Another Twist on the Jacksonian Bank War: Part 2
©1997 by Gerry Rough
This is the second of a three-part series on the conspiracy theorists’ claims regarding
the second Bank of the United States. Part three will examine Andrew Jackson’s veto
message on the recharter bill, often cited by the conspiracy theorists.
G. Edward Griffin makes the following paragraph on page 348 of his text, The
Creature from Jekyll Island:
With the ability to control the flow of the nations 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." 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. [1]
Astounding, isn’t it? Biddle answers one question, then both Griffin and his erstwhile
ally, Andrew Jackson, twist the answer to mean something that was neither said nor
implied. In case you’re wondering, Andrew Jackson did, in fact, mention this
interpretation in his veto message on the recharter bill. But let’s also notice the
transparent hypocrisy of the entire lot of conspiracy theorist and Jacksonian alike.
Catterall cites the following letter from Treasury appointment Kendall:
"This boasting giant is now but a reptile beneath the feet of the secretary of the
treasury, which he can crush at will. It exists by his forbearance, and will, for
the next forty days; and great forbearance will it require to save it from
destruction."- [Treasury Appointment] Kendall in a letter to the New
York Standard, Oct. 9, 1833. [2]
In sum then, according to the conspiracy theorists among us, it is perfectly fine for the
Bank of the United States to exist at the forbearance of the Jackson Administration,
but eternal damnation for the State Banks to exist at the forbearance of Nicholas
Biddle.
Conspiracy theorists have indeed given voice to hypocrisy!!
Griffin states again:
As Commanding General of the pro-bank forces, Biddle had one powerful
advantage over his adversary. For all practical purposes, Congress was in his
pocket. [3]
Further down the page, Griffin then cites the following from Galbraith to prove his
point:
Biddle was not without resources. In keeping with his belief that banking was
the ultimate source of power, he had regularly advanced funds to members of
congress when delay on appropriations bills had held up their pay. [4]
It might seem as though Griffin has indeed found a true charge against the bank. To
this charge, among others, Catterall has made an exhaustive study and found that most
of the frequent charges against the Bank by its enemies were found to be either
groundless or mitigated. Catterall’s study can be summed up in the following two
circumstances:
It must be admitted that the bank was accustomed to give drafts for the salaries
of congressmen, payable at points distant from Washington, without charging
exchange....Such a practice was certainly open to the objection of being in the
nature of granting favors to those from whom favors were to be expected.1 [5]
Other charges of indirect bribery were those of paying excessive fees to
lawyers and making donations of the bank’s money for political effect. Nothing
of the kind was discovered. The fees to lawyers were not excessive. No cases of
bribes by donations were known by the committee of 1834, and the subject was
carefully investigated by the committee of 1832 with the results favorable to
the bank. [6]
While it must be admitted that Biddle did indeed make temporary loans to
Congressmen that were later found to be questionable, the real rub here with Griffin’s
charge is that those loans were to Congressmen as part of some global New World
Order plot. The answer to this charge is simple: Biddle made these loans to both
friend and enemy alike. Hardly evidence for a conspiracy, Galbraith’s charge of
political obtuseness is the more likely.
Thomas D. Schauf, author of The Federal Reserve, states:
When the 1816 charter expired in 1836, Andrew Jackson vetoed its renewal.[7]
The 1816 charter renewal was vetoed in 1832, not 1836 as Schauf implies. J.R.
Church commits a similar glaring error of history. Church writes:
Congress then refused to renew the charter for the national bank, driving it into
bankruptcy. In 1836, when the charter of the bank came up for renewal,
Jackson managed to get it defeated. [8]
William T. Still, another conspiracy writer, contradicts both Church and Schauf:
Supporters of the Bank were angered by Jackson’s veto of a renewal of the
Banks charter after it passed both houses of congress in the summer of 1832.
[9]
Still is correct. Just to set the record straight, President Jackson’s veto of the Bank
charter essentially killed it in 1832, although the charter did not run out until 1836.
