Bank War

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The Bank War is the name given to Andrew Jackson's attack on the Second Bank of the United States during the early years of his presidency. Andrew Jackson viewed the Bank of the United States as a monopoly. The Bank of the United States was a private institution managed by a board of directors. Its president, Nicholas Biddle, exercised vast influence in the nation's financial affairs.

[edit] Beginning of the War

The Bank War started in 1830, when Henry Clay presented Congress with a bill to renew the Bank of the United States in order to make it an election issue. Knowing that Jackson would veto the bill, Clay believed that it would anger many influential and wealthy people in the East. But when Jackson vetoed the bill, it appealed to the masses, who felt that the bank was to blame for the Panic of 1819, and Jackson easily won in the United States presidential election, 1832.

[edit] End and the Consequences

With the election of 1832 secured, Jackson proceeded to destroy the Bank of the United States. He promptly withdrew all the national deposit from the Bank of the United States and stored them in "pet banks", small state owned banks. Jackson's Secretary of Treasury opposed the removal of the national deposits. Two of them were forced to resign before Jackson appointed a "yes-man", Roger Taney. The death of the Bank of the United States left a financial vacuum in the nation. The country lapsed into periods of booms and busts. The pet banks also printed huge amounts of paper money. In an effort to rein in the unstable economy, Jackson issued the Specie Circular in 1836, which required all purchases of federal lands (a focus of financial speculation in this period) be paid for in metal coin rather than paper money. This disastrous decree contributed to the Panic of 1837. But by then, Jackson had completed his term and left all the financial problems he had created to his successor, Martin Van Buren.

[edit] Reference

David M. Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen (2002). Houghton Mifflin Company. The American Pageant Twelfth Edition, ch 13, pp 271-272.