must therefore be regarded as one of the strongest proofs that the attack on the Bank responded to no strong feeling in the popular mind, that it hung fire for two or three years. The leading politicians in the Jackson party were so committed to the Bank that it was awkward for them to turn against it, and it was at least three years before the local banks, seeing the opportunity which was offered to them, began to join in the war on the Bank. Politically this last effect was the most important of all. It was the formation of the bank democrats, as a wing of the Jackson party, which gave that party its strength and accounted for its great victories.[1] The bank democrats were all won from amongst those who would otherwise have been whigs. The distribution of the deposits in 1836 weakened them, and the independent treasury alienated them from the democratic party, and brought about the great defeat of the latter in 1840.
The House, May 10, 1830, tabled by 89 to 66, resolutions that the House would not consent to renew the charter, and on May 29th it tabled, 95 to 67, a series of resolutions calling for a comprehensive report of the proceedings of the Bank. As yet there were no allegations against the management of the Bank. The stock rose to 130.
In the message for 1830 Jackson again inserted a paragraph about the Bank, and proposed a new Bank, as a "branch of the Treasury Department." The outline was very vague. It has been interpreted by different writers as approximating to the sub-treasury idea or to the exchequers and fiscal agencies of 1841.
Wayne of Georgia distinguished himself in the effort to sustain the message, which is an interesting fact in view of his subsequent appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court, and his share in the decision of Briscoe's case. He only asked that the message might be referred to a special committee, instead of to the already hostile Committee on Ways and Means. He thought that such a bank as was suggested could be devised, and he wanted it considered by an unprejudiced committee. The House refused, 108 to 76, to grant even this much. Benton offered a resolution in the Senate, February 2, 1831, "that the charter of the Bank of the United States ought not to be renewed." The Senate refused leave, 23 to 20, to introduce it. In July, the Secretary of War ordered the pension funds for the State of New York to be removed from the New York branch. Biddle remonstrated, because there was no authority of law for the order and the Auditor had refused to accept such an order as a voucher in a previous case. Secretary Cass revoked the order March 1, 1832.
The message of the next year was much more tame in regard to the Bank. The President referred to it as a subject on which he had discharged his responsibility. The Secretary of the Treasury, McLane, in his annual report, made a long and strong argument in favor of the Bank. From this it
- ↑ The term "bank democrat" at this time is ambiguous. It is often used for those Jackson men who were friendly to the Bank of the United States, but also for those recruits of the Jackson party who were brought in by the local bank interest.