The Bank would continue until 1839, chartered by the commonwealth of
Pennsylvania. Thereafter it suspended payments and later was declared bankrupt. [10]
Wickliffe B. Vennard, author of The Federal Reserve hoax, states:
In 1828 Andrew Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, was elected President of the
United States and immediately showed hostility to the United States Bank. He
authorized and directed that the money of the government be deposited in other
banks (State Banks) instead of the United States Bank. In 1831 a bill was
introduced in Congress…[11]
The last partial sentence was inserted to verify context. Vennard has made the grossest
of historical errors by stating that the deposits were taken from the Bank of the United
States in 1828. They were not. This action did not start until 1833, five years later.
Vennard also makes an even worse historical error just two paragraphs later on the
same page. Vennard writes:
It is now generally believed that any candidate for state or national office who
attempts to carry education and information on the usury subject to the people,
and opposed usury, would stand no chance of being elected and that it would
ensure his defeat. The same applied at the time Jackson was a candidate for reelection in 1832, with the usurers in control, a national bank with branches, and
considering the population at that time, it was apparently as dominant as the
Federal Reserve Bank is now with all its member banks profiting by the usury
system throughout the United States. [12]
Even worse than implying that Jackson lost his re-election, which is foolishness itself,
Vennard is farther out on a limb than you might imagine. There are no other
conspiracy writers who would dare make this claim, considering that Andrew Jackson
is the greatest hero of the conspiracy movement. His war with the Bank of the United
States and subsequent re-election is one of the most cited eras of American history to
conspiracy theorists. For Vennard to fail this test of historical accuracy contradicts
virtually everything the conspiracy theorists have said of central banking for several
generations. One less enamored with conspiracy theory would have to ask which
theory we should follow.
As a digression to the background of all of this, there is an 8-page pamphlet written in
1964 by Vennard which still circulates on the far right. Vennard states the opinion of
virtually every conspiracy writer on the history of central banks and especially of
Andrew Jackson:
1832 - President Andrew Jackson, the Greatest of our Presidents, in my
considered opinion, vetoed renewal of the Second Bank of the United States.
[13]
The conspiracy theorists’ admiration of Andrew Jackson is certainly commendable,
although most serious presidential historians consider President Jackson to be one of
the worst presidents in our nations history. The date cited above brings up another
issue cited earlier. If Andrew Jackson had not been re-elected, as Vennard implies
earlier, financial history would have been completely rewritten. The bill to recharter
the second Bank of the United States won a clear majority in both houses of Congress
and Henry Clay would most certainly have signed the recharter bill. The Bank War
cited in part one of this series never would have taken place, and the conspiracy
theorists would have to look elsewhere for a favorite hero.
In 1969, Vennard published a much longer version of the aforementioned pamphlet;
this being a 60-page Chronological History of Money Since Babylon. In the citation
regarding the second Bank of the United States, Vennard adds the following:
The bankers told Andrew Jackson if he vetoed the old United States bank bill
they would ruin the business of the country. He vetoed it and someone tried to
assassinate him; he well knew what for. [14]
As expected, the bankers never said anything of the sort. There was an occasion
referred to in The Life of Andrew Jackson, By Robert V. Remini, among other noted
historians, in which a delegation of bankers visited the White House, but far from any
mention of the bankers threatening to ruin the country, the bankers feared their own
insolvency. Remini picks up the narrative:
As the Panic of 1833-1834 intensified, delegations of businessmen visited
Jackson in the White House to beg him to rescind the removal order. One such
group of "great bankers and great merchants" brought a petition bearing six
thousand signatures....The deputation came right to the point. They described
their distress. They begged him to intervene and restore the deposits. They said
that they feared insolvency. [15]
Vennard’s charge is wholly indefensible. Also in the above from Vennard is the
charge that Jackson was the victim of an assassination attempt by the bankers. Griffin,
