From Venetian goldsmiths issuing paper receipts, to America's first and second central banks - the Bank of North America in 1781, and the First Bank of the United States in 1791 - we arrive at the year 1836.
Chapter Two, on the beginnings of central banking, ended with: "The Second Bank (of the United States, chartered in 1817) was bitterly opposed by President Andrew Jackson, who made the existence of the Bank, and its power over the people, a central issue in his campaign... Jackson won, and in 1836 the Second Bank of the United States' charter expired, along with another central banking experiment."
So, why did Andrew Jackson, after a successful first term as President of the United States, bet a second term on breaking up the huge, monumentally successful bank?
Why, indeed.
John Meacham's biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion, lays bare the General's very Jeffersonian fear of the power and influence of banking interests.
Jackson exercised his veto power when a bill for the Bank's recharter passed the Senate and (narrowly) the House, after a former recharter opponent, Samuel Pierce Carson, "had obtained a loan of $20,000 from the Bank, and had changed his opinion."
Jackson eventually overcame the Bank's arsenal of loans and favors by appealing directly to the voters.
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