly announced his intention to summarily remove the deposits.[228] Secretary Duane, refusing to resign, and under attack by Blair's Globe[229] was dismissed by Jackson days later, on September 22, 1833[230]

Attorney General Taney was immediately designated Secretary of the Treasury[231] in order to authorize the transfers, and on October 1, 1833, the United States officially switched "from National banking to deposit banking".[232]

"War" revived

Pro-Bank forces reacted even more strongly to the executive action than they had to Jackson's vetoing of the recharter bill.[233] The president discerned that Congress might find the votes to reverse his orders with a two-thirds majority.[234]

In the process of distributing federal funds to the private "pet banks", Secretary Taney attempted to move tactfully, so as not to provoke retaliation by the BUS, nor eviscerate the central bank's regulatory influence too suddenly. Ineptly, Taney permitted the pet banks to draw prematurely on BUS reserves for speculative ventures, and Biddle reacted with a punitive credit contraction. Despite initiating a widespread financial crisis – threatening to reach 1819 levels – the BUS pursued this tight credit policy to coerce Congress to resume the fight for the central bank’s rechartering.[235] Objections arose within the Democratic Party as to the wisdom and legality of Jackson's move to terminate the Bank through executive means before its 1836 expiration.[236][237]

Annual Address to Congress December 1833

This cartoon, "King Andrew the First", depicted him as a tyrannical king, trampling on the Constitution.

The Bank War continued to rage when Congress reconvened on December 3, 1833,[238] with removal of the federal deposits already an accomplished fact.[239] President Jackson in his address and Secretary Taney in his report, both exhorted Congress to uphold the removals, pointing to Biddle's economic warfare as evidence that the central bank was unfit for public funds.[240]

The Houses divided over Jackson's Bank policies. The House of Representative, now under pro-Jackson Democratic control, passed resolutions in favor of the removal,[241] explicitly stating that the Bank "ought not to be rechartered".[242]

The Senate's response, dominated by Whigs, was an assault on Andrew Jackson as an executive, rather than on Bank recharter or the federal deposits.[243] Henry Clay, spearheading the attack, described Jackson as a "backwoods Caesar" and his administration a "military dictatorship".[244]

Jackson was officially censured for violating the US Constitution.[245] The opposing parties accused one another of lacking credentials to represent the people: Jacksonian Democrats pointing to the fact that Senators were beholden to the state legislatures that selected them; the Whigs pointing out that the chief executive had been chosen by electors, and not by popular vote.[246]

Demise of the Bank of the United States

Censure was the "last hurrah" of the Pro-Bank defenders and soon a reaction set in. Business leaders in American financial centers became convinced that Biddle's war on Jackson was more destructive than Jackson's war on the Bank.[247] Biddle finally resumed his pre-contraction policies and by the close of 1834,[248] all recharter efforts were abandoned as a "lost cause".[249] In February 1836, the Bank became a private corporation under Pennsylvania commonwealth law.[250] In 1839, it suspended payment and was liquidated in 1841.[251]

