Bank War – American History to 1877

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Andrew Jackson was initially appeared to be the answer to the Souths prayers, as he was a pro-slavery, pro-Indian removal, pro-power to the people candidate from a farm in Tennessee. However, while President he began enacting policy that demonstrated a powerful executive branch, shown by his effort to establish and maintain a national bank. These actions caused many Southerners to jump off of the Jackson bandwagon, and the formation of the Southern Whig party began to take root in the South.

Jackson ran on a platform that he would be a man of the people, and as stated in Taylor, Jacksons fundamental question was, “Shall the government or the people rule?”(Wilentz, 160). This enabled most of the south to rally behind him, as they believed he was truly a man of the people. His actions in the white house however upset many of his previous supporters,believing he was becoming too powerful as an executive leader. This is described in my classmates post “Jackson:Bankers,Abolitionists, and Unions”, when they speak of previous JAckson supporters seeing the Bank War as a lust for power. Wilentz explains in Chapter 14 how many previous Jacksonian Democrats were attracted to Southern Whiggery, described by Wilentz as “a party of commercial development, friendly to the expansion of commercial banking facilities, partial to internal improvements, and pro-tariff”(Wilentz, 224). This sparked interest from the large planter classes, slaveholders, professional classes, rural Appalachian workers. These classes wanted the power to be possessed more by the larger business and plantation owners, more so than the Executive Government.

While this rift sparked separation over ideals in relation to power, both the Jacksonian Democrats and the SOuthern Whigs were proslavery, and worked to keep the non-slaveholders on board with slavery, in an effort to put a rest to abolitionist movements. It is interesting how Wilentz speaks about the rival parties fighting for southern support when he says, ” turning election contests into endless debates over which party was more loyal to the south”(Wilentz, 225).

Wilentz does a very good job of describing the reasoning behind the loss of majority Democratic support in the south. I liked how he spoke of the issues roots, and the feeling that JAckson had become too power hungry. I do wish that Wilentz would have spoken more about the leaders in the Whig party. While he does reference Calhoun as being a leader in Jackson opposition, he does point out how that he never did join the Whig Party. The only other leader Discussed in Davy Crockett, who switched allegiance from the Democrats to the Whigs. I have a feeling that Wilentz is a big fan of Davy Crockett, as he uses him as a segue into his description of the Battle for Texas, and speaks of him quite favorably as a political figure and frontiersmen.

This Chapter gave very good insight on how the South became a divided political region.

Wilentz goes through the second half of Jackson’s presidency in chapter 13, taking the reader through first the drama of the Bank War, then through the growing abolitionist movement, and then through the Union movement taking place in urban centers, such as New York and Boston. Even before coming to the last section of Wilentz’s chapter, I found a peculiar amount of contradictions in Jackson’s stances, as well as how various groups alligned themselves politically.

Jackson first closes down the BUS by redistributing the dungs from the national bank to loyal state banks. Wilentz explains that Jackson’s motives were that the national bank was tied with northern industries, and did not support or fund frontier expansions. This fits with Jackson’s earlier moves, as Grey mentions in his post, around Georgia’s state power to deal with the Cherokees as they saw fit.

However, it is interesting that many people who backed Jackson initially saw this Bank War as Jackson’s lust for power. While he may have said that he did not want a powerful federal government, he also was able — as only one man — to bypass Congress in issues related to the Bank. Additionally, Jackson redistributed the funds to only a few states — showing a sort of favoritism in politics that he seemed vehemently against. This is an interesting contradiction.

Another contradiction I found was Wilentz’s reason for why Jackson did not become involved in some of the abolitionist issues that arose over censoring mail and abolitionist literature distribution. Some Southern states wanted to prohibit this literature from circulating. While Congress said this was unconstitutional, there was no enforcement in the states themselves. This was an issue of state rights over federal rights, so one might assume that Jackson might blindly favor state rights, allowing for the censorship of abolitionist literature. However, he was against this. Wilentz reasons that “though Jackson disapproved, he did not want to stir up more trouble” by calling states out in the unenforced laws. Wilentz seems to be, once again, painting a favorable picture of Jackson. Jackson had no problem stirring up trouble by redirecting funds from the National Bank, and speaking his mind on other issues, even when it directly threw him up against Congress. I don’t think it is fair for Wilentz to therefore reason this.

I see many similarities between the abolitionist movement and unionists that Wilentz does not interestingly spell out more clearly. This era seemed marked by many “for the people” movements, both for the workers (unions) and for slave laborers. While Wilentz discusses “a new humane model of equality, [and] freedom” in terms of abolitionist movements through the religious lens, I think this can be an interesting parallel to the unionizing and Workies in the Northeast.

Tag: Bank War

A Region Divided by Party

Jackson: Bankers, Abolitionists, and Unions