Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward

designed specifically for creating fractional fiat money, without gold or silver backing, to function as tender in the payment of debts. Then, as now, most people did not discern between words and actions and believed that this speech, delivered by such a

'great' man, was evidence of the Bank's worthiness. Biddle even distributed 300,000 copies of Jackson's veto message, apparently in the belief that many would not read it. Obviously^ if the Bank thought it was so bad as to distribute it, it must be bad.

The power of the Bank's money was everywhere. It was as John Randolph, the fiery Old Republican from Virginia, had said: 'Every man you meet in this House or out of it, with some rare exceptions, which only serve to prove the rule, is either a stockholder, president, cashier, clerk or doorkeeper, runner, engraver, paper-maker, or mechanic in some other way to a bank.'

JACKSON APPEALS DIRECTLY TO THE VOTERS

Congress, the banks, speculators, industrialists, and segments of the press; these were the forces commanded by Biddle. But Jackson had a secret weapon which had never been used before in American politics. That weapon was a direct appeal to the electorate. He took his message on the campaign trail and delivered it in words well chosen to make a lasting impression on the voter. He spoke out against a moneyed aristocracy which had invaded the halls of Congress, impaired the morals of the people, threatened their liberty, and subverted the electoral process. The Bank, he said, was a hydra-headed monster eating the flesh of the common man.

He swore to do battle with the monster and slay it or be slain by it.

He bellowed his position to every crowd he could reach: Bank and no Jackson, or no bank and Jackson!3

On the subject of paper money, the President was equally

emphatic. His biographer describes the campaign:

On his homeward journey he reportedly paid all his expenses in gold. ' N o more paper money, you see, fellow citizens,' he remarked with each gold payment, 'if I can only put down this Nicholas Biddle and his monster bank.' Gold, hardly the popular medium of exchange, was held up to the people as the safe and sound currency 1. Remini, Life, p. 234.

2. Annals of Congress, 14 Cong., 1st sess., pp. 1066,1110 ff.

3. Robert Remini, Andrew ]ackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832

(New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 373.

A DEN OF VIPERS

353

which Jackson and his administration hoped to restore to regular use.

Unlike paper money, gold represented real value and true worth. It was the coin of honest men. Rag money, on the other hand, was the instrument of banks and swindlers to corrupt and cheat an innocent and virtuous public.1

Jackson had awakened the indignation of the American people.

When the November ballots were cast, he received a mammoth vote of confidence. He received fifty-five per cent of the popular vote (with thirty-seven per cent for Clay, eight per cent for Wirt) and eighty per cent of the vote in the electoral college. But the war still was not over. Jackson won the election, but the Bank had four more years to operate, and it intended to use those years to sway public sentiment back to its support. The biggest battles were yet to come.

JACKSON REMOVES FEDERAL DEPOSITS

Jackson did not wait to act. He knew that time would be used as a weapon against him. 'The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead,' he said.2 Soon after the election, he ordered Secretary of the Treasury, William Duane, to place all new deposits of the federal government into various state banks around the country and to pay current expenses out of the funds still held by the Bank of the United States until that account was drained to zero. Without the use of federal money, surely the monster would perish. To Jackson's chagrin, however, Duane balked at the order out of a sincere conviction that, to do so, would be disruptive to the economy.

This was not the first time a Cabinet officer and a President had come to disagreement. In the past, however, the impasse had always been resolved by the resignation of the Secretary. This time was different. Duane refused to resign, and that raised an interesting constitutional question. A President could appoint a member of the executive branch only with the consent of the Senate. The Constitution was silent, however, on the matter of dismissal. Did that, too, require Senate approval? The implication was that it did, but the issue had never been tested.

Jackson had no patience for such theoretical questions. The letter arrived promptly on Duane's desk: 'Your further services as 1. Remini, Life, pp. 234-35.

2. Remini, Course, p. 52.

354 THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

Secretary of the Treasury are no longer required.'1 On October 1, 1833, federal deposits began to move out of the Bank.

Jackson felt that he finally had the monster firmly within his grasp. 'I have it chained,' he said.2 With gleeful confidence, he added: 'I am ready with the screws to draw every tooth and then the stumps.' If I am not mistaken, he went on, we will have 'Mr.

Biddle and his Bank as quiet and harmless as a lamb in six weeks.'3

BIDDLE DELIBERATELY CREATES MONETARY CHAOS

The President's view of the Bank's meek captivity was prema-ture, to say the least. Biddle responded, not like a lamb, but more like a wounded lion. His plan was to rapidly contract the nation's money supply and create another