The Battle over the Charter of the Second Bank of the United States
and Its Lasting Impact on the American Economy
Late one night in July 1832, Martin Van Buren rushed to the White House
where he found an ailing President Andrew Jackson weakened but resolute.
Thundering against his political antagonists, Jackson bellowed: "The
Bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I shall kill it!"With
those famous words, Jackson formally declared "war" against the Second
Bank of the United States and its president Nicholas Biddle. The Bank of
the United States, which held the majority of Federal monies, had been
established as a means of centralizing and stabilizing American currency
and the economy, particularly during the country's vulnerable early
years. Jackson and his allies viewed the bank as both elitist and a
threat to states' rights. Throughout his first term, Jackson had
attacked the bank viciously but failed to take action against the
institution. Congress' decision to recharter the bank forced Jackson to
either make good on his rhetoric and veto the recharter or sign the
recharter bill and be condemned as a hypocrite.
In The Bank War: Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, and the Fight for
American Finance, historian Paul Kahan explores one of the most
important and dramatic events in American political and economic
history, from the idea of centralized banking and the First Bank of the
United States to Jackson's triumph, the era of "free banking," and the
creation of the Federal Reserve System. Relying on a range of primary
and secondary source material, the book also shows how the Bank War was
a manifestation of the debates that were sparked at the Constitutional
Convention--the role of the executive branch and the role of the federal
government in American society--debates that endure to this day as
philosophical differences that often divide the United States.