Notes

  1. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 323, p. 344
  2. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 57: "One certain accomplishment of Jackson’s war on the Bank of the United States was to discharge the aggressions of citizens who felt injured by economic privilege" whether derived from banks or not.
  3. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p.75: "Jackson raised principled and considered objections to the Bank as an unconstitutional aberration and an affront to popular sovereignty [and that] the Bank’s charter concentrated extraordinary power in the hands of a small coterie of unelected private bankers…"
  4. ↑ McPherson, 2007, p. 7: "In the antebellum [pre-Civil War] South, the purpose of asserting state sovereignty was to protect slavery from the potential hostility of a national majority against Southern interests – mainly slavery." McPherson quotes Old Republican Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina in the "1820s": ‘If Congress can make banks, roads and canals under the Constitution, they can free any slave in the United States."
    Dangerfield, 1966, p. 98: Senator John Taylor of Virginia (1820): "…if Congress can incorporate a bank, it might emancipate a slave."
  5. ↑ Gienapp, 1996. p. 82: “Fundamental to the growing crisis between the North and the South was the rise of the slavery issue in American society.” And p. 83: “[T]he leaders of the second party system consciously tried to suppress the slavery issue and isolate it from partisan divisions. And “A decade of agitation by the abolitionists and the proslavery partisans in the South failed to make slavery a vital, pressing concern in national politics.”
    Varon, 2008. p. 94: “Jackson successfully walked a fine line during the nullification crisis: his anti-nullification rhetoric was so unabashedly nationalistic that it pleased the likes of [Daniel] Webster, but his war against the ‘Monster Bank’ rhetoric persuaded Southern voters that the president remained committed to states’ rights. In July 1832, at the very moment the tariff was being adjusted downward, Jackson vetoed legislation that would have rechartered the Second Bank of the United States […] While the average American did not understand the intricacies of national finance, Jacksonian antibank propaganda resonated in the South among voters who were eager to guard against the legacy of Jeffersonian agrarianism against [Henry] Clay and the ‘moneyed interest’”. P. 106: “[Martin] Van Buren, who had risen to political influence in his home state [of New York] in no same part because of alliances he formed with Virginians in the Monroe administration, was committed to maintaining the Democratic Party’s standing as a bastion of Southern political dominance. Van Buren was well aware, as other leading free-state Democrats were, that Northerners were the ‘subservient wing’ of the party and that they had to cater to Southern demands if they wanted to stay in power. Southerners held the majority of top government posts under Jackson and had disproportionate control over patronage appointments.”
  6. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 60: "…by the summer of 1832…Biddle, reluctantly, uncertainly, and under the prodding from Whig politicians…" decided to ask Congress for early recharter.
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 85: "Biddle would have much preferred to keep the Bank out of politics altogether"
    Hammond, 1957, p. 385: "It was not Biddle's idea, but he did fall in with [early recharter demands]...because he had found the [compromise] with Jackson would not [succeed]"
    Remini, 1981, p. 343
  7. ↑ Meyers, 1967, p.212: "As a national political phenomenon, Jacksonian Democracy drew heavily on the Bank War for its strength and its distinctive character."
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 369- 370: The veto message "a powerful elucidation of Jackson’s political and social philosophy…crafted for wide circulation to reach over the heads of Congress, build public support, and unite the disparate Jacksonian factions opposed to the BUS."
  8. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 57: The Bank was viewed by Jacksonian Democrats as an assault upon "the planters, the farmers, the mechanic and the laborer" by the "monied interest"
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 370
  9. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 368
    Remini, 1981, p. 342
  10. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 105: Whigs "were galvanized…by their views of one man, Andrew Jackson."
    Hammond, 1947, p. 160-161: "The hostility of Jackson to the [BUS] was in the first instance a matter of principle, the bank belonging to a monetary system and to a theory of federal powers which he disapproved; but later he and his followers could allege also that the Bank was rotten and Biddle dishonest. That allegation was, in fact, emphasized more than the original principle."
    Remini, 1981, p. 376-377
  11. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 79-80: "The essential incompatibility between cheap money [credit] and hard money [coin] could be somewhat concealed in the clamor of the [anti-bank] crusade" and Jackson would enlist the "Eastern [hard money]" and "Western [paper money]" wings of the Democrats, "two basically antagonistic groups" to launch the Bank War. And p. 80: "The [Jackson] administration took care not to offend its cheap money adherents" by revealing their pro-hard ideology publicly.
    Hammond, 1947, p. 152: "Hard money was a cardinal tenet of the left [anti-bank] wing of the Democratic party…its aim was to clip the wings of the commerce and finance by restricting the credit that paper money enabled them to obtain…" and "There was also a pro-bank ‘paper-money wing’ which harbored the Democratic party’s…businessmen, promoters and speculators…[who felt] it had more to gain and less to lse from the states than from the federal government. This led it to take on the coloration and vocabulary of Jacksonian democracy and to exalt the rugged individualism of the entrepreneur and speculator along with that of the pioneer."
  12. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 389: "Jackson won the presidency by an overwhelming popular and electoral count."
    Hammond, 1947, p. 155
    Hofstadter, 1947, p. 61: Jackson was "reelected overwhelmingly on the bank issue…"
  13. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 62
  14. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 402