among other conspiracy writers, also makes the same charge as Vennard, complete
with the same style of innuendo:
[T]he President had earned the undying hatred of monetary scientists, both in
America and abroad. It is not surprising, therefore, that on January 30, 1835, an
assassination attempt was made against him....Later, he [Richard Lawrence, the
would-be assassin] boasted to friends that he had been in touch with powerful
people in Europe who had promised to protect him from punishment should he
be caught. [16]
It is worthy of note that neither Griffin nor Vennard had the courage of their
respective convictions to make the charge of who planned the attempt, who was
directly responsible for hiring the assassin, or any other verifiable data. It is amazing
what you can do with innuendo. As to answering Vennard’s charge that somehow
Jackson "knew well what for," it is most instructive that Vennard’s charge is again
wholly undocumented. As well is Griffin’s foolish assertion that Richard Lawrence’s
story was anything more than that of a card-carrying kook. Even more instructive is
the two relevant paragraphs on the subject of the sanity of Richard Lawrence, and the
possibility of a conspiracy. These come from the footnoted source near the end of the
paragraph cited above in Griffin’s text. Note Griffin’s apparent gullibility even when
the context clearly indicates that Richard Lawrence was a lone assassin:
The would-be assassin turned out to be one Richard Lawrence, an unemployed
house painter. He was quickly hurried off to "civil authorities" and
incarcerated. When the House sergeant-at-arms asked him why he attempted to
assassinate the President, Lawrence replied that Jackson had killed his father
three years ago. He also muttered something to the effect that he was the
legitimate heir to the British throne and that Old Hickory had impeded his
succession. Inasmuch as his father, an Englishman, had died a dozen years
before it seemed clear to the authorities that Lawrence was deranged. "There is
nothing but madness in all this," said John Tyler.
But some Democrats, including Jackson, believed that Lawrence was a political
assassin, commanded by Whigs. And they had some justification-or so they
thought. During a medical examination, when asked whom he preferred as
President, Lawrence answered: "Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun." "It
seems he has been a furious politician of the opposition party," wrote Francis
Scott Key, "& is represented by some as a very weak man, easily duped or
excited." Blair suspected an assassination plot and openly insisted that "a secret
conspiracy had prompted the perpetration of the horrible deed." These fears
intensified when Judge Cranch, the chief justice of the District, set bail at a
paltry $1500. "There is much excitement among our friends," Taney was told,
"on account of the smallness of the sum required." But as soon as it became
clear that Lawrence could not meet his bail the tension among democrats
quickly dissipated. Lawrence was subsequently brought to trial. On April 11,
1835, he was found not guilty because "he was under the influence of insanity"
when he attempted the assassination. He was immediately committed to an
asylum. [17]
As if all of this were not enough, Griffin once again falsely cites his source,
deliberately fabricates the story that Lawrence told "friends" of his connections in
Europe, then omits the part of the story that doesn’t fit the theory. Griffin cites The
Assassins, page 83, as the source for Richard Lawrence’s claim that he was in touch
with powerful people in Europe. The true origin is page 75, not page 83. Note as well
that the passage Griffin cites directly contradicts his own assertion that Lawrence
"boasted to friends" in Europe. Robert Donovan, author of The Assassins writes:
After the scuffle at the Capitol, in which no one was injured, Lawrence was
treated humanely. He cautioned the authorities that he not only had a political
party in the United States ready to espouse his cause but that he had been in
touch with the powers in Europe, which had promised to intervene if any
attempt was made to punish him.2 [18]
But the story doesn’t end there. Lawrence also makes many other claims that Griffin
omitted because they don’t paint the picture of a sane Richard Lawrence, all of which
are found in close proximity to Griffin’s citation. Donovan writes again:
Lawrence....interrupted the trial frequently with assertions such as that he was
sovereign and not subject to the jurisdiction of the court. "I desire to know," he
demanded, "if I, who claim the crown of the United States, likewise the crown
of Great Britain, and who am superior to this court, am to be treated thus?"
