The Middle Period, 1817-1858

7-Western Democracy-The West and the "Money Power" of the East-"States' rights" and the Bank-The Case of Brown and Maryland-Democracy and Socialism-Benton's Attack on the Bank-Benton Repulsed-Jackson

r-Benton's Charge of Illegal Practices-Passage of the Bill for Re-charter-The Veto of the Bank Bill-The Bank and Foreign Powers-The Bank and the West-The B

on an

in hi

l mes

ed in it that the constitutionality and expediency of the law creating the Bank were well questioned by a large portion of the

n's re

e Por

of th

dition of the Bank, and upon documents referred to in that report, recent historians attribute President Jackson's first

to have the United States pension agency, connected with the Portsmouth branch of the United States Bank, removed to Concord, and connected with a little bank there of which Hill had been president, and in which he was still interested. Jackson's Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Ingham, asked Mr. Biddle, the president of the United States Bank, to have Mas

ty bouts with his Cabinet officers, that he resolved upon its destruction. The treatment which Adams and Clay had received at the hands of Jackson and his friends from 1824 onward had led them to feel that Jackson's whole nature was full of personal rancor, and that he could see

kso

osi

rinc

he B

ch is most valuable to the student of American history. There was an opposition in principle to the United States Bank, as well as a personal c

ocial conditions and relations of its population, and its public or constitutional law ought to be based upon its political science. In fact, however, we seldom see s

itical

Const

1

n Demo

est a

ey p

he E

nt, and the party which embraced it became the governing party. But their practice was not made consistent with their theory, and could not be, so long as the social conditions of the country contradicted their theory. It was the settlement of the country west of the Alleghanies which first created social conditions in harmony with their theory. The distinction between master and slave was not permitted to enter the larger portion of it; the distinction between the rich and the poor could not at first exist, or be, for many years, developed; and the distinction between the cultivated and the ignorant was likewise obliged to remain long in abeyance; while the dangers and the hardships of frontier life developed, speedily, a strong sense of self-reliance and self-esteem. General equality and practical self-help were the first social results of the levelling experiences of the camp,

es' r

the

Bank could prevent the officers of the Government from accepting such bills for dues to the Government. The Bank used this power to force the Commonwealth banks to specie payment. It was one of the purposes for which Congress created the Bank. It made the Bank, however, very unpopular with the officers and stockholders o

f the Bank located within their respective jurisdictions. The purpose was to drive

ase o

Mary

nce, but the officers of the government of Ohio forced their way into the branch of the Bank in that State, at Chillicothe, and took one hundred thousand dollars out of the vault, and that too in the face of an injunction issued by the United States Circuit Court. The directors sued th

ment of the Bank by Langdon Cheves, and then by Nicholas Biddle, see

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Soci

operty. The "relief party" secured the legislature and the executive of the Commonwealth. The judiciary, however, stood out against them, and they did not have the necessary two-thirds majority in the legislature to remove the judges. The legislature, however, passed a new judiciary a

e to this movement in Kentucky some influence in the formation of Jackson's ideas in regard to the United States Bank,

n's a

he B

hich earned about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year of interest, all of which went to the stockholders of the Bank and none of it to the Government, while the Government was all the time paying interest on the public debt and taxing th

nt

uls

the Bank to the Government in transporting the Government funds without any specific return therefor, and who knew that it is not good banking

ck

Be

ackson's lieutenant in the Senate. There had been personal feuds between the two men, but they now harmon

roversy between his Secretaries and the Bank's officers, upon which Mr. Adams laid so much stress, probably precipitated matters, but the crisis would have developed under other circumstances had not these existed. The social and political forces at play were bound to bring it about under one issue or another. It may have astonished the politicians and statesmen of

Bank

pe

e that the people generally acquiesced in the decision of the Court pronouncing the Bank law constitutional, and that the majority of the people, at that moment, regarded it as good policy, and believed that the Bank had fairly fulfilled the purpose of its creation. The President was simply assuming that the people thought as he did, as democratic leader

tence of

politic

n into the principle and status of the Bank, and bro

cy, and the management of the Bank, and demonstrating the great political and financial dangers of such a Government bank as the President suggested. The chairman of the committee on Ways

on's

on th

n was for a bank as a branch of the Treasury Department, based on the deposits of the funds of the Government and also on those made by individuals, but having no power to issue notes o

son'

a

while the new Government bank would be able to check the issues of the Commonwealth banks through its power to refuse to take their bills on deposit or for exchange, unless they redeemed them with specie. In a sentence, his doctrine now was that banking must be left as far as possible to Commonwealth law, and that such powers as the general Government had received from the Con