  15. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 396-397
  16. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p,399-400: "The censure was the last hurrah of the Pro-Bank defenders in the Bank War – soon thereafter a reaction set in. business leaders in the American financial centers were convinced that Biddle’s war on Jackson was more destructive than Jackson’s war on the Bank."
  17. ↑ Hofstadter, 1947, p. 61-62: In retaliation to get the deposits returned, Biddle "brought about a short-lived but severe depression through restriction of credit, which only ended when the business community itself rebelled."
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 111: Former Biddle supporters discerned that the "[Bank’s] contraction was not necessary to the safety of the Bank and that [Biddle’s] whole object was to extort a charter from the government."
  18. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 401
  19. ↑ Hammond, 1947, p. 157: "…in fall 1839, the bank suspended payment of its obligations" [and] "In 1841…its was assigned to trustees for liquidation.
  20. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 203: Madison and Gallatin supported the BUS revival citing "expediency" and "necessity", not principle.
  21. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 203: Failed by exactly "one vote" in both House and Senate.
  22. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 203-204: Wilentz lists three opposition forces: Old Republicans, state (private) banks and big merchants.
    Van Deusen, 1959, p. 64: Van Deusen lists enemies of the BUS as "state banks…hard-money men…workingmen, because they were frequently paid in state [issued] banknotes of fluctuating value…[and the] President of the United States."
  23. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 27: The First BUS "was allowed to expire in 1811 as a result of the concerted action of the state banks..."
  24. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 181: "The war’s immense strain…" had promoted this economic nationalism, though most "enterprises" in industry was "tied politically to [Jeffersonian] Republicans."
  25. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 27
  26. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 46: "In Jackson’s era America was moving from a way of life based on farms to one fundamentally linked to a larger industrialized economy."
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 18: The revival of the Bank of the United States indicated a "breakdown" of the Jeffersonian "idyl".
    Hammond, 1956, p. 10: "During Andrew Jackson’s lifetime three things had begun to alter prodigiously the economic life of America. These were steam [power], [financial] credit, and natural resources."
  27. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 35: Jackson’s "defeat of the Creeks opened up millions of acres of land for white settlement…"
  28. ↑ Hammond, 1956, p. 10: The industrial revolution "was now turning Anglo-Saxon America from modest agrarian interests…to the dazzling possibilities of industrial exploitation…transform[ing] from one that was Jeffersonian and agrarian to one that was financial and industrial."
  29. ↑ Goodrich, 1948, p. 61: Jefferson’s Secretary of State Gallatin called for a national "system of [internal] improvement" and Representative Calhoun promoted a national bank, "chartering of the Second Bank of the United States seemed to provide a special opportunity for action."
  30. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 205: "[Y]oung national Republicans of the South and West [were joined by] an eastern monied group that strongly advocated the creation of a stable ad efficient national system of money and credit. Their idea was to Republicanize Hamiltonian bank policy…"
  31. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 204
  32. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 205
  33. ↑ Dangerfield, 1965 p. 7
  34. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 28: "The economic collapse following the Panic of 1819…provoked a howl of protest from the American people…[and] a demand limited government."
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 42: "…Jackson’s presidential effort caught fire with the disaffected around the country. The disaffection had been building for years…[T]he Panic of 1819 and ensuing depression had worsened the political mood, directing popular anger at banks, especially the [BUS]."
  35. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 42: "Growing antislavery opinion in the North had sparked a crisis in 1819 over admission of Missouri to the Union as a slave state [and] raised the specter of national of national disunion."
  36. ↑ Brown, 1966, p. 30-31: "When finally it rode to power, the Jacksonian party was made up of two clearly discernible wings. One comprised the Jacksonians [from the election of 1824]", the other "the Old Republicans…of the South Atlantic states and New York [state]…"
  37. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 101: "Best of all, Jackson’s own principles of government – commitment to debt reduction, minimum government and states’ rights – accorded precisely with those of the [Old Republicans]."
  38. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 302: "Reform…[a return] to Jeffersonian first principles and halting the neo-Federalists revival supposedly being sponsored under the cover of the American System."
    Wilentz, 2005, p.35: "Jackson and Reform" (Chapter Two, title)
  39. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 302-303: Jackson and his advisors "built sophisticated campaign apparatus unlike any previously organized in a presidential election."
  40. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 100: "…according to Jacksonians…the principles of republicanism…ahd been overthrown by the election of John Quincy Adams."
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 307
  41. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 35, p. 48
  42. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 53: "Jackson’s victory marked the culmination of the political unrest that had been building since 1815. [Jacksonians]…had capitalized on the long-term fears and resentments originating in the Panic of 1819, and the Missouri crisis, ad had built a popular base that combined the urban workingman and small farmers of the North with the yeoman farmers of much of the slaveholding planter class of the South."
    Remini, 1981, p. 115, Hofstadter, 1948, p. 14-15
