INFLUENCE OF THE KITCHEN CABINET.

Secretary of the Treasury Ingham, who aided Woodbury's intrigue, apart from his attack on the Bank of the United States, is chiefly noted for an exhaustive report on the Coinage of the United States, made to Congress in 1833. After he left the Treasury he confessed that the members of the "kitchen cabinet" used to abuse the trusting ear of Jackson with terrible tales of the corrupt influence the bank was exerting in controlling elections in opposition to him. Jackson came to believe that the bank was a dangerous monster, liable to subvert the Constitution and the liberties of the people.

V

ATTACK UPON BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.

Message of Jackson in 1831-Renewal of Charter applied for- Position of parties -Cry of fraud and corruption- Subsidies to newspapers-Charter extension passes both Houses - President's veto-Message of 1832-Stock owned by United States - Removal of deposits - Sounding State Banks - President's manifesto to cabinet-Duane superseded-Order for removal-Congress notified -Resolutions of censure-Benton and Webster-Expunging resolution - Exciting scene at its final passage — Majority against recharter — Policy of bank — Financial distress - New charter granted by State of Pennsylvania — Bad management-Final liquidation.

BILL TO RECHARTER THE SECOND BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.

In his message of 1831, Jackson again called the attention of Congress to the question of recharter. The hostility of the President to the bank became by degrees more marked; and the agitation of the United States Bank question, involving the general subject of the currency, had become earnest in Congress at the session of 1829-30; and it grew more and more earnest as time went on.

At the triennial meeting of the stockholders of the Bank of the United States, held at Philadelphia under the eleventh section of the charter, on September 1, 1831, a committee of seven was appointed and authorized to make application for a renewal of charter if they should deem it best to do so at any time previous to the next triennial meeting. The near approach of the presidential election in 1832 caused some hesitation among the friends of the bank whether or not at that time to petition Congress for a recharter. On the one hand it was held that to press the matter would most certainly make the bank question a political issue in the presidential campaign, and it was deemed inadvisable to trust the interests of the institution to the uncertainties of a popular vote. On the other it was urged that the bank now had a majority in both branches of Congress, and that the President would put himself in a serious dilemma by vetoing a bill, if it passed. Henry Clay, Jackson's opponent in the presidential election, held the latter opinion, and it is said that his view influenced the final decision in favor of making the petition. The memorial of the bank was accordingly presented by George Dallas, of Pennsylvania. The bill was opposed in the Senate by Thomas H. Benton, and through his efforts an investigation of the bank was ordered by the House, which resulted in

three reports from the committee, a majority report, a minority report, and one by Mr. Adams. No real ground of complaint was found, although the majority report charged that profuse loans had been made to influential newspapers. The bill passed the Senate June 11, by a vote of twenty-eight to twenty, and the House on July 3, by a vote of one hundred and nine to seventy-six. The main object of the opposition, hopeless of defeating the bill, had been to prepare the minds of the public for the veto and to furnish ammunition to be used on the stump in the coming campaign.

PRESIDENT JACKSON'S VETO.

This doc

On July 10 the President sent in his veto of the measure. ument was carefully prepared, and opposed the institution chiefly upon the ground of its being a monopoly. It raised the old charge about the stock being held largely by foreigners, and adds that, had the Executive been called on to furnish a project for a National bank, that duty would have been cheerfully performed.

Jackson's inconsistency in his messages and in his veto are thus summed up. In 1829, when the charter had yet seven years to run, he calls attention to the necessity of prompt action as to the recharter in order to avoid precipitancy. In 1830, when the charter had yet six years to run, he advocates timely action. In 1831, there being five years more, he reiterates his previous advice; but, in his veto in 1832, when four years only remain to the bank, he says there is no need of haste.

But, although the veto was exceedingly vulnerable from almost every standpoint, it served its purpose in arousing the popular feeling against the bank and in favor of Jackson. Benton, who in the Senate dèfended the veto against the attacks of Webster, Clay, Calhoun and Ewing, voiced the whole spirit of the party he represented when he said:

"You may continue to be for a bank and for Jackson, but you cannot be for this bank and for Jackson. The bank is now the open, as it has long been the secret, enemy of Jackson. The war is now upon Jackson, and if he is defeated all the rest will fall an easy prey. What individual could stand in the States against the power of that bank, and that bank flushed with a victory over the conqueror of the conquerors of Bonaparte. The whole Government would fall into the hands of the moneyed power. An oligarchy would be immediately established, and that oligarchy in a few generations would ripen into a monarchy."