Once he told the jury, "It is for me, gentlemen, to pass judgment on you and not
you upon me." At another time he said, "Rome will protect me." [19]
William Guy Carr, author of the conspiracy tome, Pawns in the Game, cites the
following on page 52:
Andrew Jackson said: If Congress has a right under the Constitution to issue
paper money it was given to them to use by themselves, not to be delegated to
individuals or corporations." These outspoken comments warned the
International Bankers to expect serious opposition when their charter for the
Bank of the United States ran out in 1811. [20]
Carr’s statement is ridiculous considering that Jackson made the comment during his
presidency which started in 1828. Carr also makes another colorful statement
regarding the vote on the original charter bill in 1816:
In 1816 The United States Congress granted the renewal of the Charter for the
Bank of the United States as requested. There are many authorities who state
quite frankly that the Members of Congress were bribed, or threatened, into
voting for the legislation which put the American people back into financial
bondage. [21]
Dr. R.E. Search even makes the same claim. [22] That the charge is historically
indefensible is obvious. Father Charles E. Coughlin authored a book entitled, Money!:
Questions and Answers. The entire book is in question and answer form and covers
some of the history of money in America as well as the principles of banking.
Coughlin’s statements on the history of the second Bank of the United States are as
follows:
Did a second privately owned bank regain the right to coin and regulate the
value of money?
Yes. After the War of 1812, a charter was given to "The Second Bank of the
United States" in the year 1816, to carry on as did "The First Bank of the
United States." Through connivance against the Government, the Treasury
Notes, then circulating as money, were funded into bonds owned by the bank.
Against these bonds, this private bank issued private bank notes, thus enabling
the owners of "The Second Bank of the United States" to draw interest on its
money in circulation. [23]
No, actually. Neither the first Bank of the United States nor the second ever gained
the right to coin and regulate the value of money. That right was given exclusively to
Congress in the Constitution. The rest of the above historical account is easily
confusing even to the informed. Nonetheless, the Treasury Notes mentioned were not
used as the statement suggests. Margaret Myers mentions that only two percent of the
total outstanding Treasury Notes were still in circulation in 1817. Further, almost all
of the Treasury Notes of the time period in question (Treasury Note issues of 1812,
13, 14, 15, and the reissue of received notes in 1816) were used to pay taxes or for
subscriptions to seven percent bonds, which had nothing to do with the bank. [24] The
initial capital of the Bank consisted of specie (gold or silver coin) or the funded debt
of the United States. [25] The Bank was required at the beginning to raise a minimum
of seven million dollars in specie.
The Bank did issue notes against bonds actually owned by the Bank, but hardly
"connivance against the Government," these were part of the initial capital, as
expressly stated in the charter. The notes were issued against the capital of the Bank
and limited by the charter not to exceed the capital. These bonds were owned by the
Bank, but were not purchased or traded on the open market, since the Bank was
forbidden by its charter to deal in anything but the following:
bills of exchange, gold or silver bullion, goods pledged for money lent, or in
the sale of goods really and truly pledged for loans, or of the proceeds of its
lands. [26]
Father Coughlin writes again:
Were the owners of "The Second Bank of the United States" successful in
collecting all the Treasury Notes outstanding?
No. With some outstanding Treasury Notes, a citizen attempted to pay
legitimate bills. The Notes were refused by the creditors. Thus, in the famous
case of Veazie vs. Fenno (8 Wallace, 549, U.S. Supreme Court, 1824) the
United States Supreme Court pronounced it within the undisputed power of
Congress to provide a currency of the country consisting largely of Treasury
Notes. [27]
It is difficult to imagine how Father Coughlin could have reached such an obvious
misrepresentation of fact. The facts of the case are briefly as follows, according to
Veazie vs. Fenno:
Congress passed, July 13th, 1866, an act, the second clause of the 9th section of
which enacts: "That every national banking association, State bank, or State
banking association, shall pay a tax of ten per centum on the amount of notes of
any person, State bank, or State banking association, used for circulation and
paid out by them after the first day of August, 1866"….Under this act a tax of
ten percent. was assessed upon the Veazie Bank, for its bank notes issued for
circulation, after the day named in the act….The bank declined to pay the tax,
alleging it to be unconstitutional, and the collector of internal revenue, one
Fenno, was proceeding to….collect it. [28]
The case cited had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the second Bank of the
United States, collecting Treasury Notes, a citizen attempting to pay legitimate bills,
the refusal of the creditors to accept Treasury Notes, the year 1824, or providing a
currency of the country consisting largely of Treasury Notes. The entire citation, pure
and simple, is a deliberate, fabricated fraud.