  43. ↑ Brown, 1966, p. 22-23: "Jefferson had found a formula [the North-South political alliance] for national politics which was at the same time a formula for Southern preeminence [which] converted a Southern minority into a national majority through alliance with congenial [Northern] interests outside the South…entirely oblivious of the Mason-Dixon line…The resurrection of the [Old Republican faction] would be the important story in America politic in the decades that followed."
    Dangerfield, 1965, p. 103: the Republican Ascendency [the North-South alliance] was the "apparatus through which the congressional southern delegations [would] maintain its accustomed control over the machinery of the federal government."
    Remini, 1981, p. 101: "The Radicals were the [Old] Republicans most conscious of the departure of the party form the ‘doctrine of 98’…and restore the purity of the Republican creed…"
  44. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 124-125: "Respect for the [Missouri] Compromise was essential…to build a pro-Jackson coalition of the ‘planter of the South and the plain Republicans of the North’ in the 1828 election."
  45. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 11-12: "Jackson believed that the American government was designed to undo artificial inequality [among white males]."
  46. ↑ Brown, 1966, p. 31
  47. ↑ Brown, 1966, p. 31-32: "Because the [Jackson] administration rested on the Old Republican alliance…Jackson’s policy [would require] the veto of the bill to recharter the Bank of the United States."
  48. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 54: Jackson’s reelection [in 1828] was not "a mandate for economic reform; no financial changes, no crusades against the national bank…[Jackson] was elected without a platform."
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 361
  49. ↑ Wilentz, 1948, p. 361
  50. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 74
  51. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 229
  52. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 370: Jackson did not enter the White House determined to "exterminate" the federal bank, though opposed "all banks" on principle.
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 302 p. 361-362: "On strict Jeffersonian grounds, Jackson believed the [BUS] was constitutionally invalid…even when well-administered, the Bank was an enormity."
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 78: "In the early months of his presidency, Jackson appears to have wanted to replace the Bank with an institution for government deposit only, without any lending or other commercial functions."
  53. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 369-370: The Jacksonians attempted to "capture the Bank for the [Democratic] Party" in January 1829, so as to appoint administration-friendly BUS directors – Biddle insisted on appointments by "merit" only
  54. ↑ Meyers, 1953, p. 212: "Within the matrix of the Bank War…is discovered the general principles of Jacksonian Democracy…a basic moral posture…"
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 361-362
  55. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 370: At first, Jackson and his cabinet refrained from attacking the Bank, yet "may have looked forward to preventing a renewal of the federal [BUS] charter…" if Jackson won a second term.
    Hofstadter, 1948, p. 59
  56. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 74:"…following the Panic of 1819, the Bank had recovered its reputation as a responsible financial institution thanks to the expert management of its president, Nicholas Biddle."
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 76-77: "…Biddle transformed the Bank…into something more closely resembling a modern central bank." and p. 75: The BUS "was a privately owned institution with enormous public authority, of a kind unimaginable today."
  57. ↑ Van Deusen, 1959, p. 62: "As the Bank prospered, it proved itself to be a valuable institution."
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 77: "[D]uring the eighteen-twenties, even the [BUS] to a considerable degree overcame the Western prejudices…against it."
    Hammond, 1956, p. 101: "Western and rural dislike of the Bank persisted though by 1829, it had less to feed on than formerly [and] in the absence of new offenses, disfavor had palpably subsided by the time Jackson became President."
  58. ↑ Hammond, 1957 p. 371
  59. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 371
  60. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 59
  61. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 370
  62. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 370-371: Martin Van Buren approached Jackson in 1829, suggesting the BUS be dismantled "as at present constituted" without proposing a replacement for its fiscal functions… [the] benefits to New York" were not mentioned, implicit. Meetings in Richmond, Virginia among Jacksonians in October 1829 led to measures "to commit the [Democratic] party to attack the Bank…" "Care and caution" would be required to "end the Bank" as "popular hatred of the [institution] had subsided during the past "five years."
  63. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 63: "…Jacksonians were caught between their hostility to the bank and their unwillingness to support it with adequate federal control of credit."
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 78: Jackson’s finance advisors "cautioned him against acting too drastically, pointing out the need to find some alternative to the Bank that would restrain speculation and stabilized the currency. Jackson heeded the warnings."
  64. ↑ Brown, 1966, p. 33: "…Jacksonian policy [to oppose] recharter of the Bank of the United States…whatever its social and economic consequences…were designed to solidify and hold together the Old Republican party…"
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 115
  65. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 370-371
  66. ↑ Wellman, 1966, p. 125: "Quietly, Nicholas Biddle had benn working to neutralize the presidents opposition to the [BUS]... and had "laced [pro-]Jackson men on the boards [of directors] of the other twenty-five branches, from one end of the country to another...[to] induce them to intervene [through] self-interest" on behalf of the Bank, and urge Jackson to do the same.
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 85
    Hofstadter, 1948, p. 59
  67. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 372-373
  68. ↑ Hammond, p. 372-373
