By Allen Guelzo, Princeton University
To Andrew Jackson, the Second Bank of the United States had become a national monster by its concentration of overwhelming political power in a few hands.
Declaring the Bank Unconstitutional
When Andrew Jackson became president in 1828, Nicholas Biddle moved to pacify him. A year later, Jackson raised to Congress the ancient and more fundamental objection to the Bank of the United States: that Congress had exceeded its powers in the Constitution by granting the bank its charter, and that, therefore, the entire Second Bank of the United States system was unconstitutional.
Far better, Jackson hinted, to create a simple deposit system for federal funds, whose financial stability would be founded upon the credit of the government and its revenue rather than on the dividends generated by Biddle’s ambitious scheme of investments.
The Beginning of the War
Yet, while Andrew Jackson could issue opinions about the Second Bank, he had no direct constitutional power to move against Biddle and the bank. Its 1816 charter granted the bank a 20-year existence with an option for renewal, and that option would not be up for consideration by Congress, presumably, until Jackson was long out of the White House.
The Supreme Court, where John Marshall still sat bloodied and unbowed, offered no hope of getting the bank declared unconstitutional. Congress itself was filled with representatives, including democratic representatives, who were either entangled in Nicholas Biddle’s webs of obligation or, like Henry Clay, defended the bank as an outright benefit to the nation.
Within Jackson’s own cabinet, only his Attorney General, the Marylander, Roger Brooke Taney, encouraged Jackson to go to war with the bank. In fact, the general atmosphere of reluctance in Washington City to confront the Second Bank of the United States encouraged not Jackson, but Biddle, to try the issue.
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Proposal of Rechartering the Bank
In November of 1831, Henry Clay proposed to Biddle that the Bank of the United States move up the timetable on its rechartering to the next session of Congress in 1832. Any petition for recharter that Biddle might propose in 1832 would probably pass Congress without much difficulty, given the combined pressure that Clay and Biddle could bring to bear.
Jackson would then either have to sign the bill or veto it. If he signed it, his own Democrats would turn on him, and the National Republicans could charge him with inconsistency; the bank would then have a further 20 years of good health to look forward to.
Passing of the Bill
In the election of 1832, bereft of fervent democratic support, it would be easy for the National Republicans to ride Jackson out of the presidency, that was, if Jackson signed the bill.
On the other hand, if Jackson vetoed a bank recharter, Congress would probably override it anyway. The American electorate would be so outraged at this blatantly unconstitutional threat to national prosperity that, once more, a National Republican candidate could coast to election in 1832.
Hence, a petition for an early rechartering of the Bank of the United States went up to Congress in January of 1832, and the recharter bill passed the House by a comfortable margin of 107 to 85.
Jackson’s Violent Veto
Biddle, nevertheless, was a mixture of anxiety and optimism over what Jackson’s response might be. Henry Clay laughed off Biddle’s anxieties, however. If Jackson vetoed the bill, he would only play into Clay’s hands at the November election, and then all would be well anyway. Within a week, Jackson did veto the rechartering of the Second Bank.
What Clay had not counted on was the violence with which Jackson was prepared to issue his veto and fight for its enforcement. On the day the rechartering bill passed the House of Representatives, Martin Van Buren had called on Jackson. Jackson grasped Van Buren’s hand with a declaration that, “The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.” Jackson’s veto message rocked with democratic outrage.
The Bank in Jackson’s Opinion
According to Jackson, the Bank of the United States represented a mistaken and unfair grant of special privileges to a wealthy elite, because the term of the bank charter granted it an exclusive privilege of banking under the authority of the general government, and a monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange.
The people of the United States needed to be aware, Jackson warned, how the rich and powerful too often bend the axe of government to their selfish purposes, and make the rich richer, and the potent more powerful. When that happened, Jackson announced, the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers had a right to complain of the injustice of their government.
The solution, as Jackson explained in the veto message, was to dismantle these concentrations of power and especially any governmental agencies, which looked like making the rich richer and returning the unconstitutional authority they had usurped to the states and to the people.
The Aftermath of Jackson’s Veto
Well, the democratic newspapers whooped in joy over Jackson’s veto message, because Jackson had used the veto message to identify the Second Bank of the United States with every anxiety that the penetration of the world markets had aroused in Americans. What Jackson was laying out here was a scenario of class warfare with the democratic mass pitted against a conspiracy of the aristocratic few.
By drawing a line between liberty, the people, and economic equality on one side, and special favors, foreign oppression, and the bank on the other, Jackson had outflanked Clay and Biddle, and seized the high moral ground in the bank debate.
Common Questions about Andrew Jackson’s War with the Second Bank of the United States
Andrew Jackson raised to Congress the ancient and more fundamental objection to the Bank of the United States: that Congress had exceeded its powers in the Constitution by granting the bank its charter, and that, therefore, the entire Second Bank of the United States system was unconstitutional.
A petition for an early rechartering of the Bank of the United States went up to Congress in January of 1832, and the recharter bill passed the House by a comfortable margin of 107 to 85.
According to Jackson, the Bank of the United States represented a mistaken and unfair grant of special privileges to a wealthy elite, because the term of the bank charter granted it an exclusive privilege of banking under the authority of the general government, and a monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange.