As a laughable sidelight from the usual conspiracy fare, Dr. Search, author of Lincoln
Money Martyred, writes both of the following which need no refutation. Note as well
the simplistic and uneducated language, typical of many conspiracy theory writings
(text effects are exactly as appears in the original text):
And just to show you how well the first "Bank of the United States" functioned,
and how much money had been made with its special privileges, and how much
of the Nations supply of money they had been able to get hold of through
their special privilege interest racket, and hoard and hold out of circulation
and cause a panic with, they were able to and did, charter the second "Bank of
the United States" for, not ten million dollars, but for THIRTY FIVE
MILLION DOLLARS!! [29]
The president of the "Bank of the United States," Nicholas Biddle, had gone to
President Jackson in 1832 to try to get a law passed giving them permission for
his bank to establish branches in principal cities of the Nation; explaining to the
President that if they could get these branches established, they could soon get
enough prestige to be able to control the policies of the whole country. [30]
Bill Still, author of, On the Horns of the Beast: The Federal Reserve and the New
World Order, writes on page 46:
The Bank’s 20-year charter didn’t come up for renewal until 1836, so Jackson
had to content himself with routing out the minions of the Bank from
government. He and his closest advisor, Secretary of State Martin Van Buren,
fired 2,000 of the government’s 11,000 employees and introduced the "spoils
system," rewarding his supporters with government jobs.[31]
Still’s history is sorely lacking here. First, the Bank of the United States was a
privately owned corporation, being completely out of reach of the President of the
United States. For Still to not know this is beyond reason. It is obvious that Still is
deliberately making up his facts as he goes along. Second, The spoils system was not
introduced by Jackson, it was introduced during the early years of our country, and
used particularly during the Jefferson administration. The Concise Columbia
Encyclopedia writes:
spoils system, in U.S. history, the practice of giving appointive offices to loyal
members of the party in power. Used by the earliest presidents, particularly
Thomas Jefferson, the spoils system became extensive during the
administration of Andrew Jackson. The corruption and inefficiency bred by the
system reached staggering proportions under U.S. Grant; reaction led to the
creation of the civil service Commission in 1871. The spoils system has,
however, continued for some federal and many state offices.[32]
Still continues the next paragraph:
The Bank’s supporters counterattacked by wrongly accusing Jackson of having
an affair with the most beautiful woman in Washington, Peggy Eaton, the wife
of his Secretary of War, John Eaton. [33]
Again, Still’s ignorance is breathtaking. The alleged affair, never proven by the way,
was with John Eaton prior to their marriage; it is nowhere stated that the affair was
with President Jackson.
Dr. Martin Luther King said it best:
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity. [34]
Footnotes
1
2
For an extensive study of the charges against the Bank, see Catterall, p. 243-284
An interesting footnote to this is that James Wardner, author of, The Planned
Destruction of America, made the same mistake Griffin did in citing p. 183 of
Donovan’s text. No doubt Wardner never checked his own citation for accuracy
either. It appears that both are equally sloppy since both books are copyright 1994,
making it difficult to make a case that one copied the other, statistical ramifications
not withstanding. Yet a third conspiracy writer, Bill Still, author of, On the Horns of
the Beast: The Federal Reserve and the New World Order, continues the stupidity by
citing the same page number as Griffin and Wardner. Still most certainly copied
Griffin’s error, hock the house, despite the fact that he cited Donovan’s text directly.