The bill for the recharter could not secure the necessary two-thirds vote for the passage over the veto. Nor did the supporters of the bank fully realize, even then, the effect of the President's opposition. They thought the people would be disgusted at Jackson's unreasonable attitude. Nicholas Biddle wrote to Clay that he was delighted with the veto. The campaign of 1832 was fought on the bank issue. It was the

hero of New Orleans against a "monster monopoly." It was Jackson like a hero of romance fighting against "Old Nick's Money" and "Clay's Rags." The bank having foolishly gone into politics, was defeated and Jackson again elected. The support of the people was at once claimed for all past and future warfare on the bank, and the result of the election sealed its doom. The attack promised on the stump began at once.

In his message in 1832, after his re-election in November of that year, the President again fulminates against a recharter of the institution, recommending that the seven millions of stock of the bank held by the United States should be sold, and, going further, intimates that the United States deposits in the bank were not safe.* He either was or affected to be impressed with the idea that so long as the bank was the holder of the public funds it might use them to corrupt Congress to secure an extension of its existence. In consequence of the message bank stock fell from one hundred and twelve to one hundred and four. A Treasury agent who made an examination of the institution reported it solvent, and the stock went back to one hundred and twelve. Congress did not coincide with the views expressed by the President, and, refusing to sell the bank stock, passed a resolution, by a vote of one hundred and ten to forty-six, of confidence in the safety of the deposits.

PUBLIC REMOVAL of DEPOSITS FROM THE BANK.

During the spring and summer of 1833 there was much consultation between Jackson and his cabinet as to the removal of the deposits. Louis McLane was Secretary of the Treasury. He was sounded by Amos Kendall, the Fourth Auditor, who was a strong advocate, if not the first suggestor, of the step, and found to be unfavorable to it. As an editor in Kentucky, Mr. Kendall had been an ardent supporter of the right of the States to tax the branch banks of the United States within their borders during the controversy between the States of Kentucky and Ohio and the bank. The decision of the Supreme Court in McCulloch vs. State of Maryland judicially settled the question; but Mr. Kendall continued the controversy in his paper, and always afterward retained his hostility to the bank. Mr. McLane was promoted to the State Department, and Mr. Duane, of Pennsylvania, appointed Secretary of the Treasury. Soon after the President called for the written opinion of his cabinet. McLane was against the removal; so was Duane. General Cass pleaded ignorance of the question; but Woodbury, Secretary of the Treasury, Barry, Postmaster-General, and Attorney-General Taney were all in favor of it. At this meeting some doubt was expressed as to the reception of the deposits by the State banks. Kendall assured the President that he would settle this doubt. He went accordingly to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Bos*McLane, who later on declined to remove deposits.

+ Amos Kendall, biography, 378.

ton, and in all but the latter place secured the acquiescence of the banks required for the purpose.

On September 18, everything being ready, the President read a manifesto on the subject to his cabinet, and in consequence of Duane's persistent refusal to carry out the wishes of the President he was displaced and superseded by Attorney-General Taney, who, on September 26, 1833, issued the order for the removal. "The Globe," of September 20, 1833, announced that the public deposits would, “after the 1st of October, be made in the State banks, but that it is contemplated not to remove at once the whole of the public money now on deposit in the Bank of the United States, but to suffer it to remain there until it shall be gradually withdrawn by the usual operations of the Government." The bank thenceforward knew that, if its own policy should be pacific, it had nothing to fear from any unusual call from the Government; yet, with specie enough in its vaults to pay the entire public deposits at once, it maintained its stringency, under the pretext that it must be prepared for vindictive attacks from the Treasury Department. The funds of the pension agencies were removed from the bank in February, 1834.

PRESIDENT JACKSON CENSURED.

When Congress assembled in December, 1833, the President notified them of the removal of the deposits, and that the Secretary would furnish them with the reasons, which the Secretary did. From the first week in December, 1833, to the last day in June, 1834, says Parton, almost the only topic of debate in Congress, in the newspapers and among the people, was the removal of the deposits. It was discussed with great ability, bitterness and pertinacity. On March 28, 1834, Mr. Clay introduced two resolutions in the Senate, one "that the President, in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation thereof." This was passed by a vote of twenty-six to twenty, and was known as the censure resolution. The second was, that the reasons of the Secretary of the Treasury for removing the deposits are insufficient; this passed by vote of twentyeight to eighteen.

On April 17, the President replied by a protest, which he desired to have spread upon the Journal of the Senate as an offset to the resolution of censure. The view taken in the protest was the same as that taken in his veto, and was, that the President should, under his oath of office, sustain the Constitution as he understands it, not as the judiciary may expound or Congress declare it. Lodge, in his life of Webster, says of Jackson:

"Autobiography of Amos Kendall," Boston, 1872, p. 398. *See "Memoirs of John Q. Adams," Vol. IX, p. 116.