Andrew Jackson Jr was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before his presidency, he gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Often praised as an advocate for ordinary Americans and for his work in preserving the union of states, Jackson has also been criticized for his racial policies, particularly his treatment of Native Americans.
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.
The Second Bank of the United States was the second federally authorized Hamiltonian national bank in the United States. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the bank was chartered from February 1816 to January 1836. The bank's formal name, according to section 9 of its charter as passed by Congress, was "The President, Directors, and Company, of the Bank of the United States". While other banks in the US were chartered by and only allowed to have branches in a single state, it was authorized to have branches in multiple states and lend money to the US government.
The Federal Reserve Act was passed by the 63rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913. The law created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States.
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that began a major depression, which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages dropped, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment rose, and pessimism abounded.
The Panic of 1819 was the first widespread and durable financial crisis in the United States that slowed westward expansion in the Cotton Belt and was followed by a general collapse of the American economy that persisted through 1821. The Panic heralded the transition of the nation from its colonial commercial status with Europe toward an independent economy.
Nicholas Biddle was an American financier who served as the third and last president of the Second Bank of the United States. Throughout his life Biddle worked as an editor, diplomat, author, and politician who served in both houses of the Pennsylvania state legislature. He is best known as the chief opponent of Andrew Jackson in the Bank War.
Jacksonian democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21 and restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson and his supporters, it became the nation's dominant political worldview for a generation. The term itself was in active use by the 1830s.
The American School, also known as the National System, represents three different yet related constructs in politics, policy and philosophy. The policy existed from the 1790s to the 1970s, waxing and waning in actual degrees and details of implementation. Historian Michael Lind describes it as a coherent applied economic philosophy with logical and conceptual relationships with other economic ideas.
This history of central banking in the United States encompasses various bank regulations, from early wildcat banking practices through the present Federal Reserve System.
Wildcat banking was the issuance of paper currency in the United States by poorly capitalized state-chartered banks. These wildcat banks existed alongside more stable state banks during the Free Banking Era from 1836 to 1865, when the country had no national banking system. States granted banking charters readily and applied regulations ineffectively, if at all. Bank closures and outright scams regularly occurred, leaving people with worthless money.
Pet banks is a derogatory term for state banks selected by the U.S. Department of Treasury to receive surplus Treasury funds in 1833. Pet banks are sometimes confused with wildcat banks. Although the two are distinct types of institutions that arose concomitantly, some pet banks were known to also engage in practices of wildcat banking. They were chosen among the big U.S. banks when President Andrew Jackson vetoed the recharter for the Second Bank of the United States, proposed by Henry Clay four years before the recharter was due. Clay intended to use the rechartering of the bank as a topic in the upcoming election of 1832. The charter for the Second Bank of the United States, which was headed by Nicholas Biddle, was for a period of twenty years beginning in 1816, but Jackson's distrust of the national banking system led to Biddle's proposal to recharter early, and the beginning of the Bank War. Jackson cited four reasons for vetoing the recharter, each degrading the Second Bank of the United States in claims of it holding an exorbitant amount of power. These reasons for vetoing the recharter were centered around Jackson's belief in his role as the representative of the common man. Amos Kendall, who was the intellectual driving force behind Jackson's 1832 election and Jackson himself, led Jackson to believe that the bank posed a political threat to Jackson. Kendall cautioned Jackson that unless he got rid of the Second Bank of the United States, it would find a way to elect its own candidate to the White House after Jackson was gone. Jackson saw the bank as a threat to the common man and "the great enemy of republicanism", and argued that as long as the national bank existed, the working class was constantly in danger of losing their stake in government.
The Independent Treasury was the system for managing the money supply of the United States federal government through the U.S. Treasury and its sub-treasuries, independently of the national banking and financial systems. It was created on August 6, 1846 by the 29th Congress, with the enactment of the Independent Treasury Act of 1846. It was expanded with the creation of the national banking system in 1863. It functioned until the early 20th century, when the Federal Reserve System replaced it. During this time, the Treasury took over an ever-larger number of functions of a central bank and the U.S. Treasury Department came to be the major force in the U.S. money market.
The Second Party System was the political party system operating in the United States from about 1828 to 1852, after the First Party System ended. The system was characterized by rapidly rising levels of voter interest, beginning in 1828, as demonstrated by Election Day turnouts, rallies, partisan newspapers, and high degrees of personal loyalty to parties.
The Bank War was a political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States (B.U.S.) during the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–1837). The affair resulted in the shutdown of the Bank and its replacement by state banks.
The presidency of Andrew Jackson began on March 4, 1829, when Andrew Jackson was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1837. Jackson, the seventh United States president, took office after defeating incumbent President John Quincy Adams in the bitterly contested 1828 presidential election. During the 1828 presidential campaign, Jackson founded the political force that coalesced into the Democratic Party during Jackson's presidency. Jackson won re-election in 1832, defeating National Republican candidate Henry Clay by a wide margin. He was succeeded by his hand-picked successor, Vice President Martin Van Buren, after Van Buren won the 1836 presidential election.
This article details the history of banking in the United States. Banking in the United States is regulated by both the federal and state governments.
Monetary policy in the United States is associated with interest rates and availability of credit.
The Forstall System was a banking system developed by Edmund Jean Forstall in 1842 and used until the end of the Civil War. After the Panic of 1837, banks underwent two main reformations. New York adapted a free banking system while Louisiana set up a banking system with specie reserve requirements. The Forstall System propelled Louisiana to economic maturity with its sound and credible banking system. It has been called one of the building blocks of the modern financial system still in place today.
William M. Gouge was an American economist who published A Short History of Paper Money and Banking in the United States, an 1833 treatise that advocated for hard money policies. Following the publication of his treatise, Gouge emerged as an important figure in the presidential administrations of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, and he played a major role in the creation of the Independent Treasury system. Historian Sean Wilentz writes that, "if anyone was the intellectual architect of Jacksonian economic policy after 1832, it was the Philadelphia radical William Gouge".
