Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/364

352 very first message to Congress, in December, 1829, President Jackson said that, although the charter of the Bank of the United States would not expire until 1836, it was time to take up that subject for grave consideration; that “both the constitutionality and the expediency of the law creating the bank were well questioned by a large number of our fellow-citizens; and that it must be admitted by all to have failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency.” Then he submitted to the wisdom of the legislature whether a “national bank, founded upon the credit of the government and its revenue, might not be devised.” What did all this mean? People asked themselves whether the President knew something about the condition of the bank that the public did not know, and the bank shares suffered at once a serious decline at the Exchange.

The true reasons for this hostile demonstration became known afterwards. Benton's assertion to the contrary notwithstanding, Jackson had no intention to overthrow the United States Bank when he came to Washington. His Secretary of the Treasury, Ingham, complimented the bank on the valuable services it rendered, several months after the beginning of the administration. The origin of the trouble was characteristic. Complaint came from New Hampshire, through Levi Woodbury, a Senator from that state and a zealous Jackson Democrat, and through Isaac Hill, a member of the “Kitchen Cabinet,” that Jeremiah Mason, a Fed-