bank war – U.S. to 1877

November 11, 2013

Jacksonian Democrats and Whig-Calhounites Play the Blame Game

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Chris Masone
His 141 Blog

In chapters 14-16 of The Rise of American Democracy, Wilentz discusses the fight between the Whig-Calhounites and Jacksonian Democrats during the end of Jackson’s second term and into Martin Van Buren’s presidency. In his blog post, Will summarized this period well. Will said, “The Democrats efforts to attract nationwide appeal led to catastrophic contradictions, and the Whig’s hatred for Jackson provided only an ephemeral glue to hold together members with sharply different ideologies.” However, I believe Wilentz puts too much blame on the Whig Party and intentionally avoids criticizing Jacksonian Democrats.

While Jackson and his admirers fought “for the common man” against a corrupt closed-door aristocratic system running America, John C. Calhoun and the Whig party insisted Jackson had developed “a new class of selfish elected and appointed officials.” These politicians, the Whigs said, were the “true oppressors of the people.” (Wilentz 255) It feels as though Wilentz portrays the Whig party as the villain in this political mess, especially when discussing Martin Van Buren’s presidency and I don’t know if Wilentz is warranted in doing so.

Wilentz describes a sense of inherited guilt with Martin Van Buren. He leads us to believe that “Van Ruin’s” presidency was overshadowed by the problems inherent with the divide in Jacksonian Democracy in the southern stronghold. Rather than attributing guilt to Andrew Jackson or Martin Van Buren, Wilentz describes the panic of 1837 as an inevitable “long-feared financial crash” as a result of the “Whig-Calhounites’ Deposit Act” which stripped banks reserves. (239) This idea of inherited guilt attempts to relieve Van Buren of blame, even though the panic of 1837 happened directly under Van Buren’s leadership.

While there is merit in Wilentz’s argument that the financial meltdown of 1837 could have been directly caused by the Whig-Calhounites, I think the second collapse in October of 1839 can be attributed to Van Buren. Wilentz makes the point that the collapse helped Van Buren in the short term as it “reminded the public of his link with the hero of the Bank War, Andrew Jackson.” (243) Even with the country belly-up in a second bank collapse, Wilentz describes the effect as bolstering the “Jacksonians’ contentions” regarding a nationalized bank. Even though the country was suffering financially due to political fighting in Washington, Wilentz does not blame this on Van Buren. Rather, he attributes Van Buren’s eventual political fall to a split in southern politics instead of any fault in leadership.

However, as Will pointed out, the Jacksonian Democrats’ attempt to appease everyone actually hurt their overall position. Blame for this period of corrupt policies and confusion, illustrated by the financial crisis’ of 1837 and 1839, should be shared equally between the Whig-Calhounites and the Jacksonian Democrats rather than, as I think Wilentz portrays, the blame resting solely on the shoulders of the Whig Party.

November 6, 2013

Getting rid of problems for the people

The reading for tomorrows class was interesting view of how Jackson destroyed the National Bank and Abolitionism. I personally thought it was crazy how Jackson appointed his secretary of the Treasury and quickly dismissed him from the position because he was unwilling to “remove the deposits without the assent of Congress” (208). I also think its an interesting point that the book brings up the “eighty thousand dollars” the bank spent against Jackson in the 1832 election (208). After reading this, I instantly wondered if that was the main reason Jackson had a problem with the Bank and wanted it removed at all. It was in fact in his favor to not be around because it was money that couldn’t be used to oppose him. I also thought it was interesting how Biddle tried to keep the fight going for supporters of the bank, and Jackson used the people to shift the blame to him. This gained support for Jackson as he made the businessmen think that the bank was their problem and Jackson was all in support of the people, and it made those who supported the bank look as if they don’t care about the people and they sacrificed the businesses that went under to keep their bank.

Another piece of the reading I found interesting was how it spoke on abolitionists. I feel like my classmates made a lot of good points when talking about abolitionists, but one that I felt was really well stated was how they talked about the divide in the movement itself and how that weakened the movement as a whole (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/abolition-the-bank-and-jackson/). I also thought it was crazy how the movement spread across the country. Of course it was not well liked in a lot of places because it took money out of the people’s pockets, but it still started more groups and gained people’s support on the fact that enslavement of other humans was wrong. I feel like this section leading into labor unions and strikes was perfect because in my mind the abolitionists were basically a large labor union that had an effect in more places across the country.

November 6, 2013

A Tale of Three Topics

Chapter 13 in Sean Wilentz’s The Rise of American Democracy was significantly different from the other chapters so far. Whereas Wilentz usually devotes each chapter to one particular topic, Chapter 13 describes three independent events: The Bank War, abolitionism and the rise of labor unions. This division of different topics in American history leads to an awkward read where some topics are discussed in more sufficient depth than others.

I strongly agree with MASPEED’s criticisms of Wilentz’s treatment of The Bank War. I too found the writing extremely boring, and when the text did manage to hold my interest, I found Wilentz’s writing confusing for those who were not already familiar with the issue. I did find it the disagreement on Andrew Jackson’s removal of federal deposits from the bank between the House (backed his actions) and the Senate (disagreed) interesting. This conflict seems to echo the constant disagreements found in the US political system today that significantly limits the actions the government can take.

Out of the three sections, Wilentz seemed to focus most of his attention to the topic of abolition. Like JANEWTON, I was astonished by the “violent hostility in the northern states” (Wilentz 211) towards the prospect of removing slaves and the anti-abolitionist mobs led “not by lower-class rowdies but local notables” (Wilentz 214), who “abhorred the abolitionists’ challenge to their own social authority” (Wilentz 214). For a society that no longer relied on slaves to maintain their economy, I expected the North’s resistance to the preservation of slavery to be minimal. After the reading, I believe most anti-abolitionists were opposed to change primarily because they did not want the federal government infringing on their strong political power.

On a similar topic, in chapter 13 of David Davis’ Inhuman Bondage, I was interested by Davis’ discussion of the extent of the distribution of abolitionist literature (which reached 3 million pieces by 1840), which “far exceeded anything done in the British campaign” (Davis 260). These sentiments are echoed in The Rise of American Democracy when Wilentz discusses the publication of Thoughts on African Colonization, Declaration of Principles and Liberator as texts to help fuel the abolitionist movement. Across sources, literature is mentioned as a primary factor in spreading abolitionist ideals and gaining support in the same way it has influenced countless other revolutions.

Wilentz’s final section concerns the creation of labor unions. While I found that he discussed this topic more adequately than The Bank Wars, it was still not on par with his description of abolitionism. I was interested by his discussion of union-based political communities who published their own newspapers, organized their own elections and perform public demonstrations. Wilentz’s description made me consider unions as their own independent political and social communities that were not part of a particular infrastructure, but ones that set their own rules for their own personal interests and gains.