Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/214

 In the campaign of 1824 only the faintest suspicions of political influence exerted by it had found expression. When, however, in any arena a power is present which might be of decisive importance as an ally of one party or the other, it is inevitable that its alliance will be contended for by them. Its efforts to remain neutral will be vain, and will expose it to greater danger from both than an alliance with either. Either party which thinks that it has lost the chance of winning the alliance will turn against the intervening power with fierce animosity, and will try to destroy it or drive it from the arena. This is what happened in the case of the United States Bank. As an ally it might be of the utmost value to either political party; as the ally of an opponent it was dreaded and detested by either. The federalists had opposed the charter because the Bank was to be organized under democratic auspices. By the natural tendency of things, however, it had gravitated into the hands of the capitalist class. It was enough, therefore, for the democrats to know: It is not on our side.—Hence we find that the charges against it are prognostications. It is said that it is a dangerous power, that it may win control, decide elections, defeat the will of the people, etc., all of which means that it may defeat us. The conflict was therefore irrepressible, and the Bank war may be held to demonstrate that a national bank in this country is impossible, because it would be sure to become an object of conflict between political parties. During the fifteen years of political strife over banks, banking, and currency, which began in 1829, angry recriminations were often exchanged as to who dragged these subjects into politics. Priority depended on the question whether Jackson found the United States Bank, as he said, active in politics at his accession or not. The answer of history must be that he did not; that he and his followers provoked the conflict, and were responsible for it.

There was no new element in the Bank war of Jackson's time. It was only a revival of antagonisms which we have seen in play around the Bank of North America and the first Bank of the United States.

If Jackson intended to open a war on the Bank, it is strange that he should have chosen a Pennsylvanian, Samuel Ingham, as Secretary of the Treasury. It fell to the lot of that gentleman to open the war on the institution, of which all Pennsylvanians were especially proud. After the report of the Investigating Committee on the Bank of the United States, in 1832, he published an apology for his own action in the matters which are about to be narrated, in which he said that, soon after he entered on the duties of his office, he heard the President make frequent declarations in conversation which showed that "he had imbibed strong prejudices against the United States Bank and was distinctly opposed to the existence of that institution," and that he (Ingham) was "appealed to as the head of the department charged with official intercourse between the government and the Bank for protection against what was termed the political abuses of that establishment. It was often stated to me that the branches in Louisiana and Kentucky had greatly abused their power for political purposes, not only in