  69. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 119
  70. ↑ Wellman, 1966, p. 92: "...explosive..."
  71. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 229: After announcing a list of reforms "he dropped a bombshell."
  72. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 374: a "preposterous" assertion by Jackson.
    Remini, 1981, p. 229
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 74: In "his first annual message in December [1829], [Jackson] cast doubt on the Bank charters’ constitutionality and suggested that Biddle had failed to provide the country with a sound currency."
  73. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 229: "On the contrary it had developed into a powerful central banking institution in full control of credit and currency facilities of the nation and adding to their strength and soundness."
    Hammond, 1947, p. 151-152: "[Jackson’s] statement that the bank had failed in establishing a good currency is difficult to understand, for it was plainly untrue…"
    Hofstadter, 1948, p. 62: Biddle’s management of the BUS "from 1823 to 1833… had followed a policy of gradual, controlled credit expansion…well-adapted to the needs of the growing American economy."
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 76: "Under Biddle, appointed in 1823, the Bank was vigilant about issuance of [its banknotes], holding species reserves of one-half the value of its issuance notes at a time when [state] banks held, on average, only between one-tenth to one-quarter of their note values in species."
  74. ↑ Hofstader, 1948, p. 57-58
  75. ↑ Hammond, 1947, p. 151-152
  76. ↑ Hammond, 1947, p. 152-153: "The private banks…had helped to kill the first [BUS]"…but by 1929 "the strength they could muster against the second [BUS] was much greater…and [they] did more for Jackson’s victory over the national bank than did" his hard-money advocates. "These banks were associated to a marked extent with [Jackson’s] Democratic Party, especially in New York."
    Hammond, 1956, p. 100: "…it was in the eastern business centers, Boston, New York, Baltimore and Charleston that resentments against Philadelphia and the federal bank was strongest."
  77. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 377-378: Congress supplied "clear evidence" that the Bank had provided a banknote currency "more uniform" than metallic money [specie]."
  78. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 368
  79. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 378: "...evidences of official policy [on the Bank] were conflicting and perplexing..." and p. 380: "[Jackson] privately breathed animosity for the hydra of corruption [while] Biddle was let to thing by the General's friends that all was well."
  80. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 378: Despite these developments the official cabinet [parlor cabinet] "opposed an attack on the Bank."
  81. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 378: "...Br Biddle was himself renominated government director [to the BUS] by the President [Jackson]."
  82. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 380
  83. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 378, Schlesinger, 1945, p. 81, Hammond, 1957, p. 382-383: While administration newspapers were decidedly hostile to the Bank the "[Jacksonian White House] administration [was]…by no means so unfriendly".
  84. ↑ Hammond, 1947, p. 151
  85. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 301-302: "…Jackson concluded his second message [to Congress] like his first. He assaulted the National Bank…"[raising] constitutional objections to the BUS" on issues that "presumably…had been settled long ago when George Washington and James Madison signed separate bills creating the [first] Bank…"
    Hofstadter, 1948, p. 59: "By December of 1830" Jackson had decided to oppose the Bank’s recharter on constitutional grounds.
    Hammond, 1957, p. 381
  86. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 362
  87. ↑ Remini, 2005, p. 302: Jackson suggested a substitute for the Bank, a bank of deposit "but without the power to make loans or purchase property" issuing strictly bills of exchange to support its operation.
    Hammond, 1957, p. 381: In December 1830, Jackson condemns the BUS "somewhat more harshly."
  88. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 381-382
  89. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 304: Jackson’s announcement on the BUS "jolted" Washington D.C. due to its "suddenness" and pro-Bank forces would mount a counterattack.
  90. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 85: Jackson’s December 1830 attack on the Bank induced Biddle to "counteract" with a pro-BUS campaign.
  91. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 81-82: "February 2, 1831" Senator Benton makes his case against the BUS, declaring for "a hard money policy against a paper money policy.
    Remini, 1980, p. 303: Senator Benton provokes open debate on the rechartering of the Bank in 1831.
  92. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 85: Benton "thrusts the [Bank recharter] question vigorously to the fore."
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 363, Remini, 1980, p. 303
  93. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 78: "When the distracting Eaton affair, the split with Calhoun, and the fights over Indian removal and the internal improvements came to the fore, Jackson pushed the Bank issue aside until he could give it his full attention."
    Hammond, 1957, p. 382
  94. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 382: "Mr. Calhoun...had first to be removed from Mr. Van Buren's path to the presidency...the Bank must wait to have its head taken off."
  95. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 362-363
  96. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 326
  97. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 326-327, p. 361
  98. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 336
  99. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 382-383
  100. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 362
  101. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 382-383: "Mrs. Eaton [the Peggy Eaton Affair] produced a membership [in the parlor cabinet] better disposed to the Bank [Livingston and McLane]."
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 79: "The key figure in proposing a truce was Jackson’s new Treasury secretary, Louis McLane."
  102. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 79: "…McLane was also friendly with Nicholas Biddle [and] hammered out a compromise between Biddle and the White House, whereby Jackson would accept the rechartering of a greatly restructured Bank. McLane shrewdly couched the deal as part of a comprehensive reform of the nation’s finances that would…eliminate the national debt, another of Jackson’s chief priorities."
    Meachem, 2008, p. 199
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 81
  103. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 336: McLane, "a friend of Biddle" and Jackson liked McLane’s "frankness".
  104. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 367
  105. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 337-338: McLane wishes to sustain the BUS, the "central feature" of his plan to pay off the national debt; the "scope and audacity" McLane’s proposal "staggered" Andrew Jackson – becomes centerpiece of Jackson’s reform program.
  106. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 362
  107. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 383: "…if [recharter] came up at once [it] would pass Congress, and [Jackson] would be confronted with the choice of approving or disapproving it" and [postponement] would [produce] less jeopardy."
  108. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 383
  109. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 85-86: "Jackson remained obdurate" in his hostility to the BUS.
  110. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p, 383
  111. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 337
  112. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 79: "Jackson consented [to abstain from attacking the Bank’s legitimacy] with the stipulation that the effort to recharter the Bank not begin until after…the presidential election of 1832."
    Remini, 1981, p. 337: Jackson "embraced" McLane's plan.
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 376
  113. ↑ Meachem, 2008, p. 199
  114. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 86
  115. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 86
  116. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 338
  117. ↑ Meachem, 2008, p. 199-200
  118. ↑ Wellman, 1966, p. 126-127: "The showdown had become inevitable...a head on collision of principle..."
  119. ↑ Meachem, 2008, p. 200-201, Schlesinger, 1945, p. 86, Hammond, 1957, p. 384: "…Mr. Taney came to believe that the President had never intended to spare the Bank…"
  120. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 384: "...Biddle had expected [Jackson's criticism to] "to be milder [but] Taney interposed an dgot [Jackson] to reaffirm his dislike of the Bank."
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 79: "Jackson announced his acquiescence [to BUS recharter] handing the matter over to Congress to do as it saw fit."
    Remini, 1981, p. 339-340
  121. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 383-384: McLane "recommends recharter" adding a comment on the danger of state chartered bank lacking BUS regulation.
    Wilentz, 2005, p. 79: "…McLane wrote his annual secretary’s report calling forthrightly (and unwisely) for a rechartering of the Bank" after the fall election.
  122. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 367, Remini, 1981, p. 337, p. 340: McLane "clearly and unequivocally" called for a recharter of the BUS.
  123. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 384
  124. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 367
  125. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 383
  126. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 385
  127. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 337
  128. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 340: Jacksonian anti-Bank forces objected to McLane's "radical monifications" to Treasury policy and "Hamiltonian" language McLane seemed to employ.
    Hammond, 1957, p. 385
  129. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 79: Jackson’s anti-Bank supporters, "Amos Kendall and Globe editor Francis Blair…reprinted hostile reactions to McLane’s report from other newspapers…"
    Remini, 1981, p. 341
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 367
  130. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 79-80: "McLane…worked secretly to arrange Blair’s dismissal as the Globe’s editor. Jackson, who had…appeared willing to stand by his secretary and the compromise with Biddle…got wind of the plot against Blair [and] Jackson’s attachment to McLane faded."
  131. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 341-342
  132. ↑ Hammond, 1957, p. 385
  133. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 368
    Remini, 1981, p. 342-343
    Hammond, 1957, p. 385
  134. ↑ Remini, p. 343
  135. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 127, Wilentz, 2008, p. 368
  136. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 342-343
  137. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 368,
  138. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 368, Hammond, 1957, p. 385: Whig leaders demanded immediate recharter "not because they loved [the BUS] so much but because they believed [Jackson] would be fatally embarrassed if he were confronted with a new charter before election and had to choose between approval of it and veto."
  139. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 342
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 85
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 368
  140. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 343
  141. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 343, Hofstadter, 1948, p. 60, Wilentz, 2008, p. 368
  142. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 86, Remini, 1981, p. 343
  143. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 368
  144. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 344
  145. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 363
  146. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 362-363
  147. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 362
  148. ↑ Wellman, 1966, p. 93
  149. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 362
  150. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 86: "The Bank forces could hardly refuse this request without raising strange suspicions" among the public.
  151. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 362-363
  152. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 361
  153. ↑ Wellman, 1966, p. 128
  154. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 363
  155. ↑ Wellman, 1966, p. 128
  156. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 364
  157. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 87
  158. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 369: Biddle coordinates "a public pro-BUS campaign and arranged thorough his branch Bank managers."
  159. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 364
  160. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 364
  161. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 365
  162. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 89
  163. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 366
  164. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 369
  165. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 90
  166. ↑ Hammond, 1956, p. 102, Meacham, 2008, 209, Remini, 1980, p. 369
  167. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 367-368
  168. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 211
  169. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 370, Remini, 1980, p. 368, p. 370
  170. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 370
  171. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 368
  172. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 369
  173. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 371, Remini, 1980, p. 369, Hofstadter, 1948, p. 63
  174. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p. 369 - 370
  175. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 57, p. 60
  176. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 100, p. 374, Meyers, 1953, p. 212-213
  177. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 366, p. 376
  178. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 57
  179. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 361-362
  180. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 91-92, Wilentz, 2008, p. 371, Remini, 1981, p. 371
  181. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 116
  182. ↑ Hammond, 1957,Schlesinger, 1945, p. 79-80
  183. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 115
  184. ↑ Hofstadter, 1945, p. 62, p. 77
  185. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 79, p. 91: Jackson's rhetoric left his hard-money policy concealed and united "all enemies of the Bank..."
  186. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 90: The veto message "brilliantly...diverted attention from [this] basic contradiction..."
  187. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 131
  188. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 373
  189. ↑ Wellman, 1966, p. 132
  190. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 373
  191. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 218
  192. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 373
  193. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 374
  194. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 376
  195. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 375
  196. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 92: "Two-thirds of the press...supported the Bank..."
    Wellman, 1966, p. 129: "An estimated two-thirds of the journals sided with the [BUS]."
  197. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 377
  198. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 87
  199. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 372
  200. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 377-378
  201. ↑ Remini, 1981, p. 376
  202. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 61
  203. ↑ Remini, 1980, p. 391
  204. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 267
  205. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 97-98
  206. ↑ Remini, 1985, p. 52
  207. ↑ Wellman, 1966, p. 166
  208. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, pp. 392-393
  209. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 393
  210. ↑ Remini, 1984, p. 52
  211. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 393: "...broached the subject of removing [funds], questioning whether the Bank was still a safe depository of the people's money."
  212. ↑ Remini, 1984, p. 52
  213. ↑ Remini, 1984, p. 54-55
  214. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p, 393: But a Democrat dominated House in March 1833 "emphatically rejected" a bill to do so.
  215. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 257-258
  216. ↑ Remini, 1984, pp. 54-55, Wellman, 1966, pp. 94-95
  217. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p.100, Remini, 1985, pp. 89-90
  218. ↑ Remini, 1984, p. 56
  219. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 257
  220. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 257
  221. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 100
  222. ↑ Remini, 1984, p. 85
  223. ↑ Wilentz, 2005, p, 395, Meacham, 2008, p. 257-258, Remini, 1984, p. 99
  224. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 267
  225. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 394
  226. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 395, Meacham, 2008, p. 258
  227. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p.101, Remini, 1984, p. 95
  228. ↑ Remini, 1984, p. 100
  229. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 266, p. 268
  230. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 395, Remini, 1984, pp. 103-104, Schlesinger, 1945, p. 101
  231. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 395, Meacham, 2008, p. 268
  232. ↑ Remini, 1984, p. 105
  233. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 103
  234. ↑ Remini, 1984, pp. 99-100
  235. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, pp. 396–397
  236. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 397
  237. ↑ Remini, 1984, p. 103
  238. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p.106-107, Meacham, 2008, p. 275
  239. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, pp. 106-107
  240. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p, 398
  241. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 398, Meacham, 2008, p. 278
  242. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 278
  243. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 106, Wilentz, 2008, p. 401
  244. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 277
  245. ↑ Meacham, 2008, p. 279
  246. ↑ Meacham, 2008, pp. 288-289
  247. ↑ Hofstadter, 1948, p. 113
    Wilentz, 2008, p. 399-400
    Schlesinger, 1945, p. 111
  248. ↑ Schlesinger, 1945, p. 113
  249. ↑ Wilentz, 2008, p. 401
  250. ↑ Hammond, 1947, p. 155
  251. ↑ Hammond, 1947, p. 157