1) Neither Wardner’s text nor Donovan’s text is cited in Still’s bibliography, 2) Still
draws heavily on Griffin, so much so that large portions of historical content are
mostly paraphrases of Griffin’s text; phraseology is obviously similar and citations are
identical. The author has in his possession a signed first edition copy of Donovan’s
text, copyrighted 1955. Please see the update to this footnote.
References
1) G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island (Appleton: American Opinion
Publishing,
Inc., 1995) 348
2) Ralph C.H. Catterall, The Second Bank of the United States (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1903) 299
3) Griffin, p. 351
4) Griffin, p. 351
5) Catterall, p. 252-253
6) Catterall, p. 255
7) Thomas D. Schauf, The Federal Reserve. This booklet circulates on the far right.
8) J.R. Church, Guardians of the Grail...and the men who plan to rule the
world! (Oklahoma City: Prophecy Publications, 1989) 179
9) William T. Still, New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret
Societies (Lafayette: Hunting House Publishers, 1990) 148
10) John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975) 82. See also Margaret G. Myers, A Financial
History of the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970) 98
11) Wickliffe B. Vennard, The Federal Reserve Hoax: The Age of
Deception (Palmdale, CA: Omni Publications, no date given) 64
12) Vennard, p. 64
13) Wickliffe B. Vennard, Chronological History of United States Money. This 8page pamphlet is available through Omni Publications, P.O. Box 900566, Palmdale,
CA 93590
14) Wickliffe B. Vennard, Chronological History of Money Since Babylon, p. 11. This
60-page booklet is available through Omni Publications, P.O. Box 900566, Palmdale,
CA 93590
15) R.V. Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson (New York: Penguin Books, 1988) 266267
16) Griffin, p. 357
17) R. V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 18331845 (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1984) Volume III, p. 229
18) Robert J. Donovan, The Assassins (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
1955) 74-75
19) Donovan, p. 78
20) William Guy Carr, Pawns in the Game (Boring, OR: CPA Book Publishers, 1958)
52
21) Carr, p. 53
22) Dr. R.E. Search, Lincoln Money Martyred (Palmdale, CA: Omni Publications,
1989) 41
23) Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, Money! Questions and Answers (no publication data
given) 98 This book is available through Omni Publications, P.O. Box 900566,
Palmdale, CA 93590
24) Myers, p. 77
25) John Jay Knox, A History of Banking in the United States (New York: Bradford
Rhodes & Company, 1903) 55
26) Knox, p. 56.
27) Coughlin, p. 98
28) 8 Wallace, 534-535, U.S. Supreme Court, 1869
29) Search, p. 41-42
30) Search, p. 43
31) Bill Still, On the Horns of the Beast: The Federal Reserve and the New World
Order (Winchester, VA: Reinhardt & Still Publishers, 1996) 46
32) The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, Copyright © 1995 by Columbia University
Press
33) Still, On the Horns of the Beast, p. 46-47
34) The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia
University Press.
Additional Sources
W. H. Brown, The Story of a Bank (Boston: Richard G. Badger; The Gorham Press,
1912)
J.M. McFaul, The Politics of Jacksonian Finance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1972)
B. Hammond, Banks and Politics in America: From the Revolution to the Civil
War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957)
R.W. Hidy, The House of Baring in American Trade and Finance: English Merchant
Bankers at Work 1763-1861 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949)
M. St. Clair Clarke and D.A. Hall, Legislative and Documentary History of the Bank
of the United States (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1832; reprinted August M. Kelley,
Publishers, 1967)
W. Greider, Secrets of the Temple (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987)
H. J. Viola, Andrew Jackson (New York: Chelsea House publishers, 1986)
Q. Pollack, Peggy Eaton: Democracy’s Mistress (New Rochelle, New York: The
Knickerbocker Press, 1931)
W. B. Smith, Economic Aspects of the Second Bank of the United States (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1953)