Second Bank of the U.S. & Andrew Jackson

No one gave Jackson a chance initially. The Bank had long ago learned how the political process could be controlled with money.

To the surprise and dismay of the Money Changers, Jackson was swept into office in 1828.

Jackson was determined to kill the Bank at the first opportunity, and wasted no time in trying to do so. But the Bank’s 20 year charter didn’t come up for renewal until 1836, the last year of his second term – if he could survive that long.

During his first term, Jackson contented himself with rooting out the Bank’s many minions from government service. He fired 2,000 of the 11,000 employees of the federal government. In 1832, with his re-election approaching, the Bank struck an early blow, hoping Jackson would not want to stir up controversy.

They asked Congress to pass a renewal bill four years early. Naturally, Congress complied, and sent it to the President for signing. But Jackson weighed in with both feet. “Old Hickory,” never a coward, vetoed the bill. His veto message is one of the great American documents. It clearly lays out the responsibility of the American government towards its citizens – rich and poor.

“It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our Government. More than eight millions of the stock of this bank are held by foreigners …. Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country?….

Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence…. would be more formidable and dangerous than a military power of the enemy.

If [government] would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favor alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.”

—Andrew Jackson

Later that year, in July 1832, Congress was unable to override Jackson’s veto. Now Jackson had to stand for re-election. Jackson took his argument directly to the people.

For the first time in U.S. history, Jackson took his presidential campaign on the road. Before then, presidential candidates stayed at home and looked presidential.

His campaign slogan was ” Jackson and no Bank!”

The National Republican Party ran Senator Henry Clay against Jackson. Despite the fact that the Bank poured in over $3,000,000 into Clay’s campaign, Jackson was re-elected by a landslide in November of 1832.

Despite his presidential victory, Jackson knew the battle was only beginning: “The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead,” said the newly-elected President. Jackson ordered his new Secretary of the Treasury, Louis McLane, to start removing the government’s deposits from the Second Bank and to start placing them in state banks.

McLane refused to do so. Jackson fired him and appointed William J. Duane as the new Secretary of the Treasury. Duane also refused to comply with the President’s requests, and so Jackson fired him as well, and then appointed Roger B. Taney to the office.

Taney did withdraw government funds from the bank, starting on October 1st, 1833. Jackson was jubilant: “I have it chained. I am ready with screws to draw every tooth and then the stumps” But the Bank was yet done fighting. Its head, Nicholas Biddle, used his influence to get the Senate to reject Taney’s nomination. Then, in a rare show of arrogance, Biddle threatened to cause a depression if the Bank were not re-chartered.