subsidized transportation network, and a national bank. This system, they argued, would encourage national prosperity. At the same time, it would create a truly
national market economy that would soften sectional divisions. Jacksonian rhetoric about the Money Power and the Old Republic, they argued, was little more than
the demagoguery of unqualified, self-seeking politicians.
The Second
The argument between Jacksonians and their detractors
Bank of the
came to focus on the Second Bank of the United States that
United States
Congress had chartered in 1816. The national government
deposited its revenue in the bank, thus giving it an enormous
capital base. The government deposits also included state banknotes that had been used to pay customs duties or to buy public land; the Bank of the United States had the power to demand redemption of these notes in specie (gold and silver), thus
discouraging state banks from issuing inflationary notes that they could not back up. The bank also issued notes of its own, which served as the beginnings of a
national paper currency. Thus with powers granted under its federal charter, the
Bank of the United States exercised central control over the nation’s monetary and credit systems.
Most members of the business community valued the Bank of the United States
because it promised a stable, uniform paper currency and competent, centralized
control over the banking system. But millions of Americans resented and distrusted the national bank, citing its role in the Panic of 1819 as evidence of the dangers posed by privileged, powerful institutions. President Jackson agreed with the latter opinion. A southwestern agrarian who had lost money in an early speculation, he
was leery of paper money, banks, and the credit system. He insisted that both the bank and paper money were unconstitutional and that the only safe, natural,
republican currencies were gold and silver. Above all, Jackson saw the Bank of the United States as a government-sponsored concentration of power that threatened
American liberty.
The Bank War
The charter of the Bank of the United States ran through
1836, but Senators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster encour-
aged Nicholas Biddle, the Bank’s brilliant, aristocratic president, to apply for
recharter in 1832. Clay planned to oppose Jackson in the presidential election later that year, and he knew that Jackson hated the bank. He and his friends hoped to
provoke the hot-tempered Jackson into a response they could use against him in
the election. The Bank applied for recharter in January 1832, and Congress passed the bill in early July and sent it on to the president. Jackson understood the early request for recharter as a political ploy. On July 4, Van Buren visited the White House and found Jackson sick in bed; Jackson took Van Buren’s hand and said,
“The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!” Jackson vetoed the bill.
Jackson’s Bank Veto Message, sent to Congress on July 10, was a manifesto of
Jacksonian Democracy. Written by Amos Kendall, Francis Preston Blair, and Roger B.
Taney—republican fundamentalists who hated the bank and understood the popu-
lar culture that shared their hatred—the message combined Jeffersonian verities
Jacksonian Democracy and the Market Revolution
403
with appeals to the public’s prejudice. Jackson declared that the bank was “unau-
thorized by the Constitution, subversive of the rights of the states, and dangerous to the liberties of the people.” Its charter, Jackson complained, bestowed special privilege on the bank and its stockholders, who were almost all northeastern business-
men or, worse, British investors. Having made most of its loans to southerners and westerners, the bank was a huge monster that sucked resources out of the agrarian South and West and poured them into the pockets of northeastern gentlemen and
their English friends.
The granting of special privilege to such people (or to any others) threatened
the system of equal rights that was essential in a republic. Jackson granted that differences in talents and resources inevitably created social distinctions, but he stood firm against “any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many.” He concluded with a call to the civic virtue and the conservative, God-centered Protestantism in which he and most of his agrarian constituency had been raised: “Let us firmly rely on that kind Providence which I am sure watches with peculiar care over the destinies of our Republic, and on the intelligence and wisdom of our countrymen. Through His abundant goodness and their
patriotic devotion our liberty and Union will be preserved.”
The Bank Veto Message was a long, rambling attack that, in the opinion of
the Bank’s supporters, demonstrated Jackson’s unfitness for office. “It has all the fury of a chained panther biting the bars of its cage,” said Nicholas Biddle. “It really is,” he concluded, “a manifesto of anarchy.” So certain were they that the public shared their views that Clay’s supporters distributed Jackson’s Bank Veto
Message as anti-Jackson propaganda during the 1832 campaign. They were
wrong. Most voters shared Jackson’s attachment to a society of virtuous, inde-
pendent producers and to pristine republican government. They also agreed that
the republic was being subverted by parasites, who grew rich by manipulating
credit, prices, paper money, and government-bestowed privileges. Jackson por-
trayed himself as both the protector of the Old Republic and a melodramatic
hero contending with illegitimate, aristocratic, privileged, secretive powers. With the bank and Jackson’s veto as the principal issues, Jackson won reelection by a
landslide in 1832.
Jackson began his second term determined to kill the Bank of the United States
before Congress could reverse his veto. The bank would be able to operate under its old charter until 1836, but Jackson hurried its death by withdrawing government
deposits as they were needed and by depositing new government revenues in care-
fully selected state banks—soon to be called “Pet Banks” by the opposition. By law, the decision to remove the deposits had to be made by the secretary of the treasury, and Treasury Secretary Louis McLane, along with most of the cabinet, doubted the
wisdom, if not the legality, of withdrawing these funds. Jackson in response transferred McLane to the vacant post of secretary of state and named William J. Duane as treasury secretary. Duane, too, refused to withdraw the deposits. Jackson fired him and appointed Roger B. Taney, the attorney general and a close adviser who
had helped write the Bank Veto Message. A loyal Democrat, Taney withdrew the
deposits. In 1835, when the old Federalist John Marshall died, Jackson rewarded
Taney by making him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a post from which he
continued to serve the Democratic Party.
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