References

Cited in footnotes

  • Brown, Richard H. 1966. The Missouri Crisis, Slavery, and the Politics of Jacksonianism. South Atlantic Quarterly. pp. 55–72 in Essays on Jacksonian America, Ed. Frank Otto Gatell. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. New York . 1970.
  • Dangerfield, George. 1965. The Awakening of American Nationalism: 1815-1828. Harper & Row. New York.
  • Gienapp, William E. 1996. The Political System and the Coming of the Civil War in Gabor S. Boritt (editor) Why the Civil War Came. 1996. Oxford University Press. New York.
  • Goodrich, Carter. 1948. The National Planning of Internal Improvements. Political Science Quarterly, LXIII(March 1948), 16-44 in Essays on Jacksonian America, Ed. Frank Otto Gatell. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. New York . 1970.
  • Hammond, Bray. 1947. Jackson, Biddle, and the Bank of the United States. Journal of Economic History, VIII (May 1947), I-23.
  • Hammond, Bray. 1956. Jackson’s Fight with the Money Power. American Heritage, June 1956, Volume VII, Number 4. American Heritage Publishing Company.
  • Hammond, Bray. 1957. Banks and Politics in America, from the Revolution to the Civil War. Princeton, Princeton University Press
  • Hofstadter, Richard. 1948. The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. New York: A. A. Knopf.
  • Meacham, Jon. 2008. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Random House, New York.
  • McPherson, James M. 2007. This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press,ISBN 0 19 531366 6.
  • Meyers, Marvin. 1953. The Jacksonian Persuasion. American Quarterly Vol. 5 No. 1 (Spring, 1953) in Essays on Jacksonian America, Ed. Frank Otto Gatell. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. New York.
  • Remini, Robert V. 1981. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832. Harper & Row, New York.
  • Remini, Robert V. 1984. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1833-1845. Harper & Row, New York.
  • Remini, Robert. V. 1993. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union. W. W. Norton & Company, New York.
  • Schlesinger, Arthur M. 1945. The Age of Jackson. Little, Brown and Company (1953). Boston, Massachusetts.
  • Varon, Elizabeth R. Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8078-3232-5
  • Van Deusen, Glyndon G. 1959. The Jacksonian Era. Harper & Brothers, New York.
  • Wilentz, Sean. 2008. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. W.W. Horton and Company. New York.
  • Wilentz, Sean. 2005. Andrew Jackson (American Presidents Series). Times Books, New York
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