's res

the re

he B

ebruary 2nd, 1831, which provided that the charter of the Bank ought not to be renewed. In his speech supporting the resolution the senator de

ment bank scheme, since it would substitute for the existing Bank an institution which would be divested of the essential features of a bank, th

by Mr. Benton's argument, and refused t

's chal

he con

ce of t

ssue

ign o

he following significant words: "Having thus conscientiously discharged a constitutional duty, I deem it proper, on this occasion, without a more particula

chal

ept

32. His opponents so interpreted him, and they gladly accepted the challenge, for they believed the Bank to be popular with the voters. They thought that the Senators and Representative

, six days after the appearance of the President's message, had been nominated by a national convention at Baltimore as the candidate of the National Republicans for the presidency, was certain that under the issue

nk's p

e-cha

be drawn into real or imagined conflict with "some higher, some more favorite, some more immediate wish or purpose of the American people." Senator Dallas was a Bank Democrat. The more favorite wish to whi

r to a committee composed of Mr. Dallas, Mr. W

's cha

l prac

ed it with illegal practices in issuing drafts which passed as currency. The Senate, however, repelle

e of t

e-cha

ommittee for the re-charter of the Bank for fifteen yea

nquire into the affairs of the Bank, and make report thereof to the House. A majority report was offered by Mr. Clayton severely criticising the Bank, and a minority report by Mr. McDuffie defending the Bank most ably and vigorously, and, if we may judge from the vote o

he "Old Hero" stood his ground and hurled a veto at the bill, which both killed it and co

ve

Bank

Bank

gn po

he said, the Bank would be an internal enemy, more terrible than the army and navy of the external foe. Just how the possession of the certificates of stock by foreigners, whose money, which had been paid for them, was in the United States, and therefore under the control of the United States Government, could endanger the United States in case of a war between the United States and the country or countries to which these foreign stockholders belonged, the President failed to explain. It would seem to the ordinary mind that th

e

the

worth of it was held in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, and that only one hundred and forty thousand and two hundred dollars' worth of it was held in the nine Western Commonwealths; while one million six hundred and forty thousand and forty-eight dollars of the profits of the Bank came from these Western Commonwealths, one million four hundred and sixty-three thousand and forty-one dollars of them from the Northeastern and Middle Commonwealths, and three hundred and fifty-two thousand and five hundred and seven dollars of them f

e

the

ions. Fourteen millions of dollars would thus be presented by the Government to the Bank, which sum the Government must take by taxation from the people. He arrived at these statistics and results by assuming that the Bank stock, after the re-charter and in consequence of it, would be worth about one hundred and fifty dollars for one hundred par, that some other body of stockholders could be found who would pay seventeen millions for the charter, and that the money thus acquired from the supposed stockholders by the Government

ed convincing and sympathetic to the masses. It was something which brought the question home to each one of them, and

uct

po

he B

jected to the unnecessarily large amount of the capital stock, to the right to be given the Bank to locate its own branches, to the power of the Gover

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pend

co-ordinate authorities of the Government." "The Congress, the Executive, and the Court," he said, "must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President, to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to

a plan which might have been enacted by Congress without straining or overstepping its powers, and without infringing the powers of the Commonwealths; and he complained that

Ho

icis

eto m

resid

mea

s will hardly warrant any such conclusions. It is quite clear, from such examination, that the President meant that in the formation of administrative measures by the Congressional committees in charge of the same, the views of the Administration ought to be obtained; that the President is not limited by the Constitution to any class of subjects in the use of his veto power upon proposed legislation; and that when the Congress and the President are legislating they are not obliged to r

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dic

xecu

pend

in the several Commonwealths in voting for the President and Vice-President, at the same time that it required a majority of all the electoral votes to elect. The members of Congress being the only national assembly of persons in the country, and being the chosen political leaders from the different Commonwealths, naturally glided into the habit of constituting themselves, in caucus, the connecting link between the electoral colleges in the several Commonwealths, and thus the Congressional caucus, or caucuses, as the case might be, became the nominating body or bodies to the electoral colleges. If the caucus nominated anybody, it left to the electors the alternative of ratifying the nomination, or of so scattering their votes as to give no person a majority, in which latter case t

n upon every point. It had not then, as it has now, clearly confined itself to questions immediately involving questions of private ri

balance" system, provided in the Constitution; and it called the people into a closer and more immediate relation to the President than they had before o

te been taken, the day before the appearance of the veto, upon the question of the Bank's re-charter, it is altogether probable that an overwhelming majority would have been found in its favor. Against the veto, however, no sufficient majority could be united in C