IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/vuecon-sub-21-00001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Jackson, the Bank War, and the Legacy of the Second Bank of the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Peter L. Rousseau

    (Vanderbilt University)

Abstract

President Jackson vetoed the bill to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States on 10 July 1832. I describe events leading to the veto and through the Bank's dissolution in 1836 using private correspondence and official government documents. These sources reveal a political process through which charges against the Bank took hold, accomplices and back-up plans were lined up, and the Bank was ultimately destroyed with the assistance of chartered banks in New York City. Although the aggressive means by which the Bank was dismantled led to a system-wide financial failure and recession in the short term, the long-run outcome was likely a wider diffusion of banking services and a more efficient allocation of capital. The Federal Reserve benefited from applying a more rigorous regulatory structure onto the grid that the populists, free bankers, and National Banking System established.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter L. Rousseau, 2021. "Jackson, the Bank War, and the Legacy of the Second Bank of the United States," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 21-00001, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:vuecon-sub-21-00001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/VUECON-21-00001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rousseau, Peter L., 2002. "Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, And The Panic Of 1837," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(2), pages 457-488, June.
    2. Bray Hammond, 1936. "Free Banks and Corporations: The New York Free Banking Act of 1838," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 184-184.
    3. Weber, Warren E., 2006. "Early State Banks in the United States: How Many Were There and When Did They Exist?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(2), pages 433-455, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter L. Rousseau, 2013. "Politics on the road to the U.S. monetary union," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 13-00006, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    2. Peter L. Rousseau, 2016. "The Politics of Financial Development: A Review of Calomiris and Haber's Fragile by Design," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 208-223, March.
    3. Wallis, John Joseph, 2003. "The property tax as a coordinating device: Financing Indiana's Mammoth Internal Improvement System, 1835-1842," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 223-250, July.
    4. John Joseph Wallis, 2006. "The Concept of Systematic Corruption in American History," NBER Chapters, in: Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, pages 23-62, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Matthew Jaremski & Peter L. Rousseau, 2013. "Banks, Free Banks, And U.S. Economic Growth," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 1603-1621, April.
    6. Michael D. Bordo & William Roberds, 2024. "Central Bank Digital Currencies: An Old Tale with a New Chapter," Working Papers 323, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    7. B. Zorina Khan, 2017. "Related Investing: Corporate Ownership and Capital Mobilization during Early Industrialization," NBER Working Papers 23052, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Howard Bodenhorn & David Cuberes, 2010. "Financial development and city growth: Evidence from Northeastern American cities, 1790-1870," Working Papers 2010/35, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    9. Ignacio Briones & Hugh Rockoff, 2005. "Do Economists Reach a Conclusion on Free-Banking Episodes?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 2(2), pages 279-324, August.
    10. Edward L. Glaeser, 2013. "A Nation of Gamblers: Real Estate Speculation and American History," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 1-42, May.
    11. Michael D. Bordo & David C. Wheelock, 2004. "Monetary policy and asset prices: a look back at past U.S. stock market booms," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Nov), pages 19-44.
    12. repec:dgr:uvatin:20130210 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Charles Calomiris, 2009. "Banking Crises and the Rules of the Game," NBER Working Papers 15403, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Owen F. Humpage, 2023. "On the Origins of the Federal Reserve System and Its Structure," Working Papers 23-17, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    15. Qian Lu & John Joseph Wallis, 2015. "Banks, Politics, and Political Parties: From Partisan Banking to Open Access in Early Massachusetts," NBER Working Papers 21572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Young, Andrew T. & Dove, John A., 2013. "Policing the chain gang: Panel cointegration analysis of the stability of the Suffolk System, 1825–1858," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 182-196.
    17. Benjamin Chabot & Charles C. Moul, 2014. "Bank Panics, Government Guarantees, and the Long‐Run Size of the Financial Sector: Evidence from Free‐Banking America," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(5), pages 961-997, August.
    18. Bordo, Michael D., 2012. "Could the United States have had a better central bank? An historical counterfactual speculation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 597-607.
    19. Baker, Zackary, 2018. "An Analysis of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania (1836‐1841)," Studies in Applied Economics 101, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
    20. Kaloyan Ganev, 2014. "Early theories of business cycle and their role on the development of economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 39-56.
    21. Gary B. Gorton, 2016. "The History and Economics of Safe Assets," NBER Working Papers 22210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bank of the United States; Jacksonian monetary policy; central banking; Federal Reserve.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N2 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:vuecon-sub-21-00001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/index.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.