Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward

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doing all along, and everyone knew it. Instead, the Court focused upon the narrow question of whether or not the Bank was a

'necessary and proper' means for Congress to execute any other constitutional powers it might have. From that perspective, it was unanimously held that the Bank was, indeed, constitutional.

Were the Bank's paper notes the same as Bills of Credit? No, because they were backed by the credit of the Bank, not the federal government. True, the Bank created money, and most of it was used by the government. Never mind all that. The Treasury did not print it, therefore, it was not government money.

Was not the Bank the same as an agency of government? No, because merely granting it a national monopoly and enforcing that monopoly with the power of the state does not necessarily make it

'state action.'

Furthermore, the states cannot tax the federal government or any of its instruments, including the Bank of the United States, because, as Marshall stated: 'The power to tax is the power to destroy.'

Here was another end run around the Constitution, executed this time by the very men who were assumed to be its most loyal defenders.

The Supreme Court had spoken, but the Court of Public

Opinion had not yet disposed of the case. During the 1820s, popular sentiment shifted back to the laissez-faire and sound-money principles espoused by the Jeffersonian Republicans. But since the Republican Party had by then abandoned those principles, a new coalition was formed, headed by Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson, to resurrect them. It was called the Democratic Party, and one of its agenda items was to abolish the Bank of the United States. After Jackson was elected to the Presidency in 1828, he wasted no time in attempting to build Congressional support for that goal.

NICHOLAS BIDDLE

By this time, the Bank had come under the direction of Nicholas Biddle who was a formidable adversary to Jackson, not only because of the power of his position, but because of his strong will and sense of personal destiny. He was the archetype of the new Eastern Establishment: wealthy, arrogant, ruthless, and brilliant.

He had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania at the age 348 THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

of only thirteen, and, as a young man entering business, had fully mastered the secret science of money.

With the ability to control the flow of the nation's credit, Biddle soon became one of the most powerful men in America. This was brought out dramatically when he was asked by a Senate Committee if his bank ever took advantage of its superior position over the state banks. He replied: 'Never. There are very few banks which might not have been destroyed by an exertion of the powers of the Bank. None has ever been injured.'1 As Jackson publicly noted a few months later, this was an admission that most of the state banks existed only at the pleasure of the Bank of the United States, and that, of course, meant at the pleasure of Mr. Biddle.

The year was 1832. The Bank's charter was good for another four years. But Biddle decided not to wait that long for Jackson to build his forces. He knew that the President was up for reelection, and he reasoned that, as a candidate, he would hesitate to be too controversial. To criticize the Bank is one thing, but to come down squarely for its elimination altogether would surely cost him many votes. So, Biddle requested Congress to grant an early renewal of the charter as a means of softening Jackson's campaign against it.

The bill was backed by the Republicans led by Senator John Clay and was passed into law on July 3, just before the election campaigns began in earnest.

JACKSON OVERRIDES CONGRESS

It was brilliant strategy on Biddle's part but it didn't work.

Jackson decided to place his entire political career on the line for this one issue and, with perhaps the most passionate message ever delivered to Congress by any President, before or since, he vetoed the measure. The President's biographer, Robert Remini, says: 'The veto message hit the nation like a tornado. For it not only cited constitutional arguments against recharter—supposedly the only reason for resorting to a veto—but political, social, economic, and nationalistic reasons as well.'2

Jackson devoted most of his veto message to three general topics: (1) the injustice that is inherent in granting a government-1. J.D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789- 1908 (Washington: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1908), Vol. II, p. 581.

2. Robert V. Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 227-28.

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sponsored monopoly to the Bank; (2) the unconstitutionality of the Bank even if it were not unjust; and (3) the danger to the country in having the Bank heavily dominated by foreign investors.

Regarding the injustice of a government-sponsored monopoly, he pointed out that the stock of the Bank was owned only by the richest citizens of the country and that, since the sale of stock was limited to a chosen few with political influence, the common man, not only is unfairly excluded from an opportunity to participate, but he is forced to pay for his banking services far more than they are worth. Unearned profits are bad enough when they are taken from one class of citizens and given to another, but it is even worse when the people receiving those benefits are not even citizens at all but are, in fact foreigners. Jackson said:

It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our Government. More than eight millions of the stock of this bank are held by foreigners. By this act the American Republic proposes virtually to make them a present of some millions of dollars.... It appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners and