Over the objections of Thomas
Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton helped create the nation's first
centralized bank in 1791, the Bank of the United States.
By
1822, the rechartered second Bank of the United States was run by
Nicholas Biddle, who boasted of having more personal power than the
President, as he set interest rates and reserve requirements.
Biddle bought influence, paid to elect politicians and owned newspapers which he used to sway voters during elections.
On
JULY 10, 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed the renewal of the
charter of Nicholas Biddle's Bank of the United States, stating:
"Some
of powers and privileges possessed by the existing Bank are
unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive to the rights of the
States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people...
It
is easy to conceive that great evils to our country and its
institutions might flow from such a concentration of power in the hands
of a few men irresponsible to the people...
Their power would be great whenever they might choose to exert it...to influence elections or control the affairs of the nation.
But
if any private citizen or public functionary should interpose to
curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its privileges, it cannot be
doubted that he would be made to feel its influence..."
Andrew Jackson continued:
"Controlling
our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our
citizens in dependence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than
the naval and military power of the enemy."
On
September 18, 1833, President Andrew Jackson decided to remove all
Federal money out of Nicholas Biddle's Bank of the United States:
"The
Bank is thus converted into a vast electioneering engine, with means to
embroil the country in deadly feuds, and...extend its corruption
through all the ramifications of society...
The President would
feel that he was...an accomplice in a conspiracy against that
Government... if he did not take every step within his constitutional
and legal power...to...putting an end to these enormities...
Was
it expected when the moneys of the United States were directed to be
placed in that Bank that they would be put under the control of one
man...?
This corporation now holds in its hands the happiness and prosperity of the American people, it is high time to take the alarm.
If the despotism be already upon us and our only safety is in the mercy of the despot...how necessary it is to shake it off...
One of the most serious objections to the Bank of the United States is the power which it concentrates."
On December 3, 1833, in his 5th Annual Message, President Andrew Jackson stated:
"This
great and powerful institution had been actively engaged in attempting
to influence the elections of the public officers by means of its
money...
It being thus established by unquestionable proof that
the Bank of the United States was converted into a permanent
electioneering engine...
The efforts of the Bank to control public opinion, through the distresses of some and the fears of others...
Through presses known to have been sustained by its money it attempts by unfounded alarms to create a panic in all."
President
Andrew Jackson, whose wife died right before he took office, stated in a
Protest message to the Senate, April 15, 1834:
"The Bank of the
United States, a great moneyed monopoly, had attempted to obtain a
renewal of its charter by controlling the elections of the people...to
control public opinion and force the Government to yield to its
demands...
The only ambition I can feel is to acquit myself to
Him to whom I must soon render an account of my stewardship...to
persuade my countrymen, so far as I may, that it is not in
a...government supported by powerful monopolies...that they will find
happiness...but in a plain system, void of pomp, protecting all and
granting favors to none, dispensing its blessings, like the dews of
Heaven."
On December 1, 1834, in his 6th Annual Message, President Andrew Jackson stated:
"Events
have satisfied my mind, and I think the minds of the American people,
that the mischief and dangers which flow from a national Bank far
overbalance all its advantages.
The bold effort the present Bank
has made to control the Government, the distresses it has wantonly
produced, the violence of which it has been the occasion in one of our
cities famed for its observance of law and order, are but premonitions
of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into
a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like
it."
On
January 30, 1835, in the midst of the "Bank War," President Andrew
Jackson survived an assassination attempt when a bearded man, Richard
Lawrence, fired two pistols at him at point blank range.
For some reason the guns misfired. Davy Crockett, who was with the President, wrestled the assailant down and disarmed him.
When King William IV of England heard of the incident, he wrote expressing his concern. President Jackson wrote back:
"A
kind of Providence had been pleased to shield me against the recent
attempt upon my life, and irresistibly carried many minds to the belief
in a superintending Providence."
On December 7, 1835, in his 7th Annual Message, President Andrew Jackson stated:
"We have felt but one class of these dangers exhibited in the contest waged by the Bank of the United States...
The
Bank is, in fact, but one of the fruits of a system at war with the
genius of all our institutions,...whose great ultimate object and
inevitable result...is the consolidation of all power in our system in
one central government.
Lavish public disbursements and
corporations with exclusive privileges would be its substitutes for the
original...checks and balances of the Constitution...
Wherever
this spirit has effected an alliance with political power, tyranny and
despotism have been the fruit...It has to be incessantly watched, or it
corrupts...
All history tells us that a free people should be
watchful of delegated power, and should never acquiesce in a practice
which will diminish their control over it."
On December 5, 1836, in his 8th Annual Message, President Andrew Jackson stated:
"It
was in view of these evils, together with the dangerous power wielded
by the Bank of the United States and its repugnance to our Constitution,
that I was induced to exert the power conferred upon me by the American
people to prevent the continuance of that institution...
The
lessons taught by the Bank of the United States cannot well be lost upon
the American people. They will take care never again to place so
tremendous a power in irresponsible hands."
Get the book, Miracles in American History - 32 Amazing Stories of Answered PrayerOn March 4, 1837, in his Farewell Address, President Jackson stated:
"The
distress and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole country when
the Bank of the United States waged war upon the people in order to
compel them to submit to its demands cannot yet be forgotten...
The
Government would have passed from the hands of the many to the hands
of the few, and this organized money power from its secret conclave
would have dictated the choice of your highest officers and compelled
you to make peace or war, as best suited their own wishes.
The forms of your Government might for a time have remained, but its living spirit would have departed from it."
Jackson continued:
"The
distress... inflicted on the people by the Bank are some of the fruits
of that system of policy which is continually striving to enlarge the
authority of the Federal Government beyond the limits fixed by the
Constitution...
The power which moneyed interest can exercise,
when concentrated under a single head and with our present system of
currency, was sufficiently demonstrated in the struggle made by the Bank
of the United States...
The paper-money system and its natural
associations - monopoly and exclusive privileges - have already struck
their root too deep in the soil, and it will require all your efforts
to check its further growth and to eradicate the evil."
Andrew Jackson continued:
"The
men who profit by the abuses and desire to perpetuate them will
continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the General
Government...and will seek by every artifice to mislead and deceive the
public servants...
You have no longer any cause to fear danger
from abroad; your strength and power are well known throughout the
civilized world...
It is from within, among yourselves - from
cupidity, from corruption...and inordinate thirst for power - that
factions will be formed and liberty endangered.
It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may assume, that you have especially to guard yourselves...
Providence
has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has
chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit
of the human race.
May He who holds in His hands the destinies of
nations, make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed, and enable
you, with pure hearts and hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and
defend to the end of time, the great charge He has committed to your
keeping."
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Faith in